About half of the field is made up of players who are fully exempt from qualifying. As of the most recent U.S. Open in 2014, the exemption categories are:
- Winners of the U.S. Open for the last ten years
- Winner and runner-up from the previous year's U.S. Amateur
- Winner of the previous year's Amateur Championship
- The previous year's Mark H. McCormack Medal winner for the top-ranked amateur golfer in the world
- Winners of each of Masters Tournament, Open Championship and PGA Championship for the last five years
- Winners of the last three Players Championships
- Winner of the current year's BMW PGA Championship
- Winner of the last U.S. Senior Open
- Top 10 finishers and ties from the previous year's U.S. Open
- Players who qualified for the previous year's Tour Championship
- The top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as of two weeks before the start of the tournament
- The top 60 in the OWGR as of the tournament date
- Special exemptions selected by the USGA
- All remaining spots after the second top 60 OWGR cutoff date filled by alternates from qualifying tournaments.
- The exemptions for amateurs apply only if the players remain amateurs as of the tournament date.
Before 2011, the sole OWGR cutoff for entry was the top 50 as of two weeks before the tournament. An exemption category for the top 50 as of the tournament date was added for 2011, apparently in response to the phenomenon of golfers entering the top 50 between the original cutoff date and the tournament (such asJustin Rose and Rickie Fowler in 2010).