Trump’s White House Ballroom: Plans, Cost, and Who’s Really Paying
Donald Trump may be the only person who’s ever stood before a crowd and boasted, “I’m very good at building ballrooms.” While Trump is known for making self-aggrandizing claims with no basis in reality, he’s actually trying to prove this one is true with a high-stakes addition to the White House.
In June 2025, Trump revealed on Truth Social that the White House would soon have a new ballroom, “compliments of a man known as Donald J. Trump.” A month later, the White House announced plans to build a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom off the East Wing. That’s nearly double the size of the residence, making this the biggest White House renovation in decades. While Trump has always said he would pay for the ballroom himself, it’s unclear how much he’ll actually contribute to the project.
Here’s a guide, which we’ll keep updated, to everything we know about the new White House ballroom, including artist renderings, cost estimates, and the construction timeline.
When did Trump announce his plan to build a ballroom?
Trump started talking about building a White House ballroom before he entered politics. It became clear that this was more than just weird Trumpian musing in June 2025, when he revealed on Truth Social that he’d selected a site for the project:
On July 31, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that construction of a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom would begin in September, with McCrery Architects as lead architect:
On August 5, 2025, Trump took a “little walk” on the White House roof with architect Jim McCrery to get a bird’s-eye view of where the building will go:
don't jump, sir! pic.twitter.com/LngB2CSeno
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2025
Are there renderings of the new ballroom?
Yes; shortly after Leavitt’s announcement, the White House released ten artist renderings of what the new event space will look like from various angles.
Where will it be located?
The structure will replace much of the current East Wing. The White House press release on the project emphasized that this part of the building “has been renovated and changed many times”:
The White House Ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time, it’s theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942.
What will happen to the offices in the East Wing?
They will be temporarily relocatedm and “the East Wing will be modernized and renovated,” according to Leavitt.
It’s unclear what this means for the people who currently work there, including the First Lady’s staff. Anita McBride, former chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush, raised concerns about how the ballroom will impact the daily functioning of the White House.
“Betty Ford always called the East Wing the ‘heart’ of the White House,” McBride told the Hill. “All the business and policy gets done in the West Wing, that’s critically important. But the heart of the White House is the East Wing. And so what, what will be the new East Wing?”
How much will the ballroom cost?
Approximately $200 million, according to the White House.
Is Trump paying for the White House ballroom?
While ranting about a White House ballroom over the years, Trump always made it sound like he’d pay for it on his own. But Leavitt said, “President Trump, and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million structure.”
The White House has declined to give details on how much Trump will actually pay and who these “other patriot donors” might be. When asked on August 1 if he’d block foreign donations, Trump said he hadn’t thought about that: “I’m not looking for that. You have very strong restrictions. And we go by the restrictions.”
The funding plan, such as it is, doesn’t sound great from an ethical standpoint. Per the New York Times:
Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said the donor funding plan was “highly unusual.”
“There is certainly a risk that donors to this project, which Donald Trump has made clear is important to him, could see it as a way to curry favor with the administration,” he said.
When will it be finished?
The press release says it’s “expected to be completed long before the end of President Trump’s term” in January 2029.
How long has Trump been planning this ballroom?
For many years, Trump has publicly claimed that he offered to build a collapsible $100 million White House ballroom and the Obama administration did not take him up on it:
Trump says he offered to build a ballroom in The White House for 100 million but never heard back from The Biden Administration. He then says he will try to make the offer to himself that he suggests he’ll pay for: We’ll see if Trump will approve it pic.twitter.com/EUazuRDm6Y
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 5, 2025
Surprisingly, this is at least partially true. In his book Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, David Axelrod confirmed that while he was working in the Obama White House in 2010, Trump called to pitch him on a ballroom. (Trump claims he offered to pay for it himself, but Axelrod did not address that detail.)
“‘I build ballrooms. Beautiful ballrooms,’” Trump said, according to Axelrod. “Not being much of a dancer, I didn’t know where he was headed. ‘I see you have these state dinners on the lawn there in these shitty little tents. Let me build you a ballroom you can assemble and take apart. Trust me. It’ll look great.’”
Axelrod said he handed the pitch off to someone else, and they didn’t follow up.
Is this project really necessary?
The White House State Ballroom is a “much-needed” addition, according to the press release. The East Room, the largest room in White House, can only seat 200 people, which is why state dinners take place in a tent on the lawn.
Back in 2011, Trump lamented that the White House is using “an old, rotten tent that frankly they probably rented, pay a guy millions of dollars for it even though it’s worth about $2?” But as Eater noted, it’s actually a pretty swanky tent:
The tent for the 2009 India dinner, which Vanity Fair described as “a massive pavilion, complete with an orchestra platform, theatrical lighting, a professional sound system, full heating, satellite kitchens, and a dozen chandeliers bedecked with sustainably harvested magnolia branches and ivy,” took six days to construct and cost a reported $85,000.
And the symbolism of this new project is “monstrous,” as New York’s Chris Bonanos pointed out: “That Trump will build a ballroom — the most on-the-nose embodiment of let-them-eat-cake Versailles extravagance — just as he throws old people off Medicare and kids off food stamps is as big a trolling as has ever been trolled.”
So why is Trump really building this ballroom?
Is Trump doing this because he’s a magnanimous builder who wants to share his gift with the American people? Or is he just a narcissist looking to leave his mark on the White House by transforming it into Mar-a-Lago North? That’s a matter of interpretation. But it’s pretty clear that he really, really hates partying in a tent.