What Is the Federal Register? How to Read and Search It

A client forwards an email: "The new data breach rule was published in the Federal Register last week." Is it in force? Who wrote it? Can anyone still object? The answers sit in the notice itself, if you know where to look.

Short answer: the Federal Register is the federal government's daily journal. Every business day it prints new rules, proposed rules, agency notices and presidential documents. A rule normally appears there first. Later its text is folded into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which sorts the final rules by subject.

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

• It is a daily journal with four kinds of document. Rules, proposed rules, notices and presidential documents.
• The Federal Register shows each change. The CFR shows the rules by subject. A rule appears in the first, and its text is later collected in the second.
• Read the DATES paragraph first. It gives the day a rule takes effect and the day comments are due.
• To find open comment periods, filter for proposed rules and check each deadline.

Official text, as of 12 October 2026

Citation: 44 U.S.C. 1507, in the chapter of the U.S. Code that sets up the Federal Register and the CFR.

What it says, verbatim: "The contents of the Federal Register shall be judicially noticed and without prejudice to any other mode of citation, may be cited by volume and page number." Judicial notice means a court may rely on a document without making a party prove it.

Read from: 44 U.S.C. chapter 15 on govinfo.gov (2024 edition). We also compared sections 1501, 1507 and 1510 with the House's Code (release point current through Pub. L. 119-120, 7 October 2026). The text matched.

What changed in 2025 and 2026: Pub. L. 118-267 (4 January 2025) amended most of the chapter. It added a definition of "publish" to section 1501 and rewrote sections 1503, 1504 and 1510. Section 1507 got two small wording changes. Its notice, presumption and judicial notice rules read the same. We found no 2026 change.

What the Federal Register is

The Office of the Federal Register, part of the National Archives, publishes it with the Government Publishing Office. The Archives calls it "the daily journal of the Federal government" (page last reviewed 8 August 2018). GovInfo, the federal publishing site, says it comes out Monday to Friday, except federal holidays.

Each issue holds four kinds of document.

• Rules (also called final rules or regulations) are the agency's finished rules.
• Proposed rules are drafts, published so the public can comment first.
• Notices include scheduled hearings and meetings, grant applications and administrative orders.
• Presidential documents are signed by the President. Proclamations and executive orders are two kinds.

Archives staff say they cannot interpret or explain agency rules. Ask the agency named in the document. For how a rule moves from draft to final, see rulemaking explained.

Is the Federal Register the law?

It is where a rule is announced, and the law gives it weight. Under 44 U.S.C. 1507, a document that section 1505(a) requires to be published is not valid against a person who does not know of it. Most proclamations and executive orders are in that group. That holds until the document is filed with the Office of the Federal Register and open for public inspection. After that, filing is enough to give notice to a person the document affects. Two limits apply. Another statute may say otherwise. And filing does not help where notice by publication is insufficient in law. Publication creates a rebuttable presumption. That is a presumption that stands unless someone proves otherwise. It has four parts. The document was duly issued. It was filed and open for inspection when stated. The printed copy is a true copy. The chapter's rules were met.

Most people read it on federalregister.gov. That site is not the official copy. Its legal status notice says it "will remain an unofficial informational resource until the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (ACFR) issues a regulation granting it official legal status." It gives no legal notice. Each document on the site links to the official PDF on GovInfo. Cite the PDF.

Federal Register versus CFR

Prima facie evidence counts as correct until shown otherwise. For the daily web copy of the CFR, read what the eCFR is. For statutes versus regulations, see USC versus CFR and what a regulation is.

Read one entry, part by part

Take this rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Breach Notification for Unsecured Protected Health Information. Its official PDF is on GovInfo. You meet these parts in order.

1. Heading block. Volume 74, Monday, August 24, 2009, under "Rules and Regulations." It runs from page 42740 to page 42770.
2. Agency and CFR parts. HHS, "45 CFR Parts 160 and 164." Those are the CFR parts the rule changes.
3. RIN. The Regulation Identifier Number, or RIN, is 0991-AB56. It identifies the rulemaking. Commenters were asked to quote it.
4. ACTION. "Interim final rule with request for comments." The rule starts before the comment period ends. Section 13402 of the HITECH Act told HHS to issue interim final rules within 180 days (42 U.S.C. 17932(j)).
5. SUMMARY. A short statement of what the rule does. Here, it requires notice of breaches of unsecured health information.
6. DATES. "This interim final rule is effective September 23, 2009." Comments "are due on or before October 23, 2009." A second date, September 8, covered paperwork comments. Read the whole paragraph.
7. ADDRESSES. Where to send comments: the regulations.gov portal, or mail and hand delivery.
8. Contact. A named agency official. The Archives says every rule and proposed rule lists one.
9. The explanation. The agency's long discussion, then the rule text at the end.

Decode a citation: 74 FR 42740

"74" is the volume, "FR" means Federal Register, and 42740 is the first page. Each year is a new volume. GovInfo lists volume 60 as 1995. Volume 74 is 2009. Volume 91 is 2026. Page numbers climb all year. The first issue of 2026, on 2 January, ended near page 190. The 9 October issue ran from near page 64,600 to near page 64,750 (Federal Register API, read 12 October 2026). For citation forms, see how to cite them.

Effective dates and comment deadlines

A final rule's DATES paragraph says when it starts. Under 5 U.S.C. 553(d), a substantive rule must be published "not less than 30 days before its effective date," with three exceptions. They are rules that grant an exemption or relieve a restriction, interpretative rules and policy statements, and rules with a published good-cause finding.

Our example shows the usual gap. It was published on August 24, 2009. It took effect September 23, 30 days later. Some rules set a date as days after publication. The Office then counts the day after publication as day one. A count that ends on a weekend or holiday moves to the next business day (1 CFR 18.17).

The statute sets no length for comment periods. Section 553(c) says only that the agency must let people send "written data, views, or arguments." The Archives says periods vary. They usually run 30, 60 or 90 days. Read the deadline in DATES. Do not take it from a news story.

Public inspection: the day-before preview

The Office says documents are filed for public inspection at least one business day before publication. On the regular schedule, 1 CFR 17.2 sets the working day before. A new set goes up on federalregister.gov around 8:45 a.m. Eastern. The Office says these items are "only tentatively scheduled" because agencies may withdraw them. Only the published version gives legal notice. Call a public inspection item "scheduled."

How to search the Federal Register

1. By citation. Type "74 FR 42740" into the search box.
2. By words. Document Search takes plain search terms. The box also takes a document number or a RIN.
3. By filter. Advanced search narrows by date, agency, category, docket ID, RIN and CFR part. A docket is the agency's file on a rule.
4. By agency. Each agency has a page that lists all its documents.
5. Tomorrow's documents. The Public Inspection page lists what is scheduled.
6. The official copy. GovInfo carries issues from 1936 to today.

To find rules open for comment, set the category to "Proposed Rule." The search form also has a "Comment Close Date" filter, and the API has a matching one. Still check DATES. The site's record for our 2009 example has an empty comment-close field. The text gives a date (checked in its API on 12 October 2026). Comments go to the address in ADDRESSES, often regulations.gov. Developers can pull the same data with this Python guide or the API overview.

What goes wrong

• Treating a proposed rule as law. It is a draft until a final rule follows.
• Reading an entry as the current rule. It shows a change on its date. For today's text, open the CFR section it points to.
• Missing a later document. Corrections and delays often cite the same RIN. Search it.
• Acting on a public inspection item. The agency may withdraw it.
• Quoting a deadline from the news. Read DATES.
• Citing the website. Cite the PDF.

Ask five questions of any document. What type is it? When does it take effect? When are comments due? Which CFR part does it change? Is there a later document with the same RIN? To keep up, see how to track rule changes.

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

This guide is part of US Law Data: The Complete Guide, a map of where US law comes from and how to use it.

FAQ

What is the Federal Register?

It is the federal government's daily journal of new rules and notices. The National Archives publishes it every business day.

Is the Federal Register the law?

It is where rules are announced. Publication creates a rebuttable presumption that the printed copy is true (44 U.S.C. 1507). The CFR collects the finished rules, and its text is prima facie evidence of them (44 U.S.C. 1510(e)).

What is the difference between the Federal Register and the CFR?

The Register comes out daily, in date order. The CFR is sorted by subject and holds only final rules. The table above compares them.

How do I search the Federal Register?

Type a citation such as "74 FR 42740," search by words, or filter by agency, category, date, docket or RIN. Use GovInfo for official PDFs.

How do I find rules open for comment?

Filter for the "Proposed Rule" category, use the Comment Close Date filter, and read the DATES paragraph of each result. ADDRESSES says where to send a comment.

Is federalregister.gov official?

No. It calls itself an unofficial informational resource. The official version is the PDF on GovInfo, and each document links to it.

How often is the Federal Register published?

Every business day. GovInfo says Monday to Friday, except federal holidays.

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.