What is a corporate PAC, and how much can it give?

Information as of 16 October 2026. Everything below comes from the Federal Election Commission's guidance for separate segregated funds and its contribution limits page, linked below. If anything here is wrong, tell us at contact@oqro.io and we will correct it.

Why does a corporation need a PAC?

The Federal Election Campaign Act bars corporations and labor organizations from making contributions or expenditures in connection with federal elections from their treasury funds. The FEC's page on registering a PAC explains the alternative: a corporation may establish a separate segregated fund, an SSF, which is a political committee connected to the corporation. The corporation is the fund's connected organization and its name appears in the PAC's name. The fund registers with the FEC on Form 1 within 10 days of its establishment, names a treasurer, and from then on files the same periodic reports as any other political committee.

Who may give to a corporate PAC?

The FEC's guide to taking receipts as an SSF describes the restricted class the fund may solicit at any time: the corporation's executive and administrative personnel, its stockholders, and the families of both. Executive and administrative personnel are employees paid on a salary rather than hourly basis who have policymaking, managerial, professional or supervisory responsibilities. Other employees may be solicited only twice a year, by mail to their homes, through a method that keeps the corporation from knowing who gave and who did not. Contributions have to be voluntary: the guide says a solicitation must tell the person of the political purpose of the fund and of the right to refuse without reprisal, and may not use coercion such as job discrimination or financial reprisals. Payroll deduction is allowed for the restricted class when the person has authorised it.

The corporation may use its treasury funds to pay the costs of establishing, administering and soliciting contributions to the fund. Those payments are not contributions and are not reported as receipts of the PAC, which is why a PAC's receipts are a measure of what its donors gave, not of what the company spent.

How much can it give?

The FEC's contribution limits page sets out the figures. An individual may give an SSF up to 5,000 dollars per calendar year. A PAC that has qualified as a multicandidate committee, by being registered for at least six months, receiving contributions from more than 50 persons and contributing to at least five federal candidates, may give a candidate's committee up to 5,000 dollars per election, a national party committee up to 15,000 dollars a year, and another PAC up to 5,000 dollars a year. A primary and a general election are separate elections, so a PAC may give a candidate 5,000 dollars for each. A PAC that has not yet qualified as multicandidate is held to the individual limits instead.

What do the FEC records show?

A PAC files periodic reports with the FEC listing its receipts, its disbursements, its cash on hand and each contribution it made to a candidate, with the candidate's name and the date. The FEC's site aggregates these per two-year cycle. The corporate PACs page on OQRO ranks the PACs connected to listed companies by their contributions to federal candidates in the latest cycle, with receipts and cash on hand, and links to the PAC's FEC page where the recipients are listed. A company page shows its own PAC, and a member of Congress's trade on the politician trades pages can carry the PAC's existence as context. Lobbying spending is a different record, filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act and described in our article on LD-1, LD-2 and LD-203 reports.

What this does not tell you

A corporate PAC's contributions are its donors' money, pooled and directed by the PAC's board, not the corporation's funds. The figures do not include contributions by executives in their own names, nor spending by trade associations or super PACs, which may accept unlimited corporate money for independent expenditures but may not give to candidates. A PAC contribution to a candidate is a public fact about the PAC; OQRO does not hold which candidates received it and does not connect it to any vote or trade. OQRO shows the record as published; it does not interpret it, and nothing here is investment advice.