U.S. Code - Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I find X, which was just signed into law?

This version is generated from the most recent official version made available by the US House of Representatives.  For exact information about the currency of any particular title as it is published by the House, see the listing on the House server.  The date of any text appearing on this site appears in italics at the upper right in every Code section. For more on the codification process, see the Office of the Law Revision Counsel's codification page.

So how do I know the currency of this material?

Each section is dated at the upper right corner of the text; these date the text itself as we receive it from the House, and are not the date on which we loaded the text. At this point we are not sure how often the House will issue new versions of this information to the public. Any new version issued by the House will in turn be mounted here within 24 hours. (This is not an absolute guarantee. From time to time, and without warning, the House makes changes in the format and structure of the text they make available for download. This can and does cause us to rewrite our own formatting software, hopefully with minimal delay.) In the meantime we suggest the use of the update feature available in each section.

• Our convenient update service (available onscreen as you look at each section) integrates the services of the House servers and of the Library of Congress Thomas service to supply you with accurate updates to any section which has changed.

Find US Code Materials by Title and Section

If you know the citation for the US Code material you want to find, fill in the title and section numbers below. (eg. 22 USC 1501 would be Title 22, Section 1501). You need to fill in both title and section.

Ways to access material

• Listing of all Titles
• Table of Popular Names containing the popular names of many laws (eg. the Wild Horse Annie Act)
• via a form which permits you to look up specific sections. This is particularly useful if you have a cite (eg. 14 USC 1225)
• via our search engine

Note that the United States Code is a VERY large document.  It is much faster -- and kinder to other users of the system -- if you limit your text searches to a particular area (Title) of the Code.  To do so, go first to the listing of all Titles and choose the Title you want; then, use the text-search link on the overview page for that Title to do your search.