Government regulation can be measured through the number of rules published, the pages devoted to them, their estimated costs, and the quality of review before adoption. Recent U.S. and OECD data show substantial variation across years and across stages of the regulatory process.
Contents
- Federal Register volume
- Final and proposed rules
- Major rules and the 60-day delay
- Regulatory impact assessment
- Small-business impacts
- Paperwork and federal costs
Federal Register volume
The Federal Register’s annual page count provides a broad measure of the amount of regulatory and administrative material published by the U.S. government. It is a publication-volume measure, not a direct measure of regulatory cost or economic effect. The Federal Register reported 90,402 total pages in 2023, including 89,368 actual pages after blank and skip pages were removed. The 2023 figures are from the publication’s annual 1976–2023 table. (Federal Register, “Federal Register Total Pages Annual Percentage Change 1976–2023”)
Recent annual totals were:
- 80,757 total pages in 2022, an 8.35% increase from 2021.
- 74,532 pages in 2021, a 14.67% decrease from 2020.
- 87,349 pages in 2020, a 54.49% increase from 2019.
- 72,566 pages in 2019, a 14.51% increase from 2018.
The longer historical series also shows that annual page counts do not move in a straight line. In 2000, rules occupied 24,482 pages and proposed rules occupied 17,943 pages. Rules occupied 24,914 pages in 2010, then reached 38,652 pages in 2016, the highest annual rules-page count in the 1976–2023 table. The rules-page count fell to 18,869 in 2017, a 51.18% decrease from 2016. These are counts of printed Federal Register pages, so they should not be interpreted as counts of individual regulations. (Federal Register, “Federal Register Total Pages Annual Percentage Change 1976–2023”)
Final and proposed rules
Document counts provide a different view from page counts. Agencies published 3,018 final rules and 2,102 proposed rules in the Federal Register in 2023. In 2022, the corresponding counts were 3,168 final rules and 2,044 proposed rules. In 2021, agencies published 3,257 final rules and 2,094 proposed rules. The 2020 totals were 3,353 final rules and 2,149 proposed rules, while 2019 had 2,964 final rules and 2,132 proposed rules. (Federal Register, “Federal Register Documents Published per Category 1976–2023”)
The historical comparison below places recent years beside two earlier reference points.
| Year | Final rules | Proposed rules |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 4,313 | 2,636 |
| 2010 | 3,573 | 2,439 |
| 2016 | 3,853 | 2,419 |
| 2017 | 3,281 | 1,837 |
| 2023 | 3,018 | 2,102 |
The 2000, 2010, 2016, and 2017 counts come from the same Federal Register historical table. In 2016, agencies published 3,853 final rules and 2,419 proposed rules. In 2017, they published 3,281 final rules and 1,837 proposed rules. The difference between page counts and document counts matters: a year with fewer documents can still contain lengthy rules, while a year with more documents can contain shorter publications. (Federal Register, “Federal Register Documents Published per Category 1976–2023”)
Major rules and the 60-day delay
Major rules are a narrower category than all final rules. For the period from January 21, 2021, through January 20, 2025, the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified 462 major rules. Of those, 119, or 26%, had stated effective dates inconsistent with the Congressional Review Act’s 60-day delay. (GAO, “Congressional Review Act: Agencies and Congress Could Improve Implementation of 60-Day Delay for Major Rules”)
Agencies claimed a Congressional Review Act exception for 82 of the 462 major rules. Those claims included 70 good-cause claims and 12 hunting, fishing, or camping claims. Among the 119 rules with inconsistent effective dates, 19 provided 56–59 days of delay, 57 provided 30–55 days, and 43 provided fewer than 30 days. The categories describe the stated delay periods in GAO’s review; they do not by themselves establish why a particular rule was issued or whether an exception was legally valid. (GAO, “Congressional Review Act: Agencies and Congress Could Improve Implementation of 60-Day Delay for Major Rules”)
The Department of Health and Human Services issued 105 of the 462 major rules and accounted for 53 of the 119 major rules with inconsistent effective dates. The four-year review contained 93 major rules in year one, 83 in year two, 101 in year three, and 185 in year four. The share with inconsistent effective dates was 20% in year one, 33% in year two, 31% in year three, and 23% in year four. (GAO, “Congressional Review Act: Agencies and Congress Could Improve Implementation of 60-Day Delay for Major Rules”)
Regulatory impact assessment
The OECD measures regulatory impact assessment, or RIA, using a 0–4 quality score and separate 0–1 components. For primary laws, the OECD average quality score rose from 2.1 in 2014 to 2.3 in 2024. RIA practices for primary laws improved in 22 of 33 OECD countries with available data, plus the European Union, between 2014 and 2024. (OECD, “Regulatory impact assessment: Government at a Glance 2025”)
Across OECD countries in 2024, the primary-law RIA methodology component averaged 0.65 out of 1. Systematic adoption averaged 0.76, transparency averaged 0.53, and oversight and quality control averaged 0.40. These component scores show that adoption was stronger than transparency and oversight in the reported averages. (OECD, “Regulatory impact assessment: Government at a Glance 2025”)
The OECD’s subordinate-regulation results were somewhat lower in both the starting and ending average quality scores. The average rose from 1.9 in 2014 to 2.2 in 2024. Practices improved in 20 of 35 countries with available data, plus the European Union. In 2024, methodology averaged 0.58 out of 1 and systematic adoption averaged 0.71 out of 1. (OECD, “Regulatory impact assessment: Government at a Glance 2025”)
Small-business impacts
GAO analyzed 283 final rules deemed significant under Executive Order 12866 and published in fiscal years 2022–2023. Of those rules, 195 had a proposed rulemaking and were subject to Regulatory Flexibility Act requirements. Agencies certified in 142 of those 195 proposed rules, or 73%, that there would be no significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. (GAO, “Regulatory Flexibility Act: Improved Policies for Analysis and Training Could Enhance Compliance”)
The same review found that 88 of the 283 significant final rules did not have a proposed rulemaking, and 13 were joint rules issued by more than one agency. Four selected agencies published 30% of the significant final rules and conducted 36% of the regulatory flexibility analyses in the review. The figures describe the GAO sample and review period, not every federal rule or every small business. (GAO, “Regulatory Flexibility Act: Improved Policies for Analysis and Training Could Enhance Compliance”)
By agency, HHS published 52 significant final rules in fiscal years 2022–2023, the highest count in GAO’s table. The Department of Transportation published 26, the Environmental Protection Agency published 23, the Department of Commerce published 22, and the Small Business Administration published 16. (GAO, “Regulatory Flexibility Act: Improved Policies for Analysis and Training Could Enhance Compliance”)
Paperwork and federal costs
Information collections capture a major compliance channel that page and document counts do not. OIRA’s inventory dated September 30, 2026, listed 10,794 active OMB control numbers for approved information collections. Those collections represented 188,858,167,366 total annual responses government-wide, 11,504,412,358 total annual hours, and $203,090,485,999 in total annual cost. These inventory figures are for approved information collections and the stated measurement date. (OIRA, “Inventory of Currently Approved Information Collections”)
Separate GAO analysis examined 153 major rules published from January 20, 2021, through June 3, 2023, for its Fiscal Responsibility Act review. Agencies discussed costs in 129 of the 153 rules. Twenty-eight rules were estimated to increase federal costs by at least $1 billion over their first 10 years, and seven were estimated to increase federal costs by at least $100 million in each of their first 10 years. Four had direct mandatory spending estimated to meet both federal-cost thresholds. (GAO, “Federal Rulemaking: Potential Effects of Legislation to Offset Direct Spending Resulting from Regulations”)
For the 28 major rules reviewed after the Fiscal Responsibility Act, agencies’ estimated federal costs ranged from $0 to $156 billion. The range reflects agency estimates for the reviewed rules and should not be treated as a single total cost for all regulation. (GAO, “Federal Rulemaking: Potential Effects of Legislation to Offset Direct Spending Resulting from Regulations”)