How to cite a government document or report
Government documents — agency reports, legislation, court cases, hearings, UN papers — are essential primary sources but follow conventions that differ by jurisdiction. This guide covers US, UK, EU, and UN material in APA, MLA, and Chicago, plus brief notes on Bluebook and OSCOLA for legal citations.
What information you need
Government documents are messier than journal articles because the structure varies by jurisdiction and document type. At minimum you need: the issuing agency (often the author), year, document title, report or document number (if any), publisher, and the URL for online access.
Different document categories carry different fields:
Reports: agency, title, report number, publisher.
Legislation: bill or act number, jurisdiction, year.
Hearings/testimony: committee name, congress/parliament number, witness, date.
Court cases: case name, reporter, court, year.
Statistics: agency, dataset name, year, retrieval URL.
How to cite a government document in APA 7
Agency report
Agency. (Year). Title of report (Report No. xxx). Publisher. URL
National Institute of Mental Health. (2023). Mental illness (NIH Publication No. 23-MH-8082). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness
Legislation
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010). https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/3590
Court case (APA references the Bluebook)
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
How to cite a government document in MLA 9
MLA treats the issuing body as the author. If multiple government bodies are involved (e.g., U.S. Congress, House Committee on Energy), list them in descending order separated by commas.
United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2023, www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/.
United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Big Tech and the Online Child Exploitation Crisis. Government Publishing Office, 2023, 118th Cong., 1st sess.
How to cite a government document in Chicago
Chicago notes-bibliography
1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Mental Health, Mental Illness, NIH Publication No. 23-MH-8082 (2023), https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Institute of Mental Health. Mental Illness. NIH Publication No. 23-MH-8082. 2023. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.
UK, EU, and UN documents
UK Hansard
HC Deb (29 March 2023) vol 730, col 845. Available at: https://hansard.parliament.uk/ (Accessed: 5 May 2026).
UK statute
Human Rights Act 1998, c. 42. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42 (Accessed: 5 May 2026).
UN documents
United Nations Human Rights Council. (2023). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy (A/HRC/52/37). https://documents.un.org/
EU directives
Council Directive 95/46/EC of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, OJ L 281/31.
Court cases (briefly)
Citing case law correctly takes its own manual — The Bluebook in the US, OSCOLA in the UK. APA, MLA, and Chicago all defer to those conventions for legal citations. The minimum is the case name, the reporter (for US cases), the court, and the year.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100, [1932] AC 562.
Statistics and datasets
Cite the issuing agency, the dataset name (italicized), the year of the latest version, and the retrieval URL. Add a retrieval date when the dataset is regularly updated.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026). Consumer Price Index — March 2026 (USDL-26-0512). https://www.bls.gov/cpi/
Common mistakes
Treating the agency as just "author"
Government documents often have a hierarchy of issuing bodies — Department > Agency > Subagency. Cite the most specific issuing unit and let the parent agency appear as publisher.
Forgetting the report number
Report numbers (NIH Publication No. 23-MH-8082, GAO-23-105488) are how government bodies catalog their own outputs. Without the number, the reader can't request the document from a depository library.
Using the press release URL
Many government documents are released alongside a press release. Cite the document itself — the PDF link, the report landing page — not the press release that announces it.
Quick reference
| Document type | Key field beyond standard |
|---|---|
| Agency report | Report number |
| Legislation (US) | Public Law and Statutes at Large numbers |
| Hearing/testimony | Congress and session numbers |
| UK Hansard | Volume and column numbers |
| Court case | Reporter (US) or neutral citation (UK) |
| UN document | Document symbol (A/HRC/52/37) |
| EU directive | Official Journal reference (OJ L ...) |
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