About the Code of Federal Regulations

First Published: 1938
Online Availability:  1996 forward
Issued: Yearly

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to Federal regulation. Each volume of the CFR is updated once each calendar year and is issued on a quarterly basis.

• Titles 1-16 are updated as of January 1st
• Titles 17-27 are updated as of April 1st
• Titles 28-41 are updated as of July 1st
• Titles 42-50 are updated as of October 1st

Each title is divided into chapters, which usually bear the name of the issuing agency. Each chapter is further subdivided into parts that cover specific regulatory areas. Large parts may be subdivided into subparts. All parts are organized in sections, and most citations in the CFR are provided at the section level. A list of agencies and where they appear in the CFR may be found in Appendix C of the U.S. Government Manual.

The annual editions of the CFR, posted on GPO's Govinfo website as PDF files, are the official editions of the CFR, as sanctioned by the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (1 CFR part 8). The volumes of the CFR are jointly produced by the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Office of the Federal Register (OFR), and the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to provide the public with access to authentic government information.

CFR volumes are added to Govinfo concurrent with the release of the paper editions. When revised CFR volumes are added, the prior editions remain on Govinfo as a historical set. Some CFR records on Govinfo date back to 1996; all titles are available from 1997 to the current year. Documents are available as ASCII text and PDF files.

NOTE: "[Reserved]" is a term used as a place holder within the Code of Federal Regulations. An agency uses "[Reserved]" to simply indicate that it may insert regulatory information into this location some time in the future. Occasionally "[Reserved]" is used to indicate that a portion of the CFR was intentionally left empty and not accidentally dropped due to a printing or computer error.

Code of Federal Regulations Bulk Data XML Files

Bulk data downloads of CFR XML files are available to the general public via Data.gov and Govinfo. Information on the legal status, authenticity, and schema of the CFR XML renditions can be found in the User Guide Document "Code of Federal Regulations XML Rendition".