The National Archives, legislation.gov.uk
Maintains the text in forceThe official statute book of the United Kingdom, run by The National Archives. It serves every Act of Parliament and every UK statutory instrument, and for most of them it serves a revised text maintained by an editorial team rather than the text as enacted. One provision at a time is addressable: legislation.gov.uk/<type>/<year>/<number>/<section|regulation|schedule|article>/<n>, with /part/<n> under a schedule and /made for the original of a statutory instrument. That shape is what makes a statute book this size readable - section 3 of the Immigration Act 1971 is 61,000 characters where the Act entire is unusable. Every provision page prints a status box stating the date to which it is up to date, a Changes to Legislation disclaimer, and, where there are any, a list of effects the editorial team has not yet applied.
Maintains the current text of the law as amended, so you can read a provision as it stands today rather than reconstructing it from amendments.
www.legislation.gov.ukCannot be cited for
Its consolidation date is not an editorial date but the date of the request, so two provisions of the same Act read a day apart carry different cut-offs, and the cut-off must be taken from each page rather than from the Act. It carries no Immigration Rules: the Rules are laid before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and published by the Home Office, and nothing in them is on this site. Some instruments are served only as made, with no revised text at all, and the site says so on the page - the Driving Licences (Exchangeable Licences) Order 1984 is one, and its electronic text was contributed by Westlaw from the printed copy. Where a page lists outstanding effects, the text shown is known to be behind its own amendments, and where an amending provision was never commenced the page lists an effect that will never arrive: section 6 of the British Nationality Act 1981 carries effects from a 2009 Act whose amending provisions are themselves prospectively repealed. It is not a source for what a department does, for fees set administratively, or for any external document an instrument incorporates by reference.
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Facts resting on this publisher · 9
- United Kingdom: Banking AccessBanking Access2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Citizenship PathCitizenship Path2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Customs Personal EffectsCustoms Personal Effects2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Driving LicenseDriving License2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Healthcare AccessHealthcare Access2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Regional TreatyRegional Treaty2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: WorkWork2026-10-10
- United Kingdom: Tax ResidencyTax Residency2026-10-11
- United Kingdom: Tourist EntryTourist Entry2026-10-10