To cite Congress.gov in Bluebook, APA, or MLA, match the document type — bill, public law, committee report, Congressional Record entry, or hearing — to that style’s rules, because the three styles arrange the same underlying metadata in noticeably different ways. A bill citation that looks right in Bluebook will look wrong in APA, and a Congressional Record page number pulled from the site follows a format that most researchers get subtly wrong. The sections below walk through each document type with all three styles shown together.
What to Pull From the Page First
Every bill and resolution page on Congress.gov shows the bill number (such as H.R. 2245 or S. 347), the Congress number (such as 119th Congress), and the chamber of origin in the page header. The “Actions” tab shows key dates, including introduction and most recent activity. If the bill became law, the “Public Law” designation and its Statutes at Large citation (volume and page) appear on the overview tab.
The URL in your address bar works as the permalink for APA and MLA. Congress.gov bill URLs follow a predictable pattern that encodes the Congress number, chamber, and bill number.1Congress.gov. About Legislation and Law Text For the Congressional Record and committee reports, the volume, page, and report numbers appear directly on the document page.
Bills and Resolutions
Unenacted legislation is cited as a bill or resolution, not as a law. The chamber prefix tells the reader where it originated: “S.” for Senate bills, “H.R.” for House bills, “S. Res.” and “H. Res.” for simple resolutions, “S.J. Res.” and “H.J. Res.” for joint resolutions, and “S. Con. Res.” and “H. Con. Res.” for concurrent resolutions.2U.S. Senate. Key to Legislative Citations
Bluebook
Under Rule 13, a Bluebook bill citation begins with the short title (if any), then the chamber abbreviation and number, the Congress, any section cited, and the year in parentheses:
Protection from Personal Intrusion Act, H.R. 2448, 105th Cong. § 2(a) (1997).
If the bill has no commonly known short title, start with the chamber prefix: S. 347, 119th Cong. (2025).
APA
APA 7th edition uses the same core order but appends the Congress.gov URL:
ZZZ’s to A’s Act, H.R. 2245, 115th Cong. (2017). https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2245
APA treats legislative materials like case citations in the text. Use the first element of the reference entry and the year: (ZZZ’s to A’s Act, 2017), or (H.R. 2245, 2017) if there is no short title.
MLA
MLA 9th edition treats the bill as a work inside the Congress.gov container. Begin with “United States, Congress,” add the chamber spelled out, then the italicized title, the site name, the URL, and the identifying details:
United States, Congress, House. ZZZ’s to A’s Act. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2245. 115th Congress, House Bill 2245, Introduced 1 May 2017.
In-text, MLA shortens this to (United States, Congress, House). Add the bill title in parentheses if you cite more than one bill from the same chamber.
Congress.gov labels bill text versions with suffixes such as “IS” (introduced in Senate), “IH” (introduced in House), “EH” and “ES” (engrossed), and “ENR” (enrolled).3U.S. Senate. Key to Versions of Printed Legislation None of the three styles require you to include the suffix, but a parenthetical like “(as introduced)” or “(as engrossed)” helps readers locate the exact text if you are comparing versions.
Public Laws
Once a bill is signed, it receives a Public Law number and is published in the United States Statutes at Large. Most laws are eventually organized by subject into the United States Code, which gives you a second citation option.
Bluebook
Under Rule 12, cite a session law by name, Public Law number, section (if any), and Statutes at Large volume and page:
Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 118-273, 138 Stat. 3232.
Once codified, the Bluebook generally prefers the U.S. Code version: 17 U.S.C. § 107 (2018). The date is the year printed on the code volume you consulted, not the year of enactment.
APA
APA lists the law name, public law number, Statutes at Large citation, year, and URL:
Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 118-273, 138 Stat. 3232 (2024). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/82
In-text: (Social Security Fairness Act, 2024), or (Pub. L. No. 118-273, 2024) if there is no common name.
MLA
MLA treats the government as author and identifies the public law number as the primary label:
United States, Congress. Social Security Fairness Act of 2023. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/82. Public Law 118-273.
Include the Statutes at Large volume when Congress.gov displays it. In-text: (United States, Congress).
Statutes at Large or U.S. Code?
The Statutes at Large publishes laws in enactment order, preserving the text as signed. The U.S. Code reorganizes that text by subject into titles and sections.4GovInfo. Public and Private Laws Cite the Statutes at Large when discussing the law as a whole or its original passage. Cite the U.S. Code for a specific provision as it currently reads, including later amendments.
Committee Reports
Committee reports explain why Congress passed a law and how its provisions are meant to work, and courts rely on them when interpreting ambiguous statutory language.5U.S. Government Publishing Office. U.S. Congressional Serial Set – House and Senate Reports
Bluebook
Rule 13.4 identifies a report by chamber abbreviation, report number, pinpoint page, and year:
H.R. Rep. No. 98-1037, at 3 (1984).
Senate reports follow the same pattern: S. Rep. No. 95-797, at 4 (1978). Add “(Conf. Rep.)” for a conference report. The first number is the Congress; the second is the report’s sequential number within that Congress.
APA
APA places the committee in the author position and puts the report number in parentheses after the title:
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Gun Control, Veterans Benefits, and Mental Incompetency Determinations (H.R. Rep. No. 110-818). (2021). https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/110th-congress/house-report/818
In-text: (House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 2021).
MLA
MLA lists the committee within the government hierarchy:
United States, Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Gun Control, Veterans Benefits, and Mental Incompetency Determinations. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/congressional-report/110th-congress/house-report/818. 110th Congress, House Report 818.
In-text: (United States, Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 5).
The Congressional Record
The Congressional Record publishes transcripts of everything said on the House and Senate floor. It appears in two editions with different pagination, and mixing them up is one of the most common citation errors.
Daily Edition vs. Permanent Bound Edition
The daily edition is what appears on Congress.gov and in legal databases. Its pages carry a letter prefix: “S” for Senate proceedings, “H” for House, “E” for extensions of remarks, “D” for the daily digest.6Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. An Overview of the Congressional Record and Its Predecessor Publications – Citing to the Congressional Record The permanent bound edition is published after a session ends, uses consecutive page numbers without prefixes, and does not share pagination with the daily edition at all.
The Bluebook requires the permanent bound edition whenever available, and permits the daily edition only when the bound volume has not yet appeared. Because the bound edition can take years to publish, and because Westlaw and Lexis carry only daily pagination, the daily edition format is by far the more common one in practice.
Bluebook
Daily edition: volume, “Cong. Rec.,” page with letter prefix, “(daily ed.” plus date), and optionally a speaker parenthetical:
131 Cong. Rec. S11,465-66 (daily ed. Sept. 13, 1985) (statement of Sen. Wallop).
Permanent bound edition: drop the “daily ed.” parenthetical and the letter prefix: 123 Cong. Rec. 17,147 (1977).
APA
APA uses volume, page, and session year, mirroring Bluebook structure:
159 Cong. Rec. H227 (2013). https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record
In-text: (159 Cong. Rec. H227, 2013).
MLA
MLA treats each entry like an article in a periodical. For a specific speech, put the speaker in the author position:
Wallop, Malcolm. “Statement on Energy Policy.” Congressional Record, vol. 131, 13 Sept. 1985, p. S11465. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/congressional-record.
If no individual speaker is identified, use the topic or entry title. In-text: (Wallop S11465).
Congressional Hearings
Hearing transcripts capture witness testimony and member questioning, and they document the evidence Congress considered before acting.
Bluebook
Under Rule 13.3, include the full hearing title as it appears on the cover, the bill number if relevant, the abbreviated subcommittee and committee names, the Congress, the pinpoint page, and the year:
Promoting the Use of Orphan Works: Balancing the Interests of Copyright Owners and Users: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Prop., 110th Cong. 52 (2008) (statement of Corinne P. Kevorkian).
The speaker parenthetical belongs at the end when you are citing one witness rather than the hearing as a whole.
APA
For the full hearing, start with the title and add the Congress and year:
Promoting the Use of Orphan Works: Balancing the Interests of Copyright Owners and Users, 110th Cong. (2008). https://www.congress.gov/event/110th-congress/house-event/example
For individual testimony, add a speaker parenthetical after the year:
Promoting the Use of Orphan Works, 110th Cong. (2008) (testimony of Corinne P. Kevorkian). [URL]
In-text: (Promoting the Use of Orphan Works, 2008).
MLA
When citing one witness, MLA places the witness in the author position:
Kaiser, Karen. Testimony of Karen Kaiser, General Counsel, the Associated Press, on behalf of the Sunshine in Government Initiative before the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate. 6 May 2015, www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05-06-15%20Kaiser%20Testimony.pdf.
When citing the whole hearing, use “United States, Congress” as author and the hearing title as the work, following the container structure used for other congressional documents.
Mistakes to Avoid
The most frequent error is citing a bill number for legislation that already became law. If the bill was enacted, cite the public law or the codified U.S. Code section instead. Citing “H.R. 82” for what is now Pub. L. No. 118-273 sends your reader to a draft rather than the final text.
The second common problem is mixing up Congressional Record editions. Any page number you pull from Congress.gov or a legal database is from the daily edition. Do not format it as if it came from the permanent bound edition by dropping the letter prefix and the “daily ed.” parenthetical — the page numbers do not match, and a reader will land on the wrong page.
Dates trip people up across all three styles. The Bluebook date for a bill is the year of the congressional session, not the day you accessed Congress.gov. For APA and MLA, the publication or session year remains the primary date even when an access date is relevant. And under Bluebook rules, the date for a U.S. Code citation is the year of the code edition you consulted, not the year the statute was enacted.