Jordan’s long history of refugee reception has brought with it a pervasive dependence on international institutions, most notably the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Today, Jordan is a hub for hundreds of international humanitarian organizations that operate inside the country and others that use Jordan as a home base for operations in the region (including operations in Syria and Iraq). The presence of these agencies is so pervasive that Jordan has become a humanitarian testing ground for innovating generalizable best practices. However, such a dominant presence of international organizations introduces challenges to governance and state authority. As these international institutions provide millions of refugees with access to education, health care, basic needs, and even employment, they must necessarily work with—and often against—government agencies. How do state officials practice, negotiate, and concede authority? What are the implications of these international institutions on state sovereignty? To answer these questions, I focus on the contemporary response to Syrian displacement (from 2011 to 2020), which necessarily includes addressing the evolving needs of other refugee groups as well. In this analysis, I draw from 16 months of ethnographic observations in Jordan over a four-year period from July 2014 to July 2018. I also use 175 interviews I conducted in Arabic and English with Syrian refugees, Jordanian citizens, and government, United Nations, and non-governmental organization officials. I find that state officials make short-term concessions as they pursue long-term interests. I contribute to the scholarship on state capacity by addressing how local decision-making practices involve international actors.