How to Cite a Government Website in MLA
Cite a government website in MLA 9 with the agency as author, page title in quotes, site name in italics, publisher (only if different from the site), publication or update date, and the URL. If a specific person is named as the author, list them first and move the agency into the publisher slot.
The MLA 9 format for a .gov page
The core template:
Agency Name. "Page Title." Site Name, Publisher, Day Month Year, URL.
Each element does specific work:
- Agency Name. The government body that produced the page. Use "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," not "CDC," unless the source itself uses the abbreviation as its formal name.
- "Page Title." The headline of the exact page you're citing, in quotation marks, with a period inside the closing quote.
- Site Name. The site or publication name, italicized. Often this is a shorter version of the agency ("CDC," "IRS").
- Publisher. Include only when the publisher differs from the site name. A CDC page on the CDC site doesn't need a publisher. A CDC page hosted on HHS.gov does.
- Date. Use the full publication or last-updated date: 14 Mar. 2024. Abbreviate months except May, June, July.
- URL. Paste the address without "https://". Keep the full path.
Worked example: a CDC page
Say you're citing the CDC's page on how flu spreads, published 26 Aug. 2022. The URL is https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spread.htm.
Works Cited entry:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "How Flu Spreads." CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 26 Aug. 2022, www.cdc.gov/flu/spread.htm.
In-text citation:
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
If you've already named the agency in your sentence ("According to the CDC..."), you don't need a parenthetical at all.
When the author is a named person
Some .gov pages list an individual author. Press releases, congressional testimony, and signed reports usually do. Put the person first, last-name-first, and shift the agency into the publisher slot:
Fauci, Anthony. "Statement on the End of the Public Health Emergency." National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 11 May 2023, www.nih.gov/news-events/statements/statement-end-phe.
In-text: (Fauci).
IRS, SSA, and other agency variations
The pattern holds across .gov sites. Details shift.
IRS page, no individual author:
Internal Revenue Service. "Topic No. 502, Medical and Dental Expenses." IRS, 22 Jan. 2024, www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc502.
Social Security Administration publication (PDF):
Social Security Administration. "Understanding the Benefits." SSA, Jan. 2024, www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10024.pdf.
Congressional bill:
United States, Congress, House. H.R. 1319, American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Congress.gov, 11 Mar. 2021, www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1319.
For federal documents from Congress or the executive branch, MLA lets you start with "United States" as the government author, then add the branch and body, separated by commas. That's the format the MLA Handbook uses for its own examples of federal sources.
Missing information: what to do
You'll hit gaps on gov pages more often than on journal articles. Handle them cleanly:
- No date on the page. Skip it. Add an access date at the end: "Accessed 12 Feb. 2024."
- No author or agency named. Start with the page title in quotes. Move on.
- No separate publisher. Skip it. Publisher only matters when it differs from the site.
- PDF report on a gov site. Same format. Include the .pdf URL as-is.
Don't invent a date or a byline to fill a slot. MLA 9 wants what's actually there.
In-text citations, in three seconds
MLA in-text cites use author name and page number if you have one. Government web pages almost never have page numbers, so most gov in-text cites are just the author:
- (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- (Internal Revenue Service)
- (United States, Congress, House)
Long agency names get old fast. MLA lets you shorten after the first mention if you flag it: write (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]) the first time, then (CDC) after. Keep the full name on the Works Cited page.
Quick checklist before you submit
- Agency name spelled out in full, or the exact name the site uses
- Page title in quotes, period inside the closing quote
- Site name italicized
- Date in day-month-year format, months abbreviated except May, June, July
- URL without "https://"
- Entry ends with a period