Popular Names of US Laws and Where Each Act Lives in the US Code

Short answer: an act's popular name is the title people use for it, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act. The United States Code, the official collection of federal laws sorted by subject, does not file laws by name. To find an act, look it up in the Popular Name Tool run by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel (the office that prepares the Code), or open the first section of the likely chapter and read the "Short Title" note. Watch for one trap: the act's own section numbers are not the Code's. Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is 8 U.S.C. 1182.

Written and checked on 12 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice; check the cited statute or opinion before relying on it.

TL;DR

• The Code is filed by subject. A popular name usually appears only in a note.
• A law has three identifiers. The popular name, the chapter or public law number, and the Statutes at Large cite all point to the same act.
• Act section numbers and Code section numbers differ. Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is 8 U.S.C. 1182.
• Some acts are split across titles, tucked inside another act, or repealed. The notes under the Code section tell you which.
• For most titles the Code is a compilation. If it differs from the act as passed, the act can win.

Official text, as of 12 October 2026

Citation: 1 U.S.C. 204(a), the rule on what the Code proves. Read: the 2024 edition on GovInfo.

The Code's matter shall "establish prima facie the laws of the United States, general and permanent in their nature," but "whenever titles of such Code shall have been enacted into positive law the text thereof shall be legal evidence of the laws therein contained."

What changed in 2025 and 2026: the credit line of this section in the 2024 edition lists only the 1947 act that created it (July 30, 1947, ch. 388, 61 Stat. 638), so no later amendment is shown there. The 2024 edition is the latest annual edition we could open on GovInfo. An act passed after it may not be reflected in the pages quoted below.

Popular name, public law, Statutes at Large: three names for one law

The popular name is the label people use: "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938." The act says so itself. The 1938 printing of the act, in the bound volumes called the Statutes at Large, begins "That this Act may be cited as the 'Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938'." The Statutes at Large print every law in the order it was passed, so they are the act as Congress sent it.

The Statutes at Large cite is the address of that printing: 52 Stat. 1060, meaning volume 52, page 1060. The act was "chapter 676" of that session. That chapter number is how the Code's source note cites it today. The 1938 print also tags the act "Public, No. 718," an older numbering system.

A public law number is the newer way to identify a law. GovInfo explains that it has the Congress number and then the number of the law. The Americans with Disabilities Act is Pub. L. 101-336, so it was the 336th law of the 101st Congress. The Code's source notes in this post cite acts up to 1955 by chapter and acts from 1964 onward by public law number.

Why the Code does not use the name

The Code is split into numbered titles, each a broad subject. Title 29 is Labor. Title 42 is The Public Health and Welfare. Cornell's Legal Information Institute, which keeps its own Table of Popular Names, points out the problem: one act can hold unrelated parts. A farm bill, it says, might touch taxes, land use and price supports. Editors have to decide where each part belongs, a step called classification, and the parts land in different titles.

So the Code has no folder labelled with the name. Editors leave a note under a relevant section instead, usually headed "Short Title."

A real case is the Consumer Credit Protection Act, Pub. L. 90-321, which became chapter 41 of Title 15. Three well-known laws sit inside it as titles of that act. The notes under 15 U.S.C. 1601 record that title I "may be cited as the 'Truth in Lending Act,'" title VI as the "Fair Credit Reporting Act," and title VIII as the "Fair Debt Collection Practices Act." The names sit in notes. The first section of each, 15 U.S.C. 1601, 1681 and 1692, is a findings and purpose section.

Worked example: the Immigration and Nationality Act

Say a contract bars anyone "inadmissible under section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act." Where is that?

The 1952 act was printed as Public Law 414, chapter 477, at 66 Stat. 163. Its table of contents lists "Sec. 212. General classes of aliens ineligible to receive visas and excluded from admission." Today the Code puts that section at 8 U.S.C. 1182, headed "Inadmissible aliens." Section 101 of the act is 8 U.S.C. 1101. Both sit in chapter 12 of Title 8, which the notes describe as the place the act "is classified principally to."

There is no formula here. Section 101 became 1101, which adds 1,000, and section 212 became 1182, which adds 970. Look each one up.

How to read the source note

At the bottom of 8 U.S.C. 1182 is a line in parentheses, the credit line, that begins "June 27, 1952, ch. 477, title II, ch. 2, §212, 66 Stat. 182". In plain words:

• June 27, 1952, ch. 477 is the date and chapter of the act.
• title II, ch. 2, §212 is where the provision sat inside the act.
• 66 Stat. 182 is volume 66, page 182 of the Statutes at Large.

Every later amendment follows, separated by semicolons, each cited by its public law number or, for older ones, by its chapter.

Twelve acts and where they sit

Each row was read on the Code's own pages on GovInfo (2024 edition) on 12 October 2026, and each Statutes at Large cite was checked against the printed act. Eleven of the twelve names are entries in Cornell's Table of Popular Names; Title VII is not, because the table lists the whole Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is a sample, not a full list, and "and following" means the section named plus the ones after it.

When the act is not where you expect

Split across titles. The notes say the Family and Medical Leave Act enacted the chapter in Title 29, sections 6381 to 6387 of Title 5, and two sections in Title 2. Dodd-Frank, per its note, enacted a chapter in Title 12, two chapters of Title 15, and "numerous other sections and notes." A table row may show only part of an act.

Inside another act. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 added section 227 to the Communications Act of 1934. Its name is recorded in a note under 47 U.S.C. 609.

Named late. The Sherman Act was passed on July 2, 1890. Its section 1 in the Statutes at Large starts "Every contract, combination...," with no short title. Pub. L. 94-435 (September 30, 1976) added the words "That this Act ... may be cited as the 'Sherman Act'," 86 years later.

Repealed. The Code's chapter on homesteads, 43 U.S.C. chapter 7, opens with sections 161 to 164 marked "Repealed" by Pub. L. 94-579, title VII, section 702 (October 21, 1976). The note says the repeal took effect that day, except that for public lands in Alaska it took effect on the tenth anniversary, October 21, 1986. Before repeating a claim that an old land law "still" gives a right, read that note.

For how a bill reaches this stage, see how a bill becomes a law.

Which text is the law: the Code or the act?

The quote in the official block settles it. If Congress passed a title itself (a "positive law" title), the Code text is legal evidence. For the other titles, the Code is only prima facie evidence, meaning accepted as correct until someone shows otherwise. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel names Title 42 as a compilation of this kind and says the Statutes at Large text prevails over it. The codified guide has the side-by-side.

The Clean Air Act, the ADA and Title VII all sit in Title 42. For a quotation in a filing or a contract, check the act as enacted. See also the kinds of primary law.

What goes wrong

• Searching for the name and finding nothing. The name lives in a note, so use the Popular Name Tool or the short-title note.
• Citing the act's section number as a Code section. A document that wants 8 U.S.C. 1182 will not accept "INA 212" in a citation field. See how to cite a statute.
• Quoting a repealed section. Check the heading for "Repealed."
• Quoting the Code as the original text. Where the title is a compilation, the act as passed can differ.

FAQ

What is the popular name of a law?

It is the title people use for an act in news, contracts and conversation, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Code does not use these names as headings.

How do I find an act in the US Code by name?

Start with the Popular Name Tool from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. It lists acts alphabetically with their Code locations. When we checked on 12 October 2026 the office's website was showing a maintenance page, so use Cornell's Table of Popular Names, a similar alphabetical table, if it is still down. If you land on a likely section, read its "Short Title" note.

Why isn't the Fair Labor Standards Act under "F" in the Code?

The Code is organized by subject. The act's subject is labor, so it sits in Title 29, starting at section 201.

Are an act's section numbers the same as the Code's?

No. Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is 8 U.S.C. 1182, and section 101 is 8 U.S.C. 1101. The credit line under each Code section tells you the act section it came from.

What is the difference between a public law and a Code section?

A public law is the whole act as Congress passed it, printed in the Statutes at Large. A Code section is one piece of that act, edited and filed by subject. See what a session law is.

What if an act is spread over several titles?

The notes under each Code section tell you how the act was classified. Dodd-Frank is a typical case, with a chapter in Title 12, two chapters in Title 15, and many other sections. Follow the notes under each section.

Is the US Code the law itself?

For titles that Congress enacted into positive law, yes: the text is legal evidence of the law. For the rest, it is prima facie evidence, and the original act can control if the two differ (1 U.S.C. 204(a)). For the wider map, see the US law data guide.

For the US statutes, regulations and court rules these laws sit in, see the US primary law API.

Priyansh Khodiyar

Co-Founder & CTO

Priyansh leads engineering and AI at Vaquill AI: the pipelines that pull statutes, regulations and court rules from every US jurisdiction's official publisher, and the REST API, MCP server and open dataset that serve them.