How to Cite a Government Report in MLA
Updated August 2026
Citing a government report in MLA comes down to one template and a handful of rules. Below: the exact 9th edition format, a real example produced by our citation engine, and the in-text form — or paste your source into the generator and copy the finished citation.
The MLA format
Author Last, First. “Title of the Page.” Site Name, Day Mon. Year, URL. Accessed Day Mon. Year.
MLA (9th edition) formats a government report reference as shown above. A real example, generated by our citation engine:
National Sleep Foundation. "Sleep in America poll: Sleep and mental health." National Sleep Foundation, 2024, https://www.thensf.org/sleep-in-america-poll-2024. Accessed 1 June 2026.
In-text(National Sleep Foundation)
Finding the pieces
Or skip the hunt: Paste the report's landing-page URL into the generator, or use Manual Entry with the agency as author, and every field is filled from the source's own record — then select MLA on the result.
- Author — the agency or department that issued it, written in full
- Report number — on the cover or title page; include it after the title when present
- Year — publication year from the cover or front matter
- The official URL — the agency's own page for the report, not a third-party mirror
MLA's formatting rules at work
- Only the first author's name is inverted; co-authors appear in natural order with full first names
- Titles use Title Case — capitalize all principal words
- Source titles take quotation marks inside a container; standalone works are italicized
- The date sits near the end of the entry, in day-month-year form with abbreviated months
Government Report-specific pitfalls
- The agency is usually both author and publisher — most styles then drop the repeated name
- Larger hierarchy can be included: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health
- Congressional documents, statutes, and case law have specialized legal-citation formats beyond this pattern
In-text citations in MLA
MLA cites in the text with author and page: (Alvarez 12) — no comma, no year. Sources without page numbers (most web sources) cite the author alone: (Alvarez). Three or more authors use et al.: (Harris et al. 360).
No author? A shortened title stands in — quoted for articles and pages, italicized for whole works: ("First Words of Title").
Building the Works Cited
Every in-text citation pairs with a full entry on the Works Cited page, alphabetized by author. Add each citation to your bibliography as you generate it, and the Bibliography Builder assembles and exports the finished page to Word with the title, ordering, and indentation MLA requires.
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Go Premium — $5/monthFrequently asked questions
- What's the basic MLA format for a government report?
- Author Last, First. “Title of the Page.” Site Name, Day Mon. Year, URL. Accessed Day Mon. Year. — see the worked example above, generated by the same engine that powers the free citation tool.
- Who is the author when no person is named?
- The issuing agency, written out in full. In-text, long agency names can be abbreviated after a first full mention: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2024), then (WHO, 2024).
- How do I cite a government report in MLA in-text?
- Author and page with no comma: (Alvarez 12); author alone when no pages exist: (Alvarez).
- Can I get this citation in other styles too?
- Yes — every result in the generator renders APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and IEEE simultaneously. Generate once, switch styles with one click.