Executive Order 13272: Proper Consideration of Small Entities in Agency Rulemaking
President: George W. Bush
Required agencies to adopt procedures for considering effects of draft rules on small entities, notify and respond to the SBA Office of Advocacy in specified cases, and required Advocacy to train agencies and report annually to OMB.
Status: In effect.
Is Executive Order 13272 still in effect? Yes. Active; still used in agency rulemaking and SBA oversight.
What does Executive Order 13272 do?
The order assigned these duties: Rulemaking agencies — Adopt procedures, review draft rules and notify Advocacy of potentially significant small-entity effects; SBA Office of Advocacy — Issue notice, train agency staff, comment on draft rules and monitor compliance.
Checked the RFA rulemaking duties against the order and current SBA oversight material. The order calls for agency procedures and review; it does not exempt small entities from generally applicable statutes or rules.
Before and after
Before the order
The Regulatory Flexibility Act required analysis of significant small-entity effects, but implementation practices varied across agencies.
After the order
Agencies published procedures, Advocacy began government-wide training and annual compliance reporting, and rule preambles routinely address the order. The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 placed related response-to-comments and training duties in statute. SBA continues to list EO 13272 as current rulemaking guidance.
Who had to do what
| Agency / office | Action | Timing / position |
|---|---|---|
| Rulemaking agencies | Adopt procedures, review draft rules and notify Advocacy of potentially significant small-entity effects | Draft procedures within 90 days; final within 180 days |
| SBA Office of Advocacy | Issue notice, train agency staff, comment on draft rules and monitor compliance | Initial notice within 90 days; continuing |
| SBA Office of Advocacy | Report agency compliance to OMB | At least annually |
What happened next
EO 13272 signed.
EO 13272 established the agency and Advocacy procedures.
The Small Business Jobs Act added related agency-response and training provisions to the RFA.
Advocacy published its FY 2023 annual report on RFA and EO 13272 implementation.
Legal and source detail
How it works legally
The Regulatory Flexibility Act—not the order’s no-private-right clause—supplies the judicially reviewable duties Congress chose to make enforceable. Courts may review qualifying final rules for statutory RFA compliance, but EO 13272 itself states that it creates no enforceable right or benefit. No order-specific merits judgment was located.
Sources by type
If a source is unavailable, first check the cited publisher or another official repository. The cited publisher remains the authority.
Primary and official sources
Orders, laws, court records and official implementation material.
How we checked this
Last checked against the sources above on October 2, 2026. How we research →