Office of the Federal Register

What Office of the Federal Register does

The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) is a U.S. federal government agency, established by the Federal Register Act of 1935 and operating under the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Its statutory function is to prepare and publish the Federal Register, the official daily journal of the U.S. federal government, which carries presidential documents, executive orders, proposed rules, final rules, and notices issued by federal agencies. OFR also publishes the Code of Federal Regulations and manages the public inspection system that previews documents one business day before official publication. Its primary operating customer base consists of the executive departments and agencies required by law to publish regulatory actions, while its downstream audience comprises citizens, legal professionals, researchers, and regulated entities who need access to those documents.

The OFR's core product is FederalRegister.gov, a digital platform that serves as a prototype "Web 2.0" version of the daily Federal Register. Each document on the site is an XML rendition of the published Federal Register document, with a corresponding official PDF hosted on the Government Publishing Office's (GPO) govinfo.gov. The platform provides a combined search and navigation "omni box" that recognizes document numbers, RIN numbers, agency acronyms, dates, FR citations, and document types, along with enhanced sub-type filters for Sunshine Act Meeting Notices and System of Records Notices. Developer resources include JSON and XML APIs and MODS metadata. The database contains over 1 million searchable documents dating from 1994. Recent investments in 2024 added the omni-box search, accessibility and UX improvements, and enhanced notice sub-type search.

OFR does not operate a commercial revenue model. The Federal Register is provided free to the public as a statutory government service, and the agency is funded through federal appropriations administered through NARA. No pricing, advertising, subscription fees, or commercial transactions exist on the platform. The agency's "distribution" is structured around an OFR/GPO partnership in which GPO supplies the official authoritative PDF versions on govinfo.gov and FederalRegister.gov provides the enhanced XML-based web experience, with both parties working toward ACFR-sanctioned official legal status for the XML edition.

Name

Office of the Federal Register

Legal name

Office of the Federal Register

Website

https://federalregister.gov

Company type

Public

Founded year

1935

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Office of the Federal Register is a U.S. federal agency under NARA that publishes the daily Federal Register, providing federal agencies with statutory publishing services and the public with free access to regulatory and presidential documents via FederalRegister.gov.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Government Regulatory Publishing

NAICS

Other General Government Support (92119)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721)

akta.pro primary industry

Government & Public Policy Publishing (Regulations, Gazettes, Legislative Tracking) (MPAJACAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Government, Public Policy & Regulatory Reference (Public Administration, Regulatory Guidance) (EDAGAGAK), Registrar, Records & Institutional Data Stewardship (EDADAKAE)

Keywords

• Regulatory document publishing
• Federal regulatory notices
• Government transparency
• Public records access
• Rulemaking publications

Headquarters

HQ city

Seattle

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

The Office of the Federal Register prepares and publishes the daily Federal Register through the FederalRegister.gov web platform, providing official public notice of federal regulatory actions including presidential documents, executive orders, proposed rules, final rules, and agency notices. The platform offers XML-based document renditions, an advanced search system covering over one million documents, public inspection previews of forthcoming issues, and free developer API access in JSON, XML, and MODS formats, partnering with the Government Publishing Office (GPO) for authoritative PDF distribution.

Product overview

The Federal Register is a single unified platform providing official publication of federal government documents. The core offering is the FederalRegister.gov website, which serves as an unofficial informational resource for the daily Federal Register until granted official legal status by the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (ACFR). The platform includes document search functionality, public inspection previews, and developer resources. Documents are provided as XML renditions with links to official PDFs on govinfo.gov. The platform is maintained through a partnership between OFR and GPO.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• FederalRegister.gov The primary web platform providing free public access to Federal Register documents, displaying XML renditions of published documents with links to corresponding official PDF files on govinfo.gov. Serves federal agencies, legal professionals, researchers, and the general public as an unofficial informational resource until the ACFR grants it official legal status.
• Public Inspection Public inspection preview system for documents scheduled to appear in the next day's Federal Register issue, allowing public and regulated entities advance access to important or complex documents before official publication.
• Developer Resources and API Free developer API providing programmatic access to Federal Register documents in JSON, XML, and MODS metadata formats, enabling third-party developers to integrate federal regulatory data into applications, compliance tools, and research platforms.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Government Publishing Office (GPO)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe OFR/GPO partnership is committed to presenting accurate and reliable regulatory information on FederalRegister.gov with the objective of establishing the XML-based Federal Register as an ACFR-sanctioned publication. GPO provides official PDF versions on govinfo.gov, while FederalRegister.gov provides the enhanced web interface.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Regional players

• The London Gazette: The UK's official public record, used historically and currently for statutory notices, insolvency, and government announcements. It is a functional peer in the 'official journal' category, operating under a different legal jurisdiction but with the same mandate.
• Publications Office of the European Union: Publishes the Official Journal of the European Union, the closest international analog to the Federal Register. Both serve as the official periodical publication for their jurisdiction's regulatory and legislative acts, making them directly comparable in mission even though they do not compete.
• California Office of Administrative Law (OAL): Reviews and publishes California state agency regulations in the California Regulatory Notice Register and the California Code of Regulations. Functions as a state-level analogue to OFR within its jurisdiction.
• Public Services and Procurement Canada — Canada Gazette: Publishes the Canada Gazette, the official federal government publication for regulations, statutory notices, and parliamentary documents. Directly comparable in role and structure to the Federal Register.

Broad incumbents

• Bloomberg Government: Provides regulatory and legislative intelligence built on top of public records including the Federal Register. Comparable because it offers the workflow, analytics, and tracking layer that OFR does not, capturing downstream value from OFR's content.
• Westlaw (Thomson Reuters): A broad incumbent legal research platform that aggregates the Federal Register (along with state registers, case law, and secondary sources) and layers on search, alerting, and analytics. Compares because it competes for the same end-user attention, even though it sources data from OFR.

Emerging players

• FiscalNote: A SaaS regulatory and policy tracking platform that ingests Federal Register and state-level regulatory feeds. Comparable as an emerging tech-enabled competitor that repackages OFR's content into subscription products for compliance and government affairs teams.
• Regology: An emerging regtech platform that provides AI-driven regulatory monitoring and mapping, sourcing data from federal and state regulatory publications. Comparable as a next-generation alternative that competes for compliance-team attention versus raw document publication.

Others

• U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO): GPO is OFR's core publishing partner and operates govinfo.gov, which hosts the official PDF versions of Federal Register documents. It is functionally intertwined with OFR through the OFR/GPO partnership and is the only entity with parallel statutory publishing authority for federal documents.
• National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): NARA is the parent agency of OFR and provides institutional oversight, appropriations, and archival mission alignment. Comparing OFR to NARA highlights the governance and funding structure within which OFR operates rather than direct competition.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/FedRegister
• Facebookfacebook.com/FederalRegister

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Office of the Federal Register