---
kind: "section"
citation: "22 U.S.C. § 3952"
title: "22"
title_heading: "Foreign Relations and Intercourse"
number: "3952"
heading: "Diplomatic and consular missions"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/22/3952"
units:
  - "Chapter 52 — Foreign Service"
  - "Subchapter III — Appointments"
---

# §3952. Diplomatic and consular missions

- (a) **Recommendations by Secretary of State; appointment by President; vice consul; performance of official functions under commission—** The Secretary of State may recommend to the President that a member of the Service who is a citizen of the United States be commissioned as a diplomatic or consular officer or both. The President may, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, [commission](/usc/22/277d–43.md?p=2) such member of the Service as a diplomatic or consular officer or both. The Secretary of State may [commission](/usc/22/277d–43.md?p=2) as a vice consul a member of the Service who is a citizen of the United States. All official [functions](/usc/22/3902.md?p=6) performed by a diplomatic or consular officer, including a vice consul, shall be performed under such a [commission](/usc/22/277d–43.md?p=2).
- (b) **Function of commissioned Service members—** Members of the Service commissioned under this section may, in accordance with their [commissions](/usc/22/277d–43.md?p=2), perform any [function](/usc/22/3902.md?p=6) which any category of diplomatic officer (other than a [chief of mission](/usc/22/3902.md?p=3)) or consular officer is authorized by law to perform.
- (c) **Limits of consular districts—** The Secretary of State shall define the limits of consular districts.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 96–465, title I, § 312, Oct. 17, 1980, 94 Stat. 2087.)