List of presidential executive orders
Executive summary
A comprehensive list of U.S. presidential executive orders is maintained across several official repositories — primarily the White House Presidential Actions pages and the Office of the Federal Register/Federal Register site — with archival and scholarly complements at the National Archives, Library of Congress and independent projects such as the American Presidency Project [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Users seeking a complete, searchable, and downloadable catalogue should use the Federal Register for bulk downloads and the White House for the current administration’s postings, while recognizing important historical and classification caveats [2] [1].
1. Where the official "list" lives: White House vs. Federal Register
The most immediate public list of recent executive orders appears on the White House “Presidential Actions / Executive Orders” pages, which publish each order as a Presidential Action (useful for current administration tracking) [1] [6]; for authoritative, machine-readable and archival publication, the Office of the Federal Register posts executive orders and provides bulk downloads and search tools that include complete series back to 1937 and downloadable CSV/JSON files by president and year [2].
2. The archival backbone: National Archives and disposition tables
For historical researchers and legal verification, the National Archives maintains Disposition Tables and codified collections that trace the status and amendments of executive orders (including revocations and supersessions), though its public disposition table historically covered up through January 19, 2017 before redirecting updates to the Federal Register site [3] [7].
3. Scholarly and secondary compilations: American Presidency Project and others
Independent academic and civic projects — notably the American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara — collate executive orders, assign context and provide statistical summaries and compilations that reach further back into the unnumbered pre-1907 material; these resources are helpful for cross-checking and for understanding counting conventions and historical gaps [5] [8].
4. How executive orders are numbered, published, and why counts vary
Numbering of executive orders became standardized when the Department of State retroactively numbered orders in 1907 and the Federal Register Act established a publication requirement; because early orders were inconsistently recorded and because presidents also use memoranda and proclamations that are not always called “executive orders,” simple numerical tallies or president-to-president comparisons can be misleading [9] [4].
5. Practical search tips and bulk access for researchers and journalists
Researchers who need bulk data should use the Federal Register’s “All Executive Orders Since 1937” bulk download or browse by president and year; for up-to-the-minute announcements and text of recent orders, the White House Presidential Actions listing is the quickest source, while Ballotpedia and other trackers offer curated lists and topical breakdowns for a given administration [2] [1] [10].
6. Caveats, legal weight, and alternative executive tools
Executive orders direct executive branch agencies but operate within statutory and constitutional limits; presidents also rely on presidential memoranda, notices and proclamations — which may carry administrative force but are not always included in EO tallies — and orders can be revoked or superseded by subsequent presidents, making legal status a moving target best confirmed via the Federal Register and National Archives [11] [2] [3].
7. Final note on verification and historical research posture
Given inconsistent early record-keeping, differing definitions of what counts as an “order,” and administrative updates, the most defensible practice is to cite the primary source text from the Federal Register or White House posting and to consult the National Archives disposition tables or academic compilations when tracing changes or historical provenance [2] [1] [5].