The Government Publishing Office
Summary
GPO's own $131,999,000 FY2025 appropriation is only about a tenth of what it costs to run the agency -- and doesn't even cover producing the Federal Register, whose retrievals on GPO's govinfo.gov jumped 60 percent that year alone.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
GPO prints and authenticates documents for all three branches. In fiscal year 2025 it produced 9,448,000 Federal Register pages⧉ -- the Office of the Federal Register's daily compilation of new rules and executive orders -- and posted them to govinfo.gov, where the Federal Register collection drew 242 million retrievals, up 60 percent over FY2024⧉. GPO also produced 22,933,365 Congressional Record pages, served 1,093 federal depository libraries, and issued 25,205,600 U.S. passports⧉ for the State Department. GovInfo overall logged 1.97 billion retrievals, a 16 percent increase⧉.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
GPO's audited financial statements show $131,999,000 in total appropriations for FY2025⧉ -- covering congressional publishing, public information programs, and capital investment -- of which $116,331,000 was actually expended⧉. Congress held FY2026's appropriation flat at $132 million⧉. That funded 1,650 staff as of September 30, 2025⧉. Against the Census Bureau's 341.8 million U.S. residents⧉, FY2025's appropriation is about 39 cents per person -- appropriated funds cover only about 10 percent of GPO's $1.33 billion FY2025 revenue⧉; the rest is billed to customer agencies, including , whose Federal Register printing GPO bills as reimbursable revenue.
View data as table
| Congressional publishing | 83 | prints Congress's own record and documents |
|---|---|---|
| Salaries & expenses (Public Info. Programs) | 37.4 | depository libraries, cataloging, indexing |
| Revolving fund (capital investment) | 11.6 | IT and plant upgrades |
Why is it good for society?
A rule an agency writes has no authenticated form until GPO posts it -- the online Federal Register carries the official legal status of the printed edition under 44 U.S.C. 4101⧉. Federal Register retrievals jumped 60 percent, evidence that record is used directly rather than filtered through paywalled services. The counterfactual is what GPO replaced: piecemeal, scandal-prone private printing contracts before 1861⧉. Today GPO's finances have carried a clean, externally audited opinion for 29 consecutive years⧉.
- GPO's own $131,999,000 appropriation is only about 10% of its $1.33B FY2025 revenue -- the rest, including the cost of producing the Federal Register for , is billed to other federal customers.
- Federal Register retrievals on govinfo.gov grew 60% in FY2025 alone (to 242 million) -- nearly four times GovInfo's overall 16% growth rate that year.
Your handles.* Comment on any proposed federal rule GPO publishes in the Federal Register through Regulations.gov, the government-wide eRulemaking portal. Read the daily Federal Register itself, free, on GPO's govinfo.gov. Find your nearest free public-access point through the Federal Depository Library Directory, covering 1,093 libraries nationwide.
Sources(5) ▾
- U.S. Government Publishing Office, U.S. Government Publishing Office Annual Report -- Fiscal Year 2025 (transmitted to Congress April 20, 2026) (2026-04-20) — GPO's own statutorily required annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2025 (year ended September 30, 2025), transmitted by Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern on April 20, 2026 -- covers GPO's founding/history, mission, FY2025 workload counts (Federal Register and Congressional Record pages, GovInfo retrievals, depository libraries, passports), FY2025 headcount, and the audited financial statements (Note 13: Appropriated Funds) that this entry's budget figures come from. Wayback save attempts on this large PDF failed/timed out (same known limitation as this newsroom's other large .gov PDF captures); the sealed copy above is the one-click original-document link. gpo.gov · original document
- U.S. Government Publishing Office, Prepared Statement of Hugh Nathanial Halpern, Director, U.S. Government Publishing Office, FY 2026 Budget Hearing, Subcommittee on Legislative Branch, House Appropriations Committee (2025-04-09) — GPO Director Halpern's formal budget-request testimony to GPO's House appropriators, requesting $135,377,000 for FY2026 (2.6% over the FY2025 appropriation) -- the source for the FY2026 request figure this entry compares against what Congress actually enacted. Also gives GPO's FY2024 revenue/appropriation-share context and an April-2025 headcount snapshot (1,644 teammates, vs. 2,284 in FY2010). Wayback save not attempted for this smaller PDF; the sealed copy above is the one-click original-document link. gpo.gov · original document
- U.S. House Committee on Appropriations (Majority), Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2026 -- Final Bill Summary (2026-01) — House Appropriations Committee majority staff summary of the enacted Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2026, stating GPO's FY2026 enacted appropriation ($132 million) -- flat against FY2025 and below GPO's $135.4 million request. A committee summary rather than the bill's full legal text, but an official congressional publication; independently corroborated by GPO's own FY2027 budget-request coverage (Director Halpern requesting $132,000,000 for FY2027, 'an amount equal to GPO's 2026 appropriation'). appropriations.house.gov · original document
- U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), GovInfo Help -- Federal Register (2026-07-16) — GPO's own GovInfo help documentation for the Federal Register collection, stating that the online edition carries the official legal equivalent status of the paper and microfiche editions under 44 U.S.C. 4101 and 1 CFR 5.10 -- the source for this entry's mechanism claim in 'Why is it good for society?'. Wayback save request returned HTTP 429 (rate-limited); the sealed copy above is the one-click original-document link. govinfo.gov · original document
- U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 national population estimate) (2026-01-27) — The Census Bureau's own Vintage 2025 national population estimate release, giving the U.S. resident population as of July 1, 2025 -- the per-resident denominator for this entry's cost-per-person KPI, per better_metrics.md's sourced-denominator discipline. Same document/capture already sealed for this newsroom's good-citizen-gao entry. census.gov · original document
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The Government Publishing Office was created on June 23, 1860⧉, when Congress established an official government printer to replace private printing contracts GPO's own history calls "beset with scandal and corruption." It opened for business March 4, 1861⧉, the day Lincoln was inaugurated. GPO is a legislative-branch agency under Title 44 of the U.S. Code⧉, led by a Senate-confirmed Director, overseen by the ten-member Joint Committee on Printing. Renamed from the Government Printing Office in 2014⧉, it now runs govinfo.gov, posting the daily Federal Register it produces with the National Archives' Office of the Federal Register.