Linking a Past Date's Version of a Federal Regulation on eCFR

For the cited 24 CFR 30.35 example, eCFR provides both a current URL and a dated URL: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/section-30.35 and https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2020-01-01/title-24/section-30.35. The dated page identifies itself as the version in effect on January 1, 2020 and displays a date-qualified citation. (ecfr.gov, ecfr.gov)

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• The cited current and January 1, 2020 URLs for 24 CFR 30.35 differ by /current/ and /on/2020-01-01/. (ecfr.gov, ecfr.gov)
• The pinned page explicitly announces itself as a historical view rather than silently swapping content: it shows a “Displaying the eCFR in effect on 1/01/2020.” banner and offers a “view current version” link back out. (ecfr.gov)
• The cited historical page’s Citation field is date-qualified — “24 CFR 30.35 (Jan. 1, 2020)” — while the cited current page shows “24 CFR 30.35.” (ecfr.gov, ecfr.gov)
• This point-in-time system reaches back to January 2017, per eCFR’s own reader guidance. (ecfr.gov)

Worked example

This walkthrough uses 24 CFR 30.35 and the date January 1, 2020. The live, current-version page for this section lives at https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/section-30.35. Its citation line simply reads “24 CFR 30.35” — no date attached — and it offers a “view historical versions” link for readers who want an earlier text. (ecfr.gov)

To see the cited January 1, 2020 version, open https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2020-01-01/title-24/section-30.35. (ecfr.gov) This example uses the dated page directly; it does not establish which dated URLs are available for every section or date.

Pinned-page banner

A reader’s biggest worry with any “past version” link is whether the page is quietly serving different content without saying so. The eCFR pinned page addresses that directly. At the top, it displays: “Displaying the eCFR in effect on 1/01/2020.” (ecfr.gov) — an explicit, plain-language statement of what date’s text you’re reading. Alongside it sits a “view current version” link (ecfr.gov), an escape hatch back to today’s text if that’s what you actually meant to read. The live page runs the same idea in reverse, offering “view historical versions” (ecfr.gov) so a reader on the current page can navigate to an earlier one just as easily.

Date-qualified citation

Beyond the banner, the cited historical page’s Citation field reads “24 CFR 30.35 (Jan. 1, 2020)” (ecfr.gov). The cited current page’s field reads “24 CFR 30.35” (ecfr.gov). A reader can preserve the displayed date by copying the date-qualified citation from the historical page.

This article doesn’t state a specific dollar penalty figure as any reader’s own currently applicable amount. The date-pinning mechanism above is about matching a section’s text to a date, not about telling an individual reader which number governs their situation — for that, read the pinned or current section itself rather than relying on a summary.

How far back this reaches

eCFR’s own documentation states: “The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) provides a way of exploring the Code of Federal Regulations as it exists today and at points in time back to January 2017.” (ecfr.gov) The /on/{date}/ link demonstrated above falls inside that window, since January 1, 2020 is after January 2017.

The cited guidance describes point-in-time exploration back to January 2017. This article does not determine what a particular URL outside that stated range will return or identify an alternative record for an earlier date.

Source links

• https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2020-01-01/title-24/section-30.35
• https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/section-30.35
• https://www.ecfr.gov/reader-aids/using-ecfr