First, the easy way: PERRLA
Paste the bill's Congress.gov link into PERRLA's reference search, like https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530. PERRLA reads the page and fills in the title, the chamber, the bill number, the Congress, and the year, and adds the link. You can also paste a bill citation from your reading, like H.R. 2530, 118th Cong. (2023), and PERRLA adds the bill's title and its Congress.gov link. Before you save, check the title and the year against the bill you read. If the title PERRLA brings in is a long official one that starts with "To amend," delete it, and if the bill's name ends in a year, add a shortened title without it.
Adding one by hand? Choose Bills & Resolutions (under Legal References), then An unenacted federal bill or resolution. Pick House of Representatives bill or resolution for an H.R. bill or Senate bill or resolution for an S. bill. Fill in the title, the number, the Congress number in Congressional Session (118 or 118th), the year, and the link. PERRLA adds H.R. or S., writes the Congress the way legal citations do (103d, not 103rd), and leaves anything in the Congressional Record boxes out of an unenacted bill's reference.
If the bill became law, choose Statutes instead and cite the public law or the U.S. Code.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530
Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, H.R. 2530, 118th Cong. (2023). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530
Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.
The parts of the reference
1. Title of the bill
Start with the bill's name as the bill gives it, usually in a section that begins "This Act may be cited as." Keep any year that's part of the name. Capitalize it like a title, and don't italicize it or put it in quotation marks.
Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023
Many bills have only a long official title, like "To amend the Public Health Service Act to...." Legal citation form treats the title as optional, so leave a title like that out and start with the bill number. The bill number then stands in for the name in your in-text citations too.
2. Bill number
Give the chamber's abbreviation and the bill's number, with a space between them. A House bill is H.R. and a Senate bill is S. Congress.gov writes them run together (H.R.2530), but the reference puts a space after the period.
H.R. 2530
The number tells you where the bill started, not where it ended up. A bill numbered S. stays S. even after the House votes on it.
3. Congress number
Next comes the number of the Congress that considered the bill, as an ordinal, then Cong. with a period. Each Congress lasts two years, and bill numbers start over with every new one, so H.R. 2530 alone could be dozens of different bills. Congress.gov shows it at the top of the bill's page: "118th Congress (2023-2024)."
118th Cong.
Legal citations write 2nd and 3rd as 2d and 3d, so the 103rd Congress is 103d Cong. and the 102nd is 102d Cong. Leave out the session (1st or 2d session). APA's bill references don't use it.
4. Year
Put the year of the version you're citing in parentheses, then a period. For most bills, that's the year the bill was introduced, which Congress.gov lists next to the sponsor.
(2023).
The year has to fall inside the Congress's two years: a 118th Congress bill is from 2023 or 2024.
5. URL
End with a link to the bill on Congress.gov, the Library of Congress's official site for federal legislation. The link is optional in a legal reference, but it helps your reader find the exact bill. Don't put a period after it.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530
Examples
A House bill with a year in its name
The 2023 House bill that would set nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in hospitals. It never got past committee, so it's cited as a bill. Its name ends in a year, so the shortened title drops "of 2023" from the in-text citation.
References
Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, H.R. 2530, 118th Cong. (2023). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2530
- Parenthetical citation(Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, 2023)
- Narrative citationThe Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (2023)
The same bill in the Senate
The Senate version of the same nurse staffing bill, introduced a week earlier. Identical bills in the two chambers get different numbers, so the reference changes to S. 1113. Cite the version you actually read.
References
Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, S. 1113, 118th Cong. (2023). https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1113
- Parenthetical citation(Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, 2023)
- Narrative citationThe Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act (2023)
An older bill: the 1993 Health Security Act
The Clinton administration's universal health coverage plan, introduced in the House in November 1993. Several House committees worked on it, but it never became law, so it's still cited as a bill. It's from the 103rd Congress, which legal citations write as 103d.
References
Health Security Act, H.R. 3600, 103d Cong. (1993). https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/3600
- Parenthetical citation(Health Security Act, 1993)
- Narrative citationThe Health Security Act (1993)
In-text citations
A bill's in-text citation uses its title and the year, because the title sits where an author would. Bill titles aren't italicized in your sentences.
- Parenthetical: (Health Security Act, 1993)
- Narrative: the Health Security Act (1993) would have…
- A name with a year in it: drop the year from the name so it appears once: (Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, 2023)
- No title in the reference: the bill number stands in for it: (H.R. 2530, 2023)
Citing both the House and Senate versions of the same bill? Their in-text citations look identical, so name the bill number in your sentence (the House version, H.R. 2530) to show which one you mean.
Common mistakes
- Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, H.R. 3590, 111th Cong. (2010).Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010).H.R. 3590 became the Affordable Care Act. Once a bill is signed, it's a law, and APA cites it as a statute by its public law number or its U.S. Code section.
- Health Security Act, H.R. 3600, 103rd Cong. (1993).Health Security Act, H.R. 3600, 103d Cong. (1993).APA's legal references follow legal citation form, which writes 2nd and 3rd as 2d and 3d. It's 103d Cong., 102d Cong., and 122d Cong., but 111th, 112th, and 113th.
- Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, H.R. 2530 (2023).Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, H.R. 2530, 118th Cong. (2023).Bill numbers start over every two years, so the Congress number is the only thing that tells your reader which H.R. 2530 you mean.
- Health Security Act, H.R.3600, 103d Cong. (1993).Health Security Act, H.R. 3600, 103d Cong. (1993).Bill titles stay in plain type, and the bill number gets a space after H.R. even though Congress.gov runs them together.
- (Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, 2023)(Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, 2023)The year goes in the citation once. In PERRLA, put the name without its year in the Shortened Title box.
Quick checklist
- Still a bill? If it became law, cite the statute instead
- The bill's name, not italic, or no title if it only has a long official one
- H.R. or S., a space, and the number
- The Congress as an ordinal with Cong., like 118th Cong. or 103d Cong.
- The year of the version you read, in parentheses
- A Congress.gov link, with no period after it
- In text: the name without its year, then the year
Questions students ask
How do I cite a bill that became law?
Cite the law, not the bill. Look up the public law number on the bill's Congress.gov page (it says "Became Public Law No." in the latest action) and cite it as a statute by its public law number or its U.S. Code section. See the guide to citing a federal law.
What does 118th Cong. mean?
It's the 118th Congress, the two-year term of Congress that ran from 2023 through 2024. Every bill belongs to one Congress, and bill numbers start over in the next one, so the Congress number tells your reader exactly which bill you mean. It's printed at the top of every bill's page on Congress.gov.
A bill passed the House but not the Senate. Is it enacted?
No. A bill is enacted only when it becomes law, usually when the president signs it. A bill that passed one chamber, got a vote and failed, or died in committee is still an unenacted bill, and you cite it with its bill number and Congress.
The same bill was introduced again in a later Congress. Which one do I cite?
Cite the one you read. Bills that don't pass are often reintroduced with the same name in the next Congress, but each one gets a new number and a new Congress, and the text can change. The Congress number and the year in your reference show which version you mean.
How do I cite a state bill?
State bills follow the same idea with the state's own labels, like H.B. or S.B., plus the legislature, the session, and the state's abbreviation with the year. In PERRLA, choose Bills & Resolutions, then Unenacted state bill or resolution or Enacted state bill or resolution.
Does a congressional bill go on my references page?
Yes. A bill gets a full reference entry, alphabetized by its title, or by its bill number if you left the title out. Bills have no author, so the title takes the author's spot.
Related guides
Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 11.1–11.3 and 11.6 (legislative materials) and its unenacted federal bill example, which follow the legal citation format of The Bluebook (Rule 13.2). Example sources verified against each bill's page on Congress.gov and its official bill status record from the Government Publishing Office (sponsor, introduction date, and latest action).