The Residence Act of 1790, officially titled An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States (1 Stat. 130), is a United States federal statute adopted during the second session of the 1st United States Congress and signed into law by President George Washington on July 16, 1790. The act provides for a national capital and permanent seat of government to be established at a site along the Potomac River and empowered President Washington to appoint commissioners to oversee the project. It also set a deadline of December 1800 for the capital to be ready, and designated Philadelphia as the nation's temporary capital while the new seat of government was being built. At the time, the federal government operated out of New York City.

Congress passed the Residence Act as part of the Compromise of 1790 brokered among James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Madison and Jefferson favored a southerly site for the capital on the Potomac River, but they lacked a majority to pass the measure through Congress. Meanwhile, Hamilton was pushing for Congress to pass the Assumption Bill, to allow the federal government to assume debts accumulated by the states during the American Revolutionary War. With the compromise, Hamilton mustered support from the New York State congressional delegation for the Potomac site, while four delegates (all from districts bordering the Potomac) switched from opposition to support for the Assumption Bill.

At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House. On account of British military actions, the Congress was forced to relocate to Baltimore, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then York, Pennsylvania for a time before it returned to Philadelphia. Upon ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was formed, and Philadelphia became the new nation's first seat of government. However, Congress did not remain in the city long, for in June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall demanding payment for their service during the war. Congress requested John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania to call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey on June 21, 1783, and met in Annapolis and then Trenton, before ending up in New York. On October 6, 1783, while still in Princeton, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to take into consideration, respecting a place for the permanent residence of Congress. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts motioned "that buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton or of the Potomac, near Georgetown, provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for a federal town".

During the mid-1780s, numerous locations were offered by the states to serve as the nation's capital, but the Continental Congress could never agree on a site because of regional loyalties and tensions. Proposed sites included Kingston, New York; Nottingham Township in New Jersey; Annapolis; Williamsburg, Virginia; Wilmington, Delaware; Reading, Pennsylvania; Germantown, Pennsylvania; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; New York City; Philadelphia; and Princeton. The Southern states refused to accept a capital in the North and vice versa. Another suggestion was to have two capitals: one in the North and one in the South.

The United States Congress was established in 1789, after the ratification of the United States Constitution, and New York City remained the temporary capital. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, of the new constitution authorized Congress to create a federal district outside of the state structure as the nation's permanent seat of government and granted Congress exclusive governing jurisdiction over it. The choice of a site was left for the new Congress to decide.

During the debate, two sites became serious contenders: one site on the Potomac River near Georgetown; and another site on the Susquehanna River near Wrights Ferry (now Columbia, Pennsylvania). The House approved the Susquehanna River site in September 1789, and the Senate bill specified a site on the Delaware River near Germantown, Pennsylvania. The House and Senate were not able to reconcile their two bills.

The selection of a location for the capital resurfaced in the summer of 1790. At the same time, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was pushing for Congress to pass a financial plan. A key provision of Hamilton's plan involved the federal government assuming states' debts incurred during the American Revolutionary War. Northern states had accumulated a massive debt during the war, amounting to 21.5 million dollars, and wanted the federal government to assume their burden. The Southern states, whose citizens would effectively be forced to pay a portion of the debt if the federal government assumed it, balked at this proposal. Some states, including Virginia, had paid almost half of their debts and felt that their taxpayers should not be assessed again to bail out the less provident. Further, they argued that the plan exceeded the scope of the new constitutional government. James Madison, then a representative from Virginia, led a group of legislators from the south in blocking the provision and preventing the plan from gaining approval.

When Jefferson met Hamilton at President Washington's residence in New York City in late June 1790, Jefferson offered to host a dinner to bring Madison and Hamilton together. Subsequently, a compromise was reached, in which the northern delegates would agree to the southerly Potomac River site, and in return, the federal government would assume debts accumulated by the states during the American Revolutionary War. Jefferson wrote a letter to James Monroe explaining the compromise.