Does the House or the Senate Trade More Stocks?

In total and per member

The House has more than four times as many seats as the Senate, so a raw total says little by itself. The table sets the two chambers side by side over the same period, reports filed from January 1, 2026 through October 29, 2026, and counts the activity three ways: in total, for each member who disclosed at least one transaction, and for each seat in the chamber. Everyone on a House or Senate report is counted, including trades made in a spouse’s or dependent child’s account. The count of trading members for each year since 2023 is in how many members of Congress trade stocks.

The averages are pulled up by a few very active filers. The largest in the House is Rohit Khanna (D-CA), with 2,115 of the chamber’s 5,276 transactions (40%). The largest in the Senate is Alan Armstrong (R-OK), with 708 of 2,194 (32%). The median is the steadier figure: half of the House members who traded reported 8 transactions or fewer, and half of the senators reported 9 or fewer. For the full ranking across both chambers, see the most active stock traders in Congress, and for the dollar ranges, how big Congress’s stock trades are.

How long each chamber takes to report

The STOCK Act gives members of both chambers the same deadline: a transaction has to be reported within 45 days. In reports filed from January 1, 2026 through October 29, 2026, the median transaction was reported 25 days after the trade in the House and 37 days after it in the Senate. 245 of 5,265 House transactions (4.7%) and 959 of 2,193 Senate transactions (43.7%) were reported more than 45 days after the trade date.

Those shares depend heavily on a few reports. Without each chamber’s largest filer, 7.7% of House transactions and 17.4% of Senate transactions came more than 45 days after the trade. A count of days is a description of the record and does not say why a report arrived when it did. The member-by-member record is in who files late, and the split by party in which party files late.

What the purchases did next

Each disclosed stock purchase in these reports is measured from the first close on or after the trade date to the first close 90 days later, next to the S&P 500 (SPY) over the identical window. The House’s 1,674 priced purchases finished 0.62 points behind the index on average, and the Senate’s 561 finished 0.83 points ahead of it. The Senate figure rests on few people: 14 senators have a priced purchase in the period and 8 have five or more, against 43 and 28 House members.

Counting each member once, 11 of the 28 House members with five or more priced purchases averaged a better 90-day result than the S&P 500, and 6 of the 8 senators did. The median House member in that group finished 1.09 points behind the index and the median senator 0.57 points ahead of it. With so few senators in the count, one or two reports can move the Senate line, so it is better read as a description of those senators than of the chamber. The longer record for Congress as a whole is in does Congress beat the stock market, and the split by party in do Democrats or Republicans trade stocks better.

What this does and does not show

The House files more transactions because it has more members. Measured for each member who traded, the Senate is the more active chamber in this period, and in both chambers most of the activity comes from a small group: 9 House members and 6 senators reported 100 or more transactions each, while the typical trading member reported 8 in the House and 9 in the Senate. A transaction count describes how often a report lists a trade. It says nothing about how much money was involved, why a trade was made, or who in the household made it, and it is not evidence of wrongdoing by any member.

Methodology and honest caveats

The period is reports filed from January 1, 2026 through October 29, 2026. Coldpine’s House record goes back to January 2023, but its Senate record begins with reports filed in January 2026, so the comparison is limited to the months both chambers are covered. A transaction is counted in the period by the date its report was filed, whenever the trade itself took place. Members are counted per person, and a member who appears under two spellings is counted once. Seat shares use 435 voting House seats and 100 Senate seats; a seat that changed hands during the period can add a second filer. Days to report is the report date minus the trade date, for transactions with both dates and a gap of 0 to 1,000 days. The 90-day figures cover purchases with a ticker we have price history for and a full 90 days elapsed as of the latest price bar (October 30, 2026), which reaches purchases made through July 30, 2026. Sales are left out of that measure, every purchase counts once whatever its size, and none of it is a portfolio return. How we parse filings and price trades is set out in our methodology. Figures are computed live and update as new filings and prices arrive, so they may differ from the ones quoted the day this was published.