The State Department has issued a formal dress code for the first time in the agency’s history, requiring diplomats and staff to appear in business formal attire during official engagements with foreign counterparts.
The changes were added in recent days to the Foreign Affairs Manual, the department’s central policy repository. The new guidance applies to both civil service and foreign service employees across the entire department.
“Representing the United States of America is an honor, and this new policy ensures our diplomats project credibility, respect, and the dignity of the nation we serve,” Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson told Fox News.
The manual now specifies: “For staff participating in meetings or other official engagements with foreign interlocutors, dress is Business Formal and personal appearance is polished and professional unless otherwise specified.”
A State Department official, speaking on background, said the move was driven in part by concerns that some diplomats had been showing up to official settings dressed “pretty informally” in recent years. “This should have happened a long time ago,” the official said.
The dress code is part of a broader overhaul at Foggy Bottom under the Trump administration. Earlier in 2026, the department scrapped diversity, equity and inclusion benchmarks from Foreign Service officer evaluations, replacing them with a new standard called “fidelity,” which emphasizes adherence to U.S. government policy and chain-of-command authority.
Under the fidelity precept, mid- and senior-level diplomats are expected to “zealously execute U.S. government policy” and resolve ambiguity by deferring to leadership direction, according to internal documents previously obtained by Fox News.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately reversed the department’s Biden-era font policies earlier this year as part of the broader cultural reset at the agency.
