Open US Law

Open, structured US primary law - plus the scrapers that build it.
State statutory codes, the US Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, state administrative regulations, state and federal constitutions, and court rules - normalized to a single schema, overwhelmingly from official government sources.

US law is public domain. In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org (2020) the Supreme Court reaffirmed the government-edicts doctrine: statutes, regulations, constitutions, and the official materials legislators produce cannot be copyrighted. Yet clean, structured, bulk access to the compiled 50-state statutory codes does not exist in the open - case law and federal law (govinfo USLM XML) are open, but the state codes sit behind commercial APIs. This project publishes that missing layer, and the tooling to reproduce it.

Watch the walkthrough

Download the data

The built snapshot is published on Hugging Face. You do not need to run any of the scrapers below to use it - they are here so the corpus is reproducible and auditable.

huggingface.co/datasets/vaquill/open-us-law

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("vaquill/open-us-law", "statutes", split="train")
ca = load_dataset("vaquill/open-us-law", data_files="us_ca_statutes.parquet")

Prefer a direct download? Everything is mirrored on Cloudflare R2 (zero egress, range-request friendly): browse oss-data-us.vaquill.ai, grab the combined tarball, or read the manifest.

Snapshot v2026.07 contains 2,046,009 sections:

Corpus	Sections	Jurisdictions
State & territorial statutes	1,983,394	50 states + DC + Puerto Rico
United States Code	54,853	federal
Constitutions	7,762	52

Parquet, one 24-column schema across every jurisdiction, CC BY 4.0. Sections carry act_status (in_force, repealed, reserved, renumbered, …), citation, full title/chapter hierarchy, and cross-references into the USC and CFR. New dated snapshots quarterly.

Coming next: federal agency rules and guidance, and more corpora to fill the remaining gaps. See what's being added on the coverage roadmap.

This README doubles as the table of contents - the file tree is deep, so every scraper is linked below.

Contents

• Download the data
• Quick start
• What you get (output format)
• Coverage & script index
  • Federal
  • State statutes (all 50 states)
  • State regulations
  • State court rules
  • State constitutions
• Important caveats (proxies, breakage)
• Licensing & commercial use
• Contributing

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Quick start

pip install -r requirements.txt

# Federal: US Code (USLM XML) and the eCFR
python scripts/federal/download_usc_zips.py --help
python scripts/federal/parse_ecfr_streaming.py --help

# A state statutory code (Colorado, HTTP - no browser needed):
cd scripts/state_scrapers
OUT_DIR=./data python -m src.scrapers.us.states.co.statutes.scrapeCO
#   -> ./data/us_co_statutes.jsonl   (one JSON object per statutory node)

Swap co / scrapeCO for any state in the table below. Each script is self-documenting - run it with --help, or read its module docstring for the exact source and options.

What you get (output format)

Every scraper writes JSONL - one normalized node/section per line - to $OUT_DIR (default ./data). No database, no cloud storage, no credentials. Typical fields:

Field	Meaning
id / act_id	Stable hierarchical identifier, e.g. us/co/statutes/title=3/article=1/section=3-1-101
citation	Human citation, e.g. C.R.S. § 3-1-101
node_name / section_title	Heading of the section
node_text / text	The statutory text
level_classifier	jurisdiction / corpus / title / article / section …
link / source_url	Back-link to the authoritative government page

Coverage & script index

Federal

Source	Script
US Code - download USLM XML zips	download_usc_zips.py
US Code - extract zips	extract_usc_zips.py
Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR)	parse_ecfr_streaming.py
Federal Register (rules)	ingest_federal_register_bulk.py
IRS Internal Revenue Bulletin	ingest_irs_irb.py
SSA rulings (SSR/AR)	ingest_ssa_rulings.py
US Code - GovInfo API downloader	download_usc.py
US Code - parse ZIPs to JSONL	parse_usc_zip.py
eCFR - API downloader	download_ecfr.py
Presidential docs (EOs, proclamations)	ingest_federal_register_presidential.py
Public-law cite parser (USC)	parse_public_law_cites.py
eCFR authority-cite parser	parse_authority_citations.py

State statutes (all 50 states)

Run via cd scripts/state_scrapers && OUT_DIR=./data python -m src.scrapers.us.states.<xx>.statutes.scrape<XX>. States marked proxy geo-restrict non-US IPs - see caveats. A few states also have an official-source alternative scraper noted in the last column. All 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico have complete statutory coverage, with one exception: Pennsylvania, whose Consolidated Statutes are complete but whose older unconsolidated (Purdon's) statutes are a separate backfill. The Sections column is the section count in the published v2026.07 snapshot; the live count is always available from the API.

Many states also have a newer bulk-source ingester at scripts/statutes/ingest_<state>_bulk.py that pulls from an official bulk source (XML zip, API, or PDF) instead of scraping HTML. These share a small pipeline in scripts/state_scrapers/vaquill_pipeline/ (fetch, chunk, record-build) and per-state parsers in scripts/statutes/<state>_bulk/. Run e.g. OUT_DIR=./data python scripts/statutes/ingest_ny_bulk.py.

State	Statute scraper	Sections (v2026.07)	Notes
Alaska (ak)	scrapeAK.py	17,935
Alabama (al)	scrapeAL.py	45,984	proxy
Arkansas (ar)	data-only (in the dataset)	36,936
Arizona (az)	scrapeAZ.py	22,674
California (ca)	scrapeCA.py	161,429
Colorado (co)	scrapeCO.py	34,231
Connecticut (ct)	scrapeCT.py	16,082	proxy
Delaware (de)	scrapeDE.py	21,649
Florida (fl)	scrapeFL.py	24,866
Georgia (ga)	data-only (in the dataset)	28,154
Hawaii (hi)	scrapeHI.py	16,446
Iowa (ia)	scrapeIA.py	28,223
Idaho (id)	scrapeID.py	22,754
Illinois (il)	scrapeIL.py	72,456
Indiana (in)	scrapeIN.py	83,148	proxy
Kansas (ks)	scrapeKS.py	24,361
Kentucky (ky)	scrapeKY.py	20,894
Louisiana (la)	ingest_la_bulk.py	43,474
Massachusetts (ma)	scrapeMA.py	23,152
Maryland (md)	scrapeMD.py	39,552
Maine (me)	scrapeME.py	25,316
Michigan (mi)	scrapeMI.py	40,658
Minnesota (mn)	scrapeMN.py	27,747
Missouri (mo)	scrapeMO.py	29,296
Mississippi (ms)	data-only (in the dataset)	158,688
Montana (mt)	scrapeMT.py	30,514
North Carolina (nc)	data-only (in the dataset)	26,685
North Dakota (nd)	scrapeND.py	29,042
Nebraska (ne)	scrapeNE.py	25,997
New Hampshire (nh)	scrapeNH.py	25,375	proxy
New Jersey (nj)	ingest_nj_bulk.py	55,897
New Mexico (nm)	data-only (in the dataset)	34,455
Nevada (nv)	data-only (in the dataset)	48,190
New York (ny)	scrapeNY.py	40,102	proxy
Ohio (oh)	scrapeOH.py	33,161	also official-source
Oklahoma (ok)	scrapeOK.py	35,329
Oregon (or)	scrapeOR.py	36,202
Pennsylvania (pa)	ingest_pa_bulk.py	14,547 (Consolidated; Purdon's pending)
Rhode Island (ri)	scrapeRI.py	21,107
South Carolina (sc)	scrapeSC.py	29,947
South Dakota (sd)	scrapeSD.py	39,589
Tennessee (tn)	data-only (in the dataset)	32,693
Texas (tx)	scrapeTX.py	122,535
Utah (ut)	scrapeUT.py	25,880	also official-source
Virginia (va)	scrapeVA.py	33,856
Vermont (vt)	scrapeVT.py	23,521
Washington (wa)	scrapeWA.py	51,498
Wisconsin (wi)	scrapeWI.py	18,158
West Virginia (wv)	scrapeWV.py	25,460
Wyoming (wy)	data-only (in the dataset)	10,219

Puerto Rico statutes: complete, 23,636 sections, ingested from the official OGP portal (bvirtualogp.pr.gov).

States marked data-only are included in the published dataset; their ingestion scripts are not part of this repo.

State regulations

State administrative codes. Some geo-restrict - see caveats.

State	Regulations scraper
Colorado (co)	ingest_co_regulations.py
Idaho (id)	ingest_id_regulations.py
Illinois (il)	ingest_il_regulations.py
Kansas (ks)	ingest_ks_regulations.py
Kentucky (ky)	ingest_ky_regulations.py
Maryland (md)	ingest_md_regulations.py
Maine (me)	ingest_me_regulations.py
Minnesota (mn)	ingest_mn_regulations.py
New Mexico (nm)	ingest_nm_regulations.py
Ohio (oh)	ingest_oh_regulations.py
South Carolina (sc)	ingest_sc_regulations.py
Virginia (va)	ingest_va_regulations.py
Washington (wa)	ingest_wa_regulations.py
Wisconsin (wi)	ingest_wi_regulations.py

State court rules

State	Court-rules scraper
Minnesota (mn)	ingest_mn_court_rules.py
Nevada (nv)	ingest_nv_court_rules.py
Florida (fl)	ingest_fl_court_rules.py
Texas (tx)	ingest_tx_court_rules.py
New Jersey (nj)	ingest_nj_court_rules.py
Multi-state (CA, MT, …)	ingest_state_court_rules.py

State constitutions

Source	Script
50 state constitutions	ingest_state_constitutions.py

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Important caveats (please read)

1. Some sources need a US IP / proxy. A number of state sites geo-restrict non-US traffic or throttle aggressively. Those scripts read WEBSHARE_USERNAME / WEBSHARE_PASSWORD (a US rotating proxy) from the environment - see .env.example - or you can run from a US host. State statute scrapers currently needing a proxy: AL, CT, IN, NH, NY (several regulation scrapers too, e.g. MN, WA, WI). If a run returns almost nothing, geo-blocking is the usual cause.

2. Some scripts may stop working over time. These scrapers target live government websites. Those sites get redesigned, move URLs, change HTML, or add anti-bot measures - so a scraper that worked at publish time can break later. When that happens it usually needs a small parser update, not a rewrite. If you hit one, please open an issue or PR; fixes to individual state parsers are exactly where community help compounds.

3. A browser is needed for a few states. Most states use plain HTTP (requests/BeautifulSoup). A handful render statutes via JavaScript and use Selenium - you'll need Chrome/Chromium + chromedriver on your PATH for those. If a scraper imports Selenium and no driver is found, that's why.

4. Snapshots are point-in-time, not current law. Statutes change continuously. Output is an archive as of the run date - always verify a section against its official source before relying on it. This is not legal advice.

Licensing & commercial use

The law itself is public domain (US government edicts - Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org). On top of that:

• Scripts - Apache-2.0 (LICENSE). Free, including commercial use.
• Data / compilation - CC BY 4.0 (data/LICENSE.md). Free with attribution.

The dataset is free for everyone. You never need to email us or ask permission to use it. Just download it and go, including for commercial products, as long as you attribute it.

The hosted API (optional)

We also run a hosted API: the same law, kept up to date and searchable section by section, so you do not have to run the scrapers or handle breakage yourself.

• Want to try it right now? Sign up at app.vaquill.ai and generate your own API key. Every account gets 500 free credits to play with, no email needed.

• Non-commercial use is free. If you are a legal aid organization, a researcher, a student, or building a non-commercial or open-source project and need more than the free credits, email contact@vaquill.ai and we will send you a free API key. Please use this exact subject line so we can route it fast:

  Open US Law API - non-commercial - <your use case>

  Tell us briefly who you are and what you are building. The free key is best-effort and rate-limited, with no uptime guarantee. The dataset itself has none of those limits.

• Commercial use is paid. Details at vaquill.ai/legal-api. This covers live always-fresh data, retrieval-ready delivery (pre-chunked, embedded, citation-linked for RAG), bulk export, SLA and support, custom coverage, and a commercial data license (an attribution waiver and/or warranty & indemnity, if CC BY 4.0's terms don't fit your compliance needs).

Contributing

New-jurisdiction parsers, coverage fixes, and - especially - repairs to state scrapers that broke when a government site changed are welcome. Open a PR against the relevant script in the tables above.

Provenance

Most data derives from official government sources (state legislature / secretary-of-state sites, uscode.house.gov, the eCFR, the Federal Register, GPO govinfo), and those records keep the exact source URL they were ingested from.

A minority of state statutory codes were obtained from commercial aggregators rather than an official publisher. In the published dataset those records carry no source_url rather than linking to a third party, and the per-jurisdiction table in the dataset card marks them. We would rather state that plainly than imply the whole corpus is officially sourced. The retrieval layer (embeddings, semantic index, citation graph) is intentionally out of scope here.

Maintained by

Vaquill AI. This open corpus is the substrate; Vaquill AI's API adds continuous freshness, retrieval, and citation resolution on top of it.

Questions, ideas, or want to help? DM me on LinkedIn.

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The law is public. Making it usable should be too.