List of governors of Puerto Rico

This list of governors of Puerto Rico includes all persons who have held the office of Governor of Puerto Rico since its establishment under the rule of the Spanish Empire (1508–1898) to the present under the sovereignty of the United States (1898–present).

The archipelago and island of Puerto Rico was annexed by the United States during the Spanish–American War in 1898, ending 390 years of active rule by the Spanish Empire, which began the European exploration, colonization, and settlement of the main island under conquistador Juan Ponce de León in 1508. Ponce de León was the first person to hold the title and office of governor by orders of King Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1509. The governor remained an appointee of the Spanish Crown during Spanish rule, and was an appointee of the President of the United States during American rule until 1948, when the residents of Puerto Rico began to popularly elect the governor, starting with Luis Muñoz Marín, who took office in 1949.

Since 1508, 167 persons (164 men and 3 women), have served in 190 formal, interim, or de facto governorships, as 17 governors have served twice nonconsecutively and 3 have served thrice nonconsecutively. Of the 190 governors, 175 have been appointed (149 by the Spanish Crown and 26 by the President of the United States), 14 elected through popular vote by the residents of Puerto Rico, and one constitutionally appointed after the resignation of an elected governor.

The governorship has been vacant twice, as two municipal administrators, called alcaldes ordinarios, served in place of a governor each year from 1537 to 1544 and 1548 to 1550. The shortest-serving governor was Andrés González Muñoz, who died hours after the start of his second interim governorship on January 11, 1898. Luis Muñoz Marín served the longest, having held the office for 16 consecutive years, or four terms of four years each, from 1949 to 1965, after he decided not to seek re-election. Ricardo Rosselló, who left office prematurely as a result of the Telegramgate scandal in 2019, is the first and only elected governor to have resigned. No elected governor has been impeached.

The first governor born in Puerto Rico was Ponce de León’s grandchild, Juan Ponce de León II, who served as interim governor from 1578 to 1580. He was the only Puerto Rican-born person to occupy the office until Ángel Rivero Méndez, who served in an interim capacity as the last governor under Spanish rule for two days from October 16 to 18, 1898. Several Puerto Ricans also briefly served as interim governors from 1921 to 1941. During the direct Spanish and American control of the governorship from 1508 to 1948, the first and only native Puerto Rican to have held the office in a formal capacity was Jesús T. Piñero, who served as the last appointed governor of Puerto Rico from 1946 to 1949.

Since 1949, the governor of Puerto Rico has served by popular election as the head of government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States organized under the Constitution of Puerto Rico since its establishment in 1952. The incumbent governor is Jenniffer González, who was elected on November 5, 2024, and sworn in on January 2, 2025.