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Public and Private Laws: About

Public and private laws are prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). GPO Access contains the text of public and private laws enacted from the 104th Congress to the present. The database for the current session of Congress is updated when the publication of a slip law is authorized by OFR. Documents are available as ASCII text and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Once an enrolled bill is signed by the President, it is assigned a public law number and issued in print as a "slip law." The slip law is an official publication of the law and is admissible as "legal evidence" (1 U.S.C. 113). The OFR assigns the permanent law number and legal statutory citation of each law and prepares marginal notes, citations, and the legislative history (a brief description of the Congressional action taken on each public bill), which also contains dates of related Presidential remarks or statements). The OFR publishes the slip laws through the Congressional Printing Management Division, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).

What is the difference between a public and private law?

  • Public Laws: Most laws passed by Congress are public laws. Public laws affect society as a whole. Public laws citations include the abbreviation, Pub.L., the Congress number (e.g. 107), and the number of the law. For example: Pub.L. 107-006.
  • Private laws: Affect an individual, family, or small group. Private laws are enacted to assist citizens that have been injured by government programs or who are appealing an executive agency ruling such as deportation. Private laws citations include the abbreviation, Pvt.L., the Congress number (e.g. 107), and the number of the law. For example: Pvt.L. 107-006.

Public and private law contains the following information in either the header or side notes:

  • Public law number
  • Date of enactment
  • Bill number
  • Popular name of the law
  • Statutes at Large citation
  • U.S. Code citation

At the end of each session of Congress, the slip laws are compiled into bound volumes called the Statutes at Large, and they are known as "session laws." The Statutes at Large present a chronological arrangement of the laws in the exact order that they have been enacted. Because the text of laws published as public laws and Statutes at Large are the same, there is not a Statutes at Large database on GPO Access. However, users may perform a search by Statutes at Large citation in both the public laws and U.S. Code databases.

Every six years, public laws are incorporated into the United States Code, which is a codification of all general and permanent laws of the United States. The U.S. Code is arranged by subject matter, and it shows the present status of laws that have been amended on one or more occasions. It is maintained as a separate database on GPO Access.