How to cite a government report in APA 7

A report from an agency or other organization is cited with the organization as the author, unless the report names individual authors. For individual authors, see APA’s page on reports with individual authors.

Reference list format

Group Author Name. (Year). Title of the report in sentence case (Report No. xx). Parent Agency, if any. URL

National Water Quality Agency. (2024). Annual drinking water quality report (Report No. 24-07). Department of Environmental Protection. https://example.org/reports/24-07

• Author. The agency that wrote the report, with its full name in the reference list. Use the abbreviation only in your text.
• Year. The year the report was published.
• Title. Italic, in sentence case.
• Report number. If there is one, in parentheses straight after the title, not italic, with no period before the parenthesis.
• Publisher. A parent agency that isn’t already in the author’s name goes in the source position. When the author and the publisher are the same, leave the publisher out.
• URL. At the end, with no period after it.

In-text citation

Use the agency and the year: (National Water Quality Agency, 2024). APA lets you introduce an abbreviation the first time so later citations can use it, as in (National Water Quality Agency [NWQA], 2024) and then (NWQA, 2024).

Check before you submit

• Who is the author? If the report credits named individuals, they are the authors and the agency becomes the publisher.
• Find the date. Government reports usually state it on the cover or in the document’s details.
• Search your library’s catalog first. Reports often aren’t in scholarly databases, so a reference to one may be marked “Couldn’t verify” even though it exists. This is common for grey literature.