How Federal Lobbying Disclosure Works

The federal Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) is the reason it's possible to see, in public, who is paid to lobby the federal government and on what. This guide explains what the law actually requires, what each kind of filing tells you, and how to read the filings yourself — the same public records that The Lobbying Ledger is built from.

Who has to register

Registration generally depends on two things being true at once — a qualifying person and a financial threshold — not on the money alone.

First, someone involved has to meet the law's definition of a lobbyist: an individual, paid for their services, who makes more than one lobbying contact for the client — a lobbying contact being a communication to a covered federal official about legislation, regulations, programs, or nominations — and whose lobbying work amounts to at least 20 percent of the time they spend providing services to that client over any three-month period. Someone who makes only a single contact, or for whom lobbying is a minor share of their work for the client, does not meet the definition.

Second, the spending has to cross a threshold. A lobbying firm must register for a client once it expects to be paid above a set amount for lobbying that client in a quarter; an organization that lobbies for itself (in-house) must register once its own quarterly lobbying expenses are expected to exceed a set amount. As of the thresholds effective January 1, 2025, those figures are income of more than $3,500 for a lobbying firm and in-house lobbying expenses of more than $16,000 per quarter. They are adjusted for inflation over time, so confirm the current amounts in the official guidance linked below.

When both of those conditions are met, the registrant has 45 days from the first lobbying contact — or from being retained to make one, whichever comes first — to file a registration.

What a registration (Form LD-1) discloses

The initial registration names the registrant (the firm or organization doing the lobbying), the client on whose behalf it is lobbying, the general issue areas involved, and the individual lobbyists expected to act for the client. In The Lobbying Ledger, a 'new registration' is one of these original LD-1 filings — not an amendment to an existing one.

The quarterly activity report (Form LD-2)

After registering, a registrant files a report every quarter for each active client, due April 20, July 20, October 20, and January 20 for the preceding quarter. The LD-2 reports the specific issues lobbied on that quarter, the chambers and agencies contacted, the lobbyists involved, and a money figure — income for an outside firm, or expenses for an in-house lobbying operation. Those two money figures are not the same measure and should never be added together or compared directly.

Terminations

A registrant ends its reporting obligation for a client by checking a termination box on a report. A termination filing records the end of one specific registrant–client lobbying engagement — nothing more. It does not mean an organization has stopped all federal lobbying, that it has no other representation, or that a firm was 'fired'; a client may keep other registrants or file a fresh registration later.

Where to read the filings yourself

Every registration and report is public and searchable through the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate disclosure systems (linked below). Each filing carries a unique identifier and a link to its official document, so any figure you see summarized — here or anywhere else — can be traced back to the primary record.