To cite a legislative bill, identify the bill’s title if it has one, the chamber that introduced it (House of Representatives or Senate), the bill number, the number of the Congress, the session year, and a URL to the official record, then format those elements according to APA, MLA, or Chicago style. A legislative bill is a proposed law that has not yet been enacted, so citation guides treat it differently from a statute or act that has already passed. This guide covers the House and Senate bill formats for APA, MLA, and Chicago, plus how to write the matching in-text citation.
A bill only becomes law after both chambers of Congress pass identical versions and the president signs it, so most of the bills you will ever cite are still in progress.
- Bill number (H.R. or S.)
- Congress number
- Session year
- Chamber name
- Bill’s short title, if any
| Element | House Bill | Senate Bill |
|---|---|---|
| Chamber abbreviation | H.R. | S. |
| Bill number format | H.R. 1234 | S. 1234 |
| Congress number | Example: 118th Cong. | Example: 118th Cong. |
| Session | 1st or 2nd session | 1st or 2nd session |
| Where to find the record | Congress.gov, Office of the Clerk | Congress.gov, Senate Legislative Clerk |
How to Cite a Legislative Bill in APA Style
The APA Publication Manual, 7th edition, does not maintain its own legal citation system. For bills, statutes, and other legislative materials, APA style defers to Bluebook format, which is the standard legal citation system used across United States legal disciplines, and layers APA’s reference-list punctuation on top. For a bill that has not yet become law, list the bill’s title if it has one, the chamber abbreviation and number, the Congress number, and the year in parentheses.
APA: House or Senate Bill
Template: Title of bill (if relevant), Chamber abbreviation Bill number, Congress number Cong. (Year). URL
Example: Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, S. 1177, 114th Cong. (2015). https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1177
The act’s short title comes first because this bill has an official name. “S.” marks it as a Senate bill, “114th Cong.” is the Congress number, and the citation closes with the year the bill was introduced, in parentheses.
APA: Bill That Became a Federal Statute
Once a bill passes and is signed into law, cite it as a statute instead of a bill: Title of Act, Public Law number, volume Stat. section or page number (Year). Congress.gov’s own citation tool can generate this format automatically once you search for the enacted bill on its site. If your citation only concerns one section of a longer act, name that section specifically and note the publication or compilation manual you consulted, so your reader can find the exact provision. Before a vote, the relevant congressional committee often publishes a report that explains the bill in detail. Cite that report separately from the bill itself using essayreply’s guide to how to cite a report.
APA: State Bill or Resolution
State bills follow the same element order, but the chamber and Congress fields are replaced with the state legislature’s chamber name and that state’s own bill numbering (for example, Assembly Bill or Senate Bill followed by a state-specific number). For additional APA legal-citation templates covering court cases, statutes, and executive orders, see Purdue OWL’s APA legal references guide. You can also build the reference automatically with essayreply’s APA citation generator.
How to Cite a Legislative Bill in MLA Style
MLA, 9th edition, treats a legislative bill as a government document. The reference list entry opens with the country, then the legislative body and chamber, followed by the bill’s name, the Congress number and session, the bill number, the date, and the URL.
MLA: Federal Bill
Template: United States, Congress, Chamber. Title of Bill. Congress number, session, Bill number, Date, URL.
Worked example: United States, Congress, Senate. Every Child Achieves Act of 2015. 114th Congress, 1st session, Senate Bill 1177, 9 Apr. 2015, www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1177.
MLA: State Bill
For a state bill, replace “United States, Congress” with the state name and its legislature (for example, “California, State Assembly”), and keep the rest of the template the same. MLA’s guidance on citing government and legal documents covers several related source types, including hearings and reports, if your bill citation needs to sit alongside those in the same paper. State legislatures outside Congress follow similar but not identical numbering conventions, so check your specific state’s rules, or essayreply’s guide to how to cite a government website, before finalizing the citation.
How to Cite a Legislative Bill in Chicago Style
Chicago, 17th edition, offers two citation systems, and legislative bills are formatted a little differently in each. Congress assigns a Public Law number only after the president signs a bill into law, so an in-progress bill never carries one. You can generate either Chicago reference automatically with essayreply’s Chicago citation generator.
Chicago Notes-Bibliography: Federal Bill
Note: Chamber, Title of Bill, Congress number Cong., session (Year).
Bibliography: United States. Congress. Chamber. Title of Bill. Congress number Cong., session. Bill number. Year.
Chicago Author-Date: Federal Bill
In-text: (United States Congress, Year)
Reference list: United States Congress. Year. Title of Bill. Congress number Cong., session. Bill number.
In-Text Citations for a Legislative Bill
The in-text format changes with the style you’re using. In APA, reference the bill’s name (or the chamber and number if it has none) and the year in parentheses, for example (Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, 2015). In MLA, most instructors expect a narrative mention of the bill’s short title in quotation marks rather than a parenthetical citation, since MLA in-text citations are built around author names that a bill does not have. In Chicago Notes-Bibliography, use a numbered footnote the first time the bill appears. In Chicago Author-Date, cite (United States Congress, Year) the same way you would cite any other corporate author. For the broader rules behind these patterns, see essayreply’s guide to in-text citation basics or build the reference list entry with the MLA citation generator.
Common Mistakes When Citing a Legislative Bill
These are the errors that show up most often in student reference lists.
- Citing an enacted bill as if it’s still pending. Once a bill becomes law, cite it as a statute using its Public Law number, not the original bill number. See essayreply’s guide to how to cite a law for the statute format.
- Mixing up the House and Senate abbreviations. H.R. belongs to House bills only, and S. belongs to Senate bills only. Swapping them points your reader to the wrong chamber’s record.
- Leaving out the Congress number. Bill numbers reset with every new Congress, so “S. 1177” alone is ambiguous without the Congress number attached.
- Citing the whole act instead of the specific section. If your claim relies on just one section of a longer act, cite that section number so your reader can find the exact provision, not just the act’s name.
Always check your instructor’s or target publication’s specific requirements before you submit, and confirm you’re using the current edition of your citation manual, since legal-citation information and formatting change between editions. Because APA officially defers to Bluebook for legal materials, some law-adjacent courses ask students to use pure Bluebook citations instead of the APA-adapted version shown here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a URL when citing a legislative bill?
A URL is optional in APA, MLA, and Chicago, but recommended whenever the bill is available online, since it lets your reader verify the record on Congress.gov or a state legislature’s site directly. A legislative bill is a primary source, so whenever possible link to the official government source rather than a secondary summary site.
How do I cite a bill that never became law?
Use the same bill template shown above. The citation format for a legislative bill does not change based on whether it eventually passed. Only a bill that is signed into law gets cited as a statute or public law instead.
What is the difference between a bill, an act, and a resolution?
A bill is a proposed law that has not yet passed. An act is a bill that has been passed and signed into law. A resolution expresses an opinion or handles internal legislative business and does not carry the force of law the way an act does. A resolution is never assigned a Public Law number the way an enacted bill is, so a resolution keeps its own resolution number in every citation, whether it passed one chamber or both. You can trace any of the three through the Library of Congress’s legislative history guide if you need to confirm which stage a specific bill reached. For a full walkthrough of the site’s citation tools, visit the citation guide hub.
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Terry is a Chicago-based writer and editor who creates practical, student-friendly guides on essay writing, research, and citation styles (APA, MLA, and Chicago). He’s spent 15+ years editing educational content and building clear examples that help readers apply rules without guessing. When he’s not revising drafts, he’s usually turning messy notes into clean outlines and hunting down the one detail everyone skips.