To cite a bill in APA 7th edition, list the italicized bill title, the chamber designation and number (H.R. or S.), the Congress number, the year in parentheses, and a retrieval URL. APA follows The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation for legal references, so the format blends Bluebook conventions with APA’s reference list structure. State bills use the same logic but swap the Congress number for a legislative session and a state abbreviation.
The Federal Bill Template
A federal bill citation has five elements in this order: title, chamber and number, Congress, year, and URL.
Title of Bill, H.R. or S. Bill Number, Number of Congress Cong. (Year). URL
Here is a Senate bill in that format:
We the People Act of 2016, S. 6, 114th Cong. (2016). https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/6
A few details are doing real work. The title is italicized in both the reference list entry and any in-text citation. “H.R.” marks a House bill and “S.” marks a Senate bill. The Congress number is not optional: bill numbers reset every two years when a new Congress convenes, so “S. 6” in the 114th Congress is a completely different bill from “S. 6” in the 117th.
Congress.gov is the standard retrieval source for federal bills, and its URLs follow a predictable pattern: congress.gov/bill/[congress]-congress/[chamber]-bill/[number].1Congress.gov. Citation Guide
In-Text Citations
APA gives you two ways to cite a bill in the body of your paper. Both use the italicized title and the year.
Parenthetical, at the end of the sentence:
The proposed legislation would have overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling (We the People Act, 2016).
Narrative, with only the year in parentheses:
The We the People Act (2016) would have overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling.
For bills with long descriptive titles, the narrative form usually reads better because it keeps the title out of the parentheses. You can introduce the full title once and then use a recognizable shortened version in later mentions, following APA’s general rule for handling long titles with no author.
Bills Without Formal Titles
Plenty of bills never get a short title like “We the People Act.” They are introduced with a long descriptive purpose statement instead. When that is the case, use the descriptive language as the title element:
Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Limiting the Number of Times Senators and Representatives May Be Elected, H.R.J.Res. 105, 112th Cong. (2012). URL
The APA template treats the title as included “if relevant,” so when even a descriptive title is missing or beside the point, you can drop it and open the entry with the bill designation:
H.R. 1234, 118th Cong. (2024). URL
Federal bills also move through several versions on their way through the legislative process. APA does not require you to flag which version you consulted, and linking to the specific version on Congress.gov usually handles that for the reader. If a version difference matters to your argument, note it in the text (for example, “as passed by the Senate”) rather than trying to work it into the reference entry.
Resolutions
Resolutions follow the bill template, but the chamber designation changes to reflect the type of resolution.
- Simple resolution, Senate: S. Res. [number]
- Simple resolution, House: H.R. Res. [number]
- Concurrent resolution, House: H.R. Con. Res. [number]
- Joint resolution, Senate: S.J.Res. [number]
- Joint resolution, House: H.R.J.Res. [number]
An unenacted resolution uses the same structure as a bill:
Expressing the Sense of Congress That the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 Should Be Repealed, H.R. Con. Res. 2, 108th Cong. (2003). URL
Enacted simple and concurrent resolutions get a different treatment because they are not published in the U.S. Code. They appear in the Congressional Record, and the citation must point the reader there. Add the volume and page of the Congressional Record and an “(enacted)” tag:
S. Res. 34, 103rd Cong., 139 Cong. Rec. 1277 (1993) (enacted). URL
H.R. Con. Res. 63, 110th Cong., 153 Cong. Rec. 3843 (2007) (enacted). URL
The in-text citation for an enacted resolution uses the resolution designation and year, such as (S. Res. 34, 1993).
State Bills
State bill citations follow the same logic as federal bills, with state-specific identifiers replacing the Congress number. The general template:
Bill Number, Legislative Session, Session Type (State Abbreviation Year). URL
An Assembly bill from Wisconsin looks like this:
A.B. 582, 2017 Biennium, 2017 Reg. Sess. (Wis. 2017). https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2017/proposals/reg/asm/bill/ab582
Chamber abbreviations vary by state: “A.B.” for Assembly Bill, “S.B.” for Senate Bill, “H.B.” for House Bill, and others depending on the legislature’s own naming. The session designation matters because state legislatures do not number sessions consistently. Some run biennial sessions, some annual, and special sessions add another layer. Give enough detail for a reader to locate the correct session.
State bills often lack a formal short title, particularly at the committee stage. When there is no title, start the entry with the bill designation, as in the Wisconsin example. The in-text citation uses the bill number and year: (A.B. 582, 2017).
For the URL, link directly to the bill text on the state legislature’s official website. State URLs are less standardized than Congress.gov links, so verify that yours reaches the specific bill rather than a search page or session index.
When the Bill Has Been Signed Into Law
Once a bill passes both chambers and is signed, the bill citation is obsolete. You cite it as a statute instead, because the law now lives in the United States Code rather than under a temporary bill number.
The reference list template for a codified federal statute is:
Name of Act, Title Number U.S.C. § Section Number (Year). URL
For example:
Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. (1990).
“Et seq.” (Latin for “and the following”) indicates that the law spans multiple consecutive sections starting at 12101; use it when the act covers a broad stretch of the code rather than a single section. The year in parentheses is the year of the code edition you consulted, not necessarily the year the law was originally enacted. The U.S. Code organizes federal laws by subject across 54 titles.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Detailed Guide to the United States Code Content and Features
Some enacted laws are not cleanly codified into a single U.S.C. location, either because they are recent or because they are scattered across non-consecutive sections. In those cases, cite by public law number and location in the United States Statutes at Large:
Name of Act, Pub. L. No. [number], [volume] Stat. [page] (Year). URL
For example:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-2, 123 Stat. 5 (2009).
The public law number 111-2 means this was the second law enacted by the 111th Congress, and “123 Stat. 5” means it starts on page 5 of volume 123 of the Statutes at Large. When a clean U.S.C. citation exists, prefer it; fall back to the public law format when codification is incomplete or fragmented.
Common Mistakes
The most frequent error is citing an enacted law as though it were still a bill; once legislation is signed, switch to the statute format. Another is omitting the Congress or session number, which makes the bill impossible to identify because numbers recycle. And italicizing the bill title is easy to forget in both the reference list and in-text citations, which is a simple slip that costs points in academic work.