Regulatory Flexibility Act

The Regulatory Flexibility Act is perhaps the most comprehensive effort by the U.S. federal government to balance the social goals of federal regulations with the needs and capabilities of small businesses and other small entities in American society.

In practice, the RFA has been an interesting and much-imitated attempt to "scale" the actions of the federal government to the size of the groups and organizations affected.

Passed in 1980, the RFA has been gradually strengthened in the intervening years, and has historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support.

Since the federal government began calculating the economic impact of the RFA in 1998, the law is estimated to have saved small entities (and the U.S. economy as a whole) more than $200 billion without undermining the broad purposes of the regulations it affects. More than 40 U.S. states, as well as a number of other nations, have adopted similar approaches.