Lobbying firms took in a record $5 billion in 2025

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By Emma Sullivan and Hien An Ngo

Lobbying activity surpassed $5 billion for the first time in 2025, as corporations, interest groups and other organizations increased their spending 14 percent during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Spending reached $5.08 billion for the year, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of federal lobbying reports, up 11 percent from 2024 after accounting for inflation. Both the adjusted and non-adjusted increases represent the largest jumps since quarterly disclosures began in 2008.

The record total came even as some of Washington’s biggest spenders, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors, cut back from their 2024 lobbying expenditures, with new groups making up the difference. In 2025, 15,768 organizations reported lobbying activity, up from 14,061 the previous year, an increase of nearly 12 percent.

Over the same period, the size of the lobbying workforce grew more modestly, with the number of registered lobbyists rising by about 5 percent.

Biggest spenders

Familiar names continued to dominate lobbying spending in 2025, even as some of them reduced their outlays. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce overtook the National Association of Realtors as the single largest lobbying spender in 2025, reporting $72.1 million in lobbying expenditures. The organizations held on to the top spots in the rankings despite spending less than they did in 2024. The Chamber’s lobbying fell about 6 percent, from $76.4 million in 2024, while NAR’s spending dropped 37 percent, from $86.4 million to $54.4 million.

Health care organizations continued to rank among the largest lobbying spenders in 2025, accounting for four of the top 10 organizations by spending. Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America increased its spending to $38.2 million, up about 20 percent from the year before, while the American Hospital Association reported $32 million, a modest increase from 2024.

Among the top spenders, the Business Roundtable (a trade association representing chief executives of major U.S. corporations that regularly lobbies on tax and economic policy) reported the largest year-over-year increase by spending $33.5 million in 2025, more than 40 percent higher than the previous year.

Several companies posted large year-over-year increases in 2025. Tencent Holdings more than tripled its spending during a period of heightened federal scrutiny of Chinese technology firms and data security. Kaiser Permanente also more than doubled its lobbying outlays amid major federal debates over Medicaid and health care reimbursement policy, restoring its spending to levels similar to 2021-2023. The American Clean Power Association increased its lobbying spending by roughly 150 percent as lawmakers and regulators worked through implementation of clean-energy tax credits and permitting rules.

Top lobbying firms

The lobbying firms with the closest ties to the Trump administration raked in the most money in 2025. Ballard Partners shattered records, having brought in a staggering – and record – $88.1 million in 2025. Next came Brownstein, Hyatt Farber Schreck and BGR Group, the only other firms to reach $70 million in lobbying revenue.

Ballard Partners

Ballard Partners dethroned Brownstein, Hyatt, which had ranked first in revenue for the prior four years. The firm, which only entered the lobbying arena in 2017, saw its revenue skyrocket over the past year thanks to its White House connections.

• Ballard Partners was founded by Brian Ballard, who served as chairman of the Trump Victory PAC in 2016 and 2017. His firm raked in 3.5 times as much revenue than it had in 2024.
• A number of former Ballard Partners lobbyists now hold senior positions in the administration, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
• The firm lost nearly a dozen clients less than a year into President Joe Biden’s term, but gained over 100 clients since Trump’s return.
• Its 2025 clients included Palantir, TikTok, UnitedHealth Group and Chevron.

Checkmate Government Relations

Ballard Partners was not the only firm leveraging close links to the president or his administration to achieve outsized growth in 2025. Other firms, often small and relatively new, have catapulted to the list of top earners.

For instance, Checkmate Government Relations, which reported just $70,000 when filing its first quarterly report at the end of 2024, finished its first full year with $22.2 million in revenue.

• Checkmate is led by Ches McDowell, a hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. McDowell also enlisted the son of one of Trump’s top 2024 campaign advisors, Chris LaCivita Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nephew, Jackson Hines.
• The firm’s clients include the Sports Betting Alliance, Binance, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
• Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, hired Checkmate in September to lobby the White House on issues including cryptocurrency and “executive relief,” according to a disclosure report. Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in 2023, had been seeking clemency since the beginning of the year. The cryptocurrency company paid Checkmate $450,000 for a month of work lobbying the White House. Zhao was pardoned by Trump at the end of October, a month after Binance hired Checkmate.

BGR Group

BGR Group raked in $71.5 million in 2025, a 59 percent increase from the previous year.

• The firm employs former Trump campaign adviser David Urban as its managing director. It also previously employed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as recently as 2023.
• BGR’s list of clients included Verizon Communications, the Government of India and Columbia University in 2025.
• In an investigation by Global Witness, BGR Group was found to have signed several contracts with foreign governments impacted by Trump’s cuts to USAID. The investigation found that countries affected by humanitarian and military aid cuts were forced to barter their mineral and other natural resources.

Top sectors

Lobbying spending increased across every sector in 2025. Consistent lobbying giants (the health sector, finance, insurance and real estate sector, and communications and electronics sector) spent the most lobbying the federal government.

• The health care sector invested a record $868 million in lobbying as it navigated uncertainty around federal policy, including cuts to Medicaid from the tax and spending package Trump signed in July. The sector includes pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and nursing homes, health services and health professionals.
• The finance, insurance and real estate sector poured $711 million into lobbying. The sector’s increase in spending was partially driven by the securities and investment industry, which spent $195 million in 2025, up 26 percent from the previous year.

The lawyers and lobbyists, defense and agribusiness sectors saw the most year-over-year growth.

• Lawyers and lobbyists increased their spending by 35 percent, totaling $23 million in 2025. The lobbying industry alone increased payments to other lobbying firms by 82 percent, jumping from $1.8 million in 2024 to $3.4 million in 2025.
• The defense sector allocated $191 million to lobbying in 2025. Lockheed Martin, an aerospace and defense company, led the sector by spending $15.7 million, 24 percent more than it did in 2024.

Top issues and bills

Federal budget and appropriations remained the most heavily lobbied issue area in 2025, followed by health, defense and tax issues. A total of 5,189 organizations reported lobbying on budget and appropriations, compared with 2,610 on health issues, 2,477 on defense and 2,415 on tax issues.

Much of that activity centered on a small number of major bills. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), was the most-lobbied measure of 2025, with 2,354 organizations reporting activity on the bill — more than three times as many as the next most-lobbied bill, according to OpenSecrets data.

The bill, which was signed into law on July 4, extended and expanded major business tax breaks and included provisions that cut or restructured spending on programs such as Medicaid, SNAP and student loans, drawing heavy lobbying from health care, manufacturing and other sectors. Blue Cross Blue Shield cited the bill more often than any other organization in its lobbying disclosure filings, with 64 mentions, followed by the American Hospital Association (48) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (25).

The bill also drew frequent lobbying from conglomerates and financial firms, manufacturers and energy companies, telecommunications providers, logistics companies and tobacco firms, including Berkshire Hathaway, General Motors, Comcast, FedEx and Altria Group.

After OBBBA, the most-lobbied measures included appropriations bills and continuing resolutions, particularly legislation covering defense spending.

Trade-related issues recorded the largest increase in lobbying clients from 2024 to 2025, with 519 additional organizations reporting activity, as the Trump administration moved to press a more aggressive trade agenda. Much of that increase came from tariff-related lobbying, which rose from 120 organizations in 2024 to 382 in 2025 as companies responded to renewed tariff threats and stepped-up trade enforcement.

This story was originally published by OpenSecrets

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2026/01/lobbying-firms-took-in-a-record-5-billion-in-2025

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