The week in regulations: 2025 year-end special

Happy New Year, everyone. The final numbers for 2025’s regulations are in. The first half of this post summarizes those numbers and compares them with prior years. The second half, as usual for this series, lists highlights from new proposed and final regulations issued since the last weekly roundup. We’ll resume our normal schedule on January 12.

The big picture is that formal regulatory activity at agencies is at some of the lowest levels ever recorded, while informal regulating has increased.

As my colleague Wayne Crews points out, even after accounting for exaggerations and salesmanship from the administration, agencies really have withdrawn some multibillion-dollar rules. They have also added the fewest new rules overall since tracking began in the 1970s. Many of the claimed rule repeals, however, are merely extended comment periods or delayed implementation dates. These are not the same thing as abolishing or withdrawing rules.

The flip side of this reduced formal activity is that informal regulating is in overdrive. As Wayne puts it, “the right question is not whether Washington counted fewer rules, but whether it governed less. On that score, the ground is shakier.”

In 2025, the Trump administration took government ownership stakes in several private businesses including Intel; used its golden share in US Steel to veto a plant closure; upset global supply chains by enacting the highest tariffs since the Great Depression; strained labor markets and human rights with its immigration policies; and put enormous pressure on the Federal Reserve’s independence, which could lead to higher inflation over the next several years.

Congress has had little say in these policies, and they are often enacted with little notice. President Trump’s haphazard implementation style is causing policy uncertainty that is already having a chilling effect on investment large enough to show up in GDP figures. So fewer regulations on the books, yes. Freer markets? Not so much.

Regulatory reform priorities for 2026 should focus on getting Congress more involved in policymaking and limiting executive branch overreach. There need to be fewer executive orders and less off-the-books regulating, which Wayne calls regulatory dark matter. Agencies must strictly follow the required rulemaking process. Disclosure, transparency, and accountability are essential to sound public policy, especially with administrations as active as the current one.

 On to the data for 2025:

• Agencies issued 2,441 final regulations in 2025. This is the lowest total ever recorded since the 1970s.
• For comparison, there were 3,248 final regulations in 2024, 3,018 in 2023, and 3,168 in 2022.
• Agencies issued  1,498 proposed regulations in 2025.
• For comparison, there were 1,769 proposed regulations in 2024, 2,102 proposed regulations in 2023, and 2,044 in 2022.
• Agencies published 19,280 notices in 2025.
• For comparison, there were 25,506 notices in 2024, 22,902 in 2023, and 28,973 in 2022.
• The 2025 Federal Register totals 61,584 pages.
• For comparison, the 2024 Federal Register has an all-time record 107,261 pages. The 2023 edition has 90,402 pages, and the 2022 Federal Register has 80,756 pages.
• Rules with $200 million or more of economic effects in at least one year qualify as major under Section 3(f)(1). This replaced the former economically significant tag for $100 million-plus regulations.
• However, the $100 million economically significant tag is now revived under a Trump Executive Order, and the $200 million 3(f)(1) tag is going away. Rules from both categories have appeared this year.
• There were 17 3(f)(1) or economically significant regulations in 2025.
• For comparison, there were 20 3(f)(1) significant regulations in 2024, 28 3(f)(1) and/or economically significant regulations in 2023, and 43 economically significant rules in 2022.
• Note that these are not apples-to-apples comparisons, since 3(f)(1) and economically significant rules have different thresholds.
• This year’s section 3(f)(1) and economically significant regulations have estimated costs ranging from $219 million to $1.64 billion.
• For context, the cost tally for 2024’s 3(f)(1) significant regulations is net savings of $16.42 billion to 26.45 billion. 2023’s 3(f)(1) and/or economically significant regulations estimated costs range from $62.60 billion to 90.48 billion. Cost estimates for 2022’s economically significant rules range from $45.28 billion to $78.05 billion. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
• There were 155 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” in 2025.
• For comparison, there were 339 such regulations in 2024, 290 in 2023, and 255 in 2022.
• There were 597 new regulations affect small businesses in2025. Thirty of them are significant.
• For comparison, in 2024 there were 770 regulations affecting small businesses, 76 of them significant. In 2023 there were 789 regulations affecting small businesses, 79 of them significant.

Highlights from the last batch of new final regulations from 2025:

• The Labor Department is rescinding rules for worker nondisplacement.
• The Federal Reserve is rescinding a 2023 policy statement.
• Pension valuation rules.
• An SEC rule for delegation of authority to the director of the division investment management.
• The fourth temporary extension of Covid-19 telemedicine prescription flexibility.
• Cotton Board taxes on imported cotton.
• Claims filing date for insured mail.
• EPA rules for fuel blends.
• Reproductive health services for veterans.
• Arms trafficking among Australia, the UK, and the US.
• Shape-based labeling lists from the Postal Service.
• HUD is extending the compliance date for some of its programs.
• Making asylum more difficult for people fleeing persecution.
• Housing subsidies for Native Americans.
• H-1B visa restrictions.
• The Coast Guard and TSA are inflation-adjusting their civil penalties.
  
  

And highlights from the last batch of proposed regulations from 2025:

• Space Bureau frequency bands for satellite communications.
• Space Bureau commenting deadlines for the same.
• The Comptroller of the Currency’s simplified strategic plan for community banks.
• Medicare’s GUARD model regarding rising costs.
• Medicare’s GLOBE model for drug pricing.
• Debt collection.
• Wireless auction procedures.
• Shallow-water grouper complex.
• Deep-water grouper complex.
• Government enterprise housing goals.
• More Schedule I substances.
• A no-migration variance from land disposal restrictions for clean harbors in Grassy Mountain, Utah.
• Real estate lending escrow accounts.
• Personnel Management Office policies for probationary and trial period appeals.
• Catastrophic act reporting.
• Limits on credit unions’ loans to other credit unions.
• Reporting requirements for foreign investments in farms.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter. See also CEI’s Agenda for Congress.