What is the STOCK Act, and how does the 45-day disclosure rule work?

By Daniel, The Philosopher Investor · updated October 2, 2026

What did the law change?

Before 2012, members disclosed their holdings once a year in an annual report, with trades buried inside it and often a year old. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, signed in April 2012 after a wave of press coverage, added periodic transaction reports: a filing for each trade, on a deadline measured in weeks rather than a year.

It also stated plainly that members and their staff owe a duty not to trade on non-public information learned through their work. That duty was arguably already there under general securities law. Writing it down closed the argument.

How does the 45-day rule work in practice?

The clock has two parts. A member must file within 30 days of becoming aware of a trade, and in any case within 45 days of the trade date. For a trade the member placed personally, awareness is immediate and the practical deadline is 30 days. For a trade in a managed account, the adviser may notify the member later, and the 45-day outer limit is what binds.

Filings arrive in a cluster near the deadline. A trade made on the first of the month typically becomes public in the middle of the following month. The gap between transaction date and disclosure date on any filing tells you how much time the member used.

What happens when a member files late?

The statutory penalty is $200 per late filing, waivable by the ethics committee. For a member trading in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that is a rounding error, and the record shows it: late filings number in the hundreds each Congress, some of them months late, a few of them years. Enforcement beyond the fine has been rare.

This matters for reading the data. A tracker that shows a cluster of buys disclosed this week may be showing trades that happened two months ago. Always read the transaction date, never the disclosure date, when you ask what a member knew and when.

What does a filing not tell you?

The exact amount, because trades are reported in brackets. The reason, because none is required. Whether the member made the decision, unless the account is marked as managed. And the position size that results, because periodic reports show trades, and holdings appear only in the annual report.

It also says nothing about options, futures or crypto in most cases, because the reporting categories were written for stocks and funds. Some members report them, in inconsistent formats. Treat non-stock trades in the data as partial.

Has the law worked?

On transparency, yes. Every trade is public within weeks, trackers read them daily, and press coverage of individual members' trading is routine. On deterrence, the evidence is mixed. Trading volume by members did not fall after 2012, and several academic studies since have found that members' stock picks continue to outperform, especially in industries their committees oversee.

That gap between disclosure and deterrence is why proposals to ban trading outright have gained support in both parties. Until one passes, the data the STOCK Act created is the tool, and the 45-day lag is its main limit.

Common questions