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Seqlense EUR-Lex

Corpus in numbers

How much EU law is there, really?

Aggregates over everything we hold, recomputed once a day. Including the parts where our coverage is thin, because a number you can check is worth more than a claim you cannot.

859 411Distinct actsOne per CELEX, across every language
2 868 387Language expressionsOne row per act and language
64 388Still in forceOf the acts that record a status
28 709Consolidated versionsPoint-in-time texts
2 390 267Parsed paragraphsArticle level, one language
3 496 276RelationsEdges between acts
48.2 GBText heldBefore compression, all languages
4LanguagesPresent in the corpus today

Act-level figures are counted in English. The corpus stores one row per act and language, so counting across all of them would multiply every figure by however many languages each act happens to exist in.

Legislative output, year by year

Dated acts, excluding consolidated versions, coloured by how much structure the source manifestation allowed us to recover. The step change around 2008 is not ours: it is when the Publications Office began issuing machine-readable manifestations. Before it, there is no article markup in the source to recover, and we do not invent any.

  • Article level
  • Full text, no article markup
  • No text in the source
1960197019801990200020102020

721 224 dated acts between 1951 and 2026. 8.7% carry article-level structure.

By sector

The first character of a CELEX identifier. Sector 3 is legislation; sector 6 is case law; sector 0 holds consolidated texts.

  • Legislation201 36526.9%
  • Parliamentary questions185 05624.7%
  • Preparatory acts125 81616.8%
  • Case law103 49913.8%
  • Official Journal C58 9617.9%
  • Consolidated acts28 7093.8%
  • National transposition15 9372.1%
  • International agreements14 5531.9%
  • Treaties9 5461.3%
  • EFTA documents2 5250.3%
  • National case law2 4400.3%
  • Complementary legislation1 5260.2%

By document type

The fifteen most common types.

  • QUEST_WRITTEN163 77328.1%
  • REG119 51020.5%
  • INFO_JUDICIAL71 33612.3%
  • CONS_TEXT28 7354.9%
  • JUDG26 1184.5%
  • DEC_ENTSCHEID24 7344.2%
  • DEC22 7863.9%
  • NOTICE19 5223.4%
  • QUEST_TIME19 3543.3%
  • COMMUNIC18 9323.3%
  • MEAS_NATION_IMPL15 9372.7%
  • ANNOUNC15 8122.7%
  • REG_IMPL12 4552.1%
  • PROP_REG11 5942.0%
  • OPIN_AG11 3862.0%

How many languages an act exists in

The Union publishes in 24 languages, but a great many acts exist in far fewer, and asking Cellar for a language an act has no expression in is a legitimate refusal rather than an error. This distribution is why the language selector on a document is built from what the corpus holds instead of from the list of official languages.

  • 1 language137 81416.0%
  • 2 languages29 0703.4%
  • 3 languages97 67511.4%
  • 4 languages594 85269.2%

Coverage by language

  • French759 72126.5%
  • English749 93326.1%
  • German748 18026.1%
  • Spanish610 55321.3%

The relation graph

Sixty-plus relation predicates, grouped into families. Each edge runs from one act to another, in the direction the source states it.

  • Legal basis and citations2 163 30661.9%
  • National implementation397 17611.4%
  • Consolidation284 0708.1%
  • Amendments and repeals272 5877.8%
  • Other relations162 5684.6%
  • Case law87 6842.5%
  • Related documents70 7502.0%
  • Document structure58 1351.7%

Most cited acts

Acts the rest of the corpus points at most often. Treaty articles dominate, which is what you would expect: they are the legal basis almost everything rests on.

  1. 32009R0207Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the Community trade mark (codified version) (Text with EEA…7 626
  2. 31968R0259(01)Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No 259/68 of the Council of 29 February 1968 laying down the Staff Regulations of…6 373
  3. 32017R1001Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 on the European Union trade…5 840
  4. 12016E/TXTConsolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union5 650
  5. 32015Q0423(01)Rules of procedure of the General Court4 826
  6. 12016E263Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union — PART SIX - INSTITUTIONAL AND FINANCIAL…4 811
  7. 32012Q0929(01)Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice4 405
  8. 12008E263Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - PART SIX: INSTITUTIONAL AND FINANCIAL…4 269
  9. 12008E/PRO/03Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - PROTOCOLS - Protocol (No 3) on the…4 062
  10. 31991Q0530Rules of procedure of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities of 2 May 19914 014

Most amended acts

Counting amendments, modifications and corrigenda. A high number here is a good reason to read a consolidated version rather than the original.

  1. 21994A0103(52)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex II - Technical Regulations, standards, testing and certification - List…2 434
  2. 21994A0103(51)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex I - Veterinary and phytosanitary matters - List provided for in Article…1 088
  3. 21994A0103(63)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex XIII - Transport - List provided for in Article 47928
  4. 21994A0103(70)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex XX - Environment - List provided for in Article 74593
  5. 32011R0540Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 540/2011 of 25 May 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the…513
  6. 21994A0103(59)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex IX - Financial services - List provided for in Article 36 (2)491
  7. 32002R0881Council Regulation (EC) No 881/2002 of 27 May 2002 imposing certain specific restrictive measures directed against…368
  8. 21994A0103(71)Agreement on the European Economic Area - Annex XXI - Statistics - List provided for in Article 76336
  9. 31995R1484Commission Regulation (EC) No 1484/95 of 28 June 1995 laying down detailed rules for implementing the system of…289
  10. 32005R0396Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 February 2005 on maximum residue levels…274

Recomputed daily. Last pass 2026-10-22 07:31 UTC.