Public Law Number

In the United States, a Public Law Number is the citation assigned to a bill once it has been enacted into law and signed by the President (or passed over a veto, or allowed to become law without signature). The number follows the format Pub. L. No. [Congress]–[sequence] — for example, Pub. L. No. 117–169 indicates the 169th public law enacted during the 117th Congress (the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022).

Public law numbers are assigned by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) at the National Archives in the order laws are enacted within each two-year Congress. The numbering resets at the start of every new Congress. The OFR also publishes the official slip law — the first standalone pamphlet version of the statute — before the text is later compiled into the United States Statutes at Large and eventually codified (where appropriate) into the United States Code.

Public laws are distinguished from private laws, which apply to specific individuals or entities (often immigration relief or claims against the government) and receive a separate "Pvt. L." numbering series. Both series have existed since the 1901 reorganization of federal statute publication.

For researchers and delegates, the public law number is the most stable identifier for a piece of US legislation because:

• Bill numbers (H.R. or S.) change between Congresses and do not indicate enactment.
• U.S.C. citations may be split across multiple titles and sections, and uncodified provisions never appear there at all.
• Statutes at Large citations (e.g., 136 Stat. 1818) are page-based and tied to the public law.

A typical full citation chain reads: Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Pub. L. No. 117–169, 136 Stat. 1818. Knowing the public law number lets a researcher quickly retrieve the enacted text from Congress.gov, GovInfo, or the Statutes at Large, including provisions that were never codified into the U.S. Code.