Federal Legislative History: How to Update a Federal Statute Using Official Sources

The United States Code KF62 2018 .A2 – located on the 1st floor in the law library, is the official version of the federal statutes. The official U.S. Code is published by the Government Publishing Office (GPO).  It is available on GovInfo.gov in PDF format. HeinOnline also has the official U.S. Code in PDF format.  If you are sourcing and validating a federal statute, you must check for the full chronology of updates to your statutory section from the last official edition of the statutes to the current day.  How to update a federal statute properly and how the official publication process works is explained here. 

Keep in mind that HeinOnline has PDFs of each U.S. Code edition and its official supplements since the U.S. Code began. You can look at the U.S. Code editions on the shelves in the reference area or study the coverage of the supplements in HeinOnline to get a better understanding of the publication structure of U.S. Code editions.

To confirm the validity, changes, and currency of federal statutory language in the U.S. Code for law review citations: You must update the official version of the statute (and any published supplements if necessary), to the current date, using only official sources. Care must be used to make sure you end up with the most up-to-date, officially sourced version of the statutory language you are validating.

The official version of the United States Code is updated every six years.  The most recently published fully complete U.S. Code is the 2018 edition. All 54 Titles of the 2018 edition of the U.S. Code have been officially published and the main edition volumes for the titles are current through the end of 2018.  These titles of the 2018 Code edition are online in HeinOnline and GovInfo.gov. and on the shelves in the Eckstein library in reference.  

There are five Supplements to the 2018 Code as of right now.

Supplement I (Roman numerals are used) is in one volume and covers all U.S. Code Title updates enacted between January 3, 2019, and January 24, 2020.  You can find the 2018 Supplement I in PDF on HeinOnline at the end of list of contents in the 2018 Edition, and in print on the shelves in the library.  It is also available in PDF at GovInfo.gov.

Supplement II is in three volumes: Vol. I Titles 1-15, Vol. II Titles 16-38, and Vol. III Titles 39-54. While the U.S. Code Supplements are not always cumulative (always check); Supplement II does contain everything that was in Supplement I, plus the new material.  Supplement II covers statutory changes through 1/13/2021.

Supplement III is in four chronological volumes by title number and is cumulative for Titles 1-54  for the period of January 3, 2019 to January 2, 2022.  So, that means you can check the Supplement III volumes to update from the original 2018 U.S. Code set, through January 2, 2022.  

Supplement IV updates Supplement III in six chronological volumes by title number, updating Titles 1-54 and the Index to the U.S. Code cumulatively for changes between January 3, 2019 to January 5, 2023.

!!! Supplement V of the U.S. Code is cumulative and includes the statutory updates that occurred since the publication of the 2018 U.S. Code set, covering January 3, 2019-January 3, 2024.  First, check the original 2018 Edition set for your statutory section and retrieve its language. Then, consult Supplement V to determine if something has changed. IMPORTANT: For changes after 1/3/2024, you must look online at the House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel (OLRC) website.  

NOTE: While you must check the original 2018 Edition first, you will not find the statute if it was enacted after the 2018 set first was published. But you must start there to ensure you have determined whether the section existed at that point in time. Then, proceed to Supplement V, and finally, to the House of Representatives OLRC site.

USE THE INFORMATION YOU READ HERE, AND FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW TO UPDATE YOUR STATUTE.

To update a section of the U.S. Code to the current date, using only official sources, follow these steps:

1. Start with the 2018 series set. Find the statutory Title & section(s) for your citation in the full edition of the official Code. Carefully read the section(s) you need and save the language.  If the statute you need is not there, it may have been enacted more recently than 2018.  

2. Next, check the Supplements to the 2018 edition (see the description, above). If Supplements have your statute's amendments or updates (like a repeal), capture that language.  At this point in time, Supplement V has been published and is cumulative for all the U.S. Code Titles 1-54 in the 2018 edition. If the 2024 edition of the official U.S. Code begins rolling out, you can look for your Title and section in the 2024 edition. But you still need to update that online at the OLRC site, to be sure you have no gaps in the statutory language to the current date.

3. Consult the United States Code Classification Tables on the House of Representatives Office of the Law Revision Counsel (OLRC) website, to capture anything that occurred with your statute between January 3, 2024, and now. The tables are designated by calendar year, and each year's table lists any sections of the U.S. Code that have been amended by public laws in that year. These tables are not cumulative beyond the calendar year.

Search the table named “Sorted in U.S. Code order” for each year that you need between the last officially updated version of the title/section and the current date.  

The Law Revision Counsel U.S. Code website is current within a few days. Check the Currency & Updating tab. If Congress is in session when you are updating, you can check Congress.gov to see if any pending bills in the legislature might affect your statute. Always keep accurate notes and date them.

In each year that you need to update in the OLRC tables, look for the U.S. Code title and section in chronological order in the table. Locate your title and section and read across to find parallel citations to the Public Law(s) and corresponding Statutes at Large volume(s) and section(s) that amended the code section that year. If nothing is listed for your title and section, there was no amendment that year. Make a note of the date you looked at the classification table, so anyone can tell the last date you checked it.

4. If you find an amending public law listed in the table for your code section, you can link to the public law from the table. The number before the hyphen in the P.L. number indicates in which session of Congress the law was passed. You may see a link in the Statutes-at-Large column that takes you to the public law. If there is no live link in the table for the public law, you can locate it by its citation on GovInfo.gov, or Congress.gov. You must get an official PDF of any Public Law you need for the update. 

5. Ask your editors, and consult the Bluebook, to decide whether an amended section found in a supplement volume should be cited for a statutory change, or if the amending public law should simply be cited. Usually, the public law will be cited as the amending version.

  Sometimes, an author may want to cite the Statutes at Large citation for the amending language, instead of  the public law. This is an editorial decision for you and your editors. 

You can find the official public laws in PDF on Congress.gov, GovInfo.gov, and on ProQuest Congressional.  Official versions of the Statutes at Large are available in HeinOnline beginning in 1789.

Rev. 7/30/2025