The Trump administration added a total of 72,564 pages to the Federal Register in 2019. The Federal Register is a daily journal of federal government activity that includes presidential documents, proposed and final rules, and public notices. It is a common measure of an administration’s regulatory execution. The page total will likely decrease further after the National Archives processes the blanks and skips and finalizes the publication.

The 2019 Federal Register included the following 27,167 documents:

• 21,804 notices

• 268 presidential documents

• 2,105 proposed rules

• 2,964 final rules.

The 2019 Federal Register page total is the Trump administration’s highest annual page total to date. The Trump administration added a total of 68,082 pages to the Federal Register in 2018 and 61,950 pages in 2017. The 2019 page total exceeded the 2018 page total by 4,482 pages and the 2017 page total by 10,614 pages.

The 2019, 2018, and 2017 page totals under the Trump administration rank as the three lowest page totals since 2001, when the Federal Register reached 64,438 pages. According to government data, the Federal Register hit an all-time high of 95,894 pages in 2016.

Despite featuring the Trump administration’s highest annual page total, the 2019 Federal Register also included the administration’s lowest annual final rule total. The following final rule totals in 2019, 2018, and 2017 under the Trump administration rank as the lowest final rule counts since the 1970’s:

• 2,964 final rules in 2019

• 3,367 final rules in 2018

• 3,280 final rules in 2017

Though the total number of final rules decreased in 2019, the total number of proposed rules issued by the Trump administration increased. The Trump administration issued 1,837 proposed rules in 2017, 2,044 proposed rules in 2018, and 2,105 proposed rules in 2019.

Click here to find more information about weekly additions to the Federal Register in 2018 and 2017.

Click here to find yearly information about additions to the Federal Register from 1936 to 2016.

Ballotpedia maintains page counts and other information about the Federal Register as part of its Administrative State Project. The project is a neutral, nonpartisan encyclopedic resource that defines and analyzes the administrative state, including its philosophical origins, legal and judicial precedents, and scholarly examinations of its consequences. The project also monitors and reports on measures of federal government activity.