Microproduct data guidebeginner

Federal Register Documents API

Daily rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents for building focused regulatory-change and agency-publication monitors.

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At a glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Small · ≤0.1 GB
Formats
JSON
Access
API
API key
Not required
Provider
Office of the Federal Register
Updates
Daily
Data terms
U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

The Federal Register API exposes metadata and links for rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents. Start with a bounded page from one agency and retain each official PDF link. FederalRegister.gov is an informational rendition, so legal research and deadlines must be verified against the official edition on GovInfo.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An agency slug from the Federal Register agency directory
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Read the API documentation and select one agency slug.
  2. 2.Request a bounded page ordered by newest publication date.
  3. 3.Retain the document number and GovInfo PDF URL for authoritative verification.
Open official source
3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json",
    params={
        "conditions[agencies][]": "environmental-protection-agency",
        "order": "newest",
        "per_page": 20,
    },
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
documents = pd.DataFrame(response.json()["results"])
documents["retrieved_at_utc"] = pd.Timestamp.now(tz="UTC")
print(documents[["publication_date", "type", "title", "pdf_url"]].head())
4

Test a useful signal

Monitor one agency's new publications

Identify the latest rules, proposed rules, and notices published by one agency.

  1. 01Request the newest documents and group them by document type.
  2. 02Flag titles containing a narrow topic phrase and retain their document numbers and official PDF links.
  3. 03Verify one result on GovInfo and explain why the API rendition alone should not determine legal obligations or deadlines.

Dataset details

Office of the Federal Register is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-11. Temporal coverage: 1994-present.

Domains

RegulationGovernment

Data types

DocumentsEvent Data

Tasks

Regulatory MonitoringAlertingDocument Search

Geography

United States

Formats

JSON

Provider

Office of the Federal Register

Data terms

U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance