NARA Guidance Portal

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides guidance to help agencies understand and comply with applicable regulations, executive orders, and the law, in order to support our records management, access, and information security goals. We also provide guidance to help the public understand how they may access Federal information, request our services, and comment on our policies.

Use the Current Guidance links below to access and read our current guidance on a wide range of records and information issues. Click a heading to go to a searchable list of that kind of guidance. You can sort that current guidance list by title, type of guidance, date, etc. You can also access a link to canceled/expired/superseded guidance at the end of each current guidance list.

Current Guidance

Classified national security information (CNSI) guidance - from the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)
Controlled unclassified information (CUI) guidance - from the CUI Executive Agent, ISOO
Records management guidance - from the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the U.S. Government
Freedom of Information Act ombudsman guidance - from the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS)
Other NARA guidance

How to request that we add, rescind, or modify guidance

Any person may request that we issue, reconsider, modify, or rescind a particular guidance document by using the procedures below (also in our guidance regulations at 36 CFR 1213.10).

1) Submit your request using the contact information and methods at the bottom of this box. The request must:

(a) Describe the nature of the request and set out the text or substance of the guidance you are requesting or that you wish us to reconsider, modify, or rescind;

(b) Explain your interest in the action you are requesting; and

(2) We will review your request and make a decision whether to grant the request or deny it in whole or in part. We will provide you with a response to your request and a status update or our decision within 90 days after we receive the request if you provide email or mail contact information.

Submit requests to modify guidance to this email or mailing address:

Email: regulation_comments@nara.gov

Regulatory and External Policy Program
Suite 4100
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740.

How to comment on guidance

Contact us at the Regulatory and External Policy Program by email with questions about our guidance documents or process.

Significant guidance

Some of our guidance may be significant and we will therefore publish it for public notice and comment, in accordance with our regulations at 36 CFR 1213.8(e) and with OMB Memo M-20-02. In such cases, we will publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing that a draft of the proposed guidance document is publicly available and where.

We normally post draft guidance documents on regulations.gov in a docket with the notice, but in some cases, we may post it on this portal.

We invite public comment on drafts that are open for comment.

You can search for open guidance notices at federalregister.gov.
The notice will inform you of options for commenting on the draft guidance, but in most cases, you will be able to submit a comment through regulations.gov.

Federal Register notice about this guidance portal

On February 28, 2020, we published a notice in the Federal Register about this guidance portal (85 FR 12031).

Our regulations on guidance

Our regulations on our agency guidance procedures are at 36 CFR 1213. They were published in the Federal Register at 85 FR 31979, May 28, 2020.

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