Foreign Service Institute

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For Foreign Service Institute of India, see Foreign Service Institute India.

Located in Arlington, Virginia, the Foreign Service Institute is the primary training facility for American Foreign Service Officers, It is housed at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center. It replaced the Foreign Service School established in 1924.

The institute was founded on March 13, 1947, in compliance with the Foreign Service Act of 1946 passed by Congress. The Director of the Foreign Service Institute is equivalent in rank to an Assistant Secretary of State, and is appointed by the current Secretary of State.

The institute designed and taught language courses to assist diplomats sent to overseas posts. Learning materials developed by the FSI are considered government publications and therefore public domain. However some of the materials (including many of the accompanying sound recordings) were externally commissioned and therefore not government publication; copyright still subsists on these.