Enrolled Bill

An enrolled bill is the clean, authenticated text of legislation that has cleared every procedural hurdle in a bicameral legislature and is being transmitted to the head of state or government for signature, veto, or promulgation. In the United States Congress, after the House and Senate agree on identical language—either by one chamber accepting the other's version or through a conference committee report—the measure is printed on parchment (or, more recently, high-quality paper), certified by the Clerk of the House or Secretary of the Senate depending on chamber of origin, and signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate (the Vice President or President pro tempore) before being sent to the President.

Enrollment is distinct from engrossment, which refers to the official version of a bill as passed by a single chamber. A bill may be engrossed multiple times during the legislative process but is enrolled only once, at the very end.

The concept matters legally because of the enrolled bill rule, articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892). Under that doctrine, courts treat the signed enrolled bill as conclusive evidence that the legislation was properly passed; judges generally will not look behind the attestation to examine journals, committee records, or procedural irregularities. Several U.S. states follow variants of this rule, while others apply a "journal entry" rule allowing judicial review of legislative records.

Parallel concepts exist in other systems. In the United Kingdom, the equivalent stage is preparation of the vellum copy for Royal Assent. In the Philippines, the enrolled bill doctrine was affirmed in Arroyo v. De Venecia, G.R. No. 127255 (1997). For MUN delegates and policy researchers, identifying whether a text is a draft, engrossed version, or enrolled bill is essential when citing legislation, since only the enrolled version carries legal force once signed.