presents serial archive listings for

United States Statutes at Large

United States Statutes at Large is the official record of laws passed by the United States Congress. The title has varied somewhat over the years. (There is a Wikipedia article about this serial.)

Publication History

United States Statutes at Large began in 1845 as a private publication authorized by Congress, retrospectively covering Congress's public acts since 1789. (The series becomes close to current after the first 9 volumes.) Publication authority shifted to the Government Printing Office in the 1870s. Volumes continue to be printed to this day. They are not subject to copyright at present. Except where noted, dates in the listings here refer to the years of statutes covered, which are typically earlier than the publication dates of the volumes.

Persistent Archives of Complete Issues

• 1789-1950: The Law Library of Congress has volumes 1-64 as searchable PDF files.
• 1951-recent: The US Government Printing Office has volumes 65-128 online as of January 2022. We expect additional volumes to be posted here, but there appears to be a lag of some years between congressional sessions and publication of the official Statutes at Large.
• 1789-recent: HathiTrust has volumes 1, 3-4, 6-36, and 38-125 as of January 2022. Volumes in HathiTrust's listing are dated by year of publication rather than by the years in which statutes were enacted.

Official Site / Current Material

• Congress.gov also has a record of public laws, typically posted within days of enactment. Laws that are not yet available in an online Statutes at Large volume can generally be found here (as well as laws passed since 1973 that are also recorded in the Statutes at Large).

This is a record of a major serial archive. This page is maintained for The Online Books Page. (See our criteria for listing serial archives.) This page has no affiliation with the serial or its publisher.

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