31 U.S.C. § 101
Section 101 · Agency
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case National Federation of Federal Employees v. Cheney (1989)
Most recently applied in Byers v. Intuit, Inc. (March 2010)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In this title, “agency” means a department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States Government.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
The section is included to avoid the necessity for defining “agency” each time it is used in the revised title.