What is the STOCK Act?

The short answer

The STOCK Act is a 2012 US law that requires members of Congress, and some senior staff, to publicly report their stock trades, and those of their spouse and dependent children, within 45 days.

Official source: House Periodic Transaction Report form and instructions (House Ethics Committee).

What it requires

Members of the House and Senate must report every purchase, sale or exchange of a security worth more than $1,000, including trades in the account of a spouse or a dependent child. The report is called a Periodic Transaction Report, or PTR.

The Act did not create financial disclosure in Congress. It took the annual disclosure that already existed under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, added a running report for individual trades, and put the filings on the internet in a searchable form.

The 45-day rule, exactly

The deadline is two deadlines, and the earlier one wins: a trade must be reported within 30 days of the member being notified of it, and in no case later than 45 days after the trade itself. A member who places their own order knows on day one, so for them the 30-day clock is the real one. The 45-day backstop exists for trades a member learns about late, typically in an account managed by someone else or by a spouse.

Nothing in the rule requires an announcement before the trade, and nothing requires a member to say why. By the time a PTR appears, the trade is between a few days and a month and a half old, and the price has already moved.

Amounts are ranges

A PTR never gives an exact figure. The filer ticks a band, and the bands are fixed: $1,001 to $15,000, then $15,001 to $50,000, $50,001 to $100,000, $100,001 to $250,000, and upward in the same way to a top band of over $50,000,000.

A band is not a number. The midpoint of a band is an invention, and adding midpoints up produces a total that was never filed. OQRO keeps every amount as the band the filer chose.

Late filings

The House's own periodic transaction report form says a $200 penalty is assessed on anyone who files more than 30 days late, and the House Ethics Committee publishes a form for asking to have a late fee waived. The fee is small, and the filing itself shows the delay: the trade date and the filing date are both on the report. OQRO measures the gap and lists reports disclosed more than 45 days after the trade in their own view.

How to read it

A PTR says what was traded, in which account, in which band, and on which day. It does not say who made the decision. A trade in a spouse's managed account and a trade a member placed themselves look much the same on the form.

It is also not evidence that anyone acted on private information. That question belongs to the insider-trading law the STOCK Act confirmed applies to Congress, and answering it takes more than a filing date.

What OQRO does with it

OQRO reads the reports filed with the House Clerk and the Senate, shows each trade with the band exactly as filed, the dates it carries, the committees the member sits on, how late the report was, and a link to the original document. Filings submitted on paper and scanned are not machine-readable and are not included.

A real example

A periodic transaction report filed with the House Clerk on 9 May 2026 by Rep. Cliff Bentz (Oregon, 2nd district).

One transaction row: owner SP (spouse), Intel Corporation common stock (INTC), type S (sale), amount $1,001 - $15,000, in a Charles Schwab SEP-IRA of the spouse.
Transaction date 04/09/2026 (9 April 2026). Notification date 05/04/2026 (4 May). The report is digitally signed 05/09/2026 (9 May).
So the member was notified 25 days after the trade, and the report was filed 30 days after the trade and 5 days after notification.
Under the rule (30 days from notification, and in no case later than 45 days from the transaction) the earlier date is 24 May 2026, after the filing date. The form itself does not say whether a report is late.

A report like this is typical of how the law works: the trade is in a spouse's account, the amount is a band rather than a figure, and the gap between trade and filing is measured in weeks. Nothing on the form says who decided the trade.

The record: House Clerk PTR, filing ID 20034524 (PDF) (opened October 8, 2026)

Common mistakes

Using the midpoint of an amount band as the amount. The official bands run $1,001-$15,000, $15,001-$50,000, $50,001-$100,000, $100,001-$250,000, $250,001-$500,000, $500,001-$1,000,000, $1,000,001-$5,000,000, $5,000,001-$25,000,000, $25,000,001-$50,000,000 and over $50,000,000.
Counting from the wrong date. The deadline is 30 days after the member is notified and in no case later than 45 days after the transaction; the form carries both dates, and the House Ethics Committee publishes a calculator.
Assuming the member made the trade. The form has an owner column for the member, a spouse (SP), a dependent child (DC) or a joint account (JT).
Assuming a late fee applies to every late report. The House's form says a $200 penalty is assessed on anyone who files more than 30 days late.
Treating the report as a Senate document. House reports are on the Clerk's site; Senate reports are filed through the Senate's own electronic filing system.

See it on OQRO

From the blog

Sources

Related guides

This explains a public filing in plain words. It is not legal or investment advice.

Help & Learn Read the full public guide ↗

Help & Learn / Read a Congress disclosure