How many bills did Congress pass in 2025?
Executive summary
Congressional reporting uses at least two competing tallies for “how many bills did Congress pass in 2025”: one focused on enacted laws and another including passed resolutions or bills incorporated into larger acts; by the most-cited trackers, 37 bills were individually signed or otherwise enacted into law in 2025 while an automated GovTrack count puts “enacted” items including incorporations at 103 (and some outlets report 38 bills sent to the president) [1] [2]. The variation stems from differing definitions—“passed by Congress,” “sent to the president,” and “enacted into law” are not interchangeable in contemporary legislative counting [3] [4].
1. What the question actually asks: passed by whom, and counted how?
The plain question—“How many bills did Congress pass in 2025?”—is ambiguous because sources measure different events: passage by both chambers, transmission to the president, presidential signature or 10‑day enactment, or automated tallies that count bills incorporated into other measures; authoritative trackers and government databases each answer a different variant of “pass” [3] [4] [5].
2. The short answer, by the most-used public trackers
GovTrack’s public-facing bill status summary for the 119th Congress reports 103 enacted bills when its automated analysis includes bills and joint resolutions identical to or incorporated into enacted legislation, and separately counts 37 enacted bills that were actually signed by the president or enacted by the 10‑day rule or veto‑override [1]. The Independent summarized the year as roughly 38 bills sent to the president and signed into law, reflecting the narrower “signed into law” view [2].
3. Why journalists and databases give different totals
The discrepancy is methodological: GovTrack’s larger number includes bills “incorporated” into other statutes—text adopted as part of omnibus or must‑pass packages—while the smaller figure isolates standalone measures actually signed or otherwise enacted as distinct enactments; media accounts often adopt the simpler “sent to president/signed” framing for narrative clarity [1] [3] [2].
4. Examples that illustrate counting choices
High‑visibility enactments in 2025 included major omnibus-like actions and rescission measures that combined many line items; for instance, the Rescissions Act of 2025 was passed by the 119th Congress and signed into law, and is cited in legislative lists as an enacted law while other smaller provisions were absorbed into larger packages—an effect that pushes automated incorporation counts higher than signature‑only tallies [6] [1].
5. Official sources and limits of available reporting
Congress.gov and the Government Publishing Office maintain day-by-day action logs and collections of enrolled bills, but the provided excerpts do not supply a single consolidated “2025 total” in plain text; researchers must choose whether to count only signed bills, all enacted instruments, or incorporate GovTrack’s automated classification—each choice yields a different numeric answer [7] [4] [5].
6. How to interpret the numbers and what they mean politically
Politically, the lower count (about 37–38 signed bills) is the clearest metric of distinct standalone laws enacted and is what most news coverage cites to gauge legislative productivity, while the higher GovTrack “103 enacted” figure captures legislative language that became law through incorporation and thus reflects a broader view of congressional output—both are defensible, but reporters must be explicit about the definition used [1] [2].
7. Conclusion
Depending on definition: 37 bills were recorded by GovTrack as individually enacted by signature or the 10‑day rule in 2025, media outlets commonly reported roughly 38 bills sent to the president and signed, and an automated GovTrack-inclusive count that treats incorporated measures as enacted lists 103 enacted items for the year—no single number is universally authoritative without specifying which counting method is being used [1] [2] [3]. The available official databases can produce alternate tallies but the provided sources do not contain a single, definitive consolidated total labeled “bills passed in 2025” without methodological qualifiers [7] [4].