What does federal regulation cost per year?
| Figure | What it is | Annual cost, low, $bn | Annual cost, high, $bn |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,153bn | Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ten Thousand Commandments 2026, April 9, 2026. The accumulated burden of the entire regulatory state, costs only, benefits not netted. | 2153 | 2153 |
| $9.6–11.9bn | OMB, Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, FY2023. Annualized cost of new major rules in one fiscal year, against $30.7–49.0bn in benefits. | 9.6 | 11.9 |
| More than a hundredfold | The ratio between them — which is not a measure of disagreement, but of the fact that one is a stock and the other is a flow. |
Source. Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Ten Thousand Commandments 2026, Competitive Enterprise Institute, April 9, 2026; Office of Management and Budget, FY2023 benefit-cost report, January 2025 (2001 dollars).
Method and data
Method. Shown as figures rather than as bars because a bar chart spanning two orders of magnitude renders the smaller value invisible and implies a comparison that is not valid. OMB annualizes the cost of new major rules in a single fiscal year, covering only the nineteen rules where agencies monetized both costs and benefits (“There were 19 such rules in FY 2023”) — 19 of the 58 FY2023 executive branch rules the report counts, or 33 percent. CEI estimates the accumulated burden of all federal regulation and does not net benefits. CEI is unusually candid about the construction, describing its total as a “conservative placeholder” intended to push Congress toward an official estimate, and stating that “total regulatory costs are immeasurable.” Each is defensible for what it measures; they are not rival answers to one question. On a like basis — OMB’s own 2022-dollar equivalent of $15–19bn a year against CEI’s $2,153bn — the ratio is about 113 to 144 (2,153 ÷ 19 and 2,153 ÷ 15).
Download CSV. Data and chart licensed CC BY 4.0.
Higgins Strategy. “What does federal regulation cost per year?” Exhibit 3, The Same Question, Different Numbers (Study III). October 12, 2026. https://higginsstrategy.com/charts/e3-3-regulation-cost/