Regulations.gov API Python Client

N/A · active · verified Tue Mar 17

Python client library for the Regulations.gov API v4, providing access to federal regulatory documents, comments, and dockets from the U.S. government's public rulemaking portal. Wraps the REST API with typed Python methods for searching and retrieving regulatory data.

Warnings

breaking An API key from api.data.gov is required for all requests. Without it, every call returns a 403 error.
Fix: Sign up at https://api.data.gov/signup/ and set the REGULATIONS_GOV_API_KEY environment variable.
gotcha The Regulations.gov API enforces strict rate limits (typically 1,000 requests per hour). Exceeding the limit returns HTTP 429 with no built-in retry in the client.
Fix: Implement your own rate limiting or exponential backoff when making bulk requests.
gotcha The package name uses hyphens (regulations-gov-api) but the import uses underscores (regulations_gov_api). Mixing them up causes ImportError.
Fix: Use 'from regulations_gov_api import RegulationsAPI' after installing 'pip install regulations-gov-api'.
gotcha API responses return nested JSON structures following the JSON:API specification. Document fields are under data[].attributes, not at the top level.
Fix: Access fields via result['data'][i]['attributes']['title'], not result['data'][i]['title'].
gotcha The page_size parameter has a maximum of 250. Requesting more silently caps at 250 or returns an error depending on the endpoint.
Fix: Use pagination with page_number and page_size <= 250 to retrieve large result sets.

Install

pip install requests HTTP client (no official PyPI package)

Imports

RegulationsAPI
```
from regulations_gov_api import RegulationsAPI
```
The main client class is RegulationsAPI, not Client.

Quickstart

Search for federal regulatory documents using the Regulations.gov API.

import os
import requests

api_key = os.environ.get("REGULATIONS_GOV_API_KEY", "DEMO_KEY")
resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.regulations.gov/v4/documents",
    params={"api_key": api_key, "filter[searchTerm]": "climate", "page[size]": 5},
    headers={"Accept": "application/json"}
)
resp.raise_for_status()
data = resp.json()
for doc in data.get("data", []):
    print(doc["attributes"]["title"])

view raw JSON →