EU Law Citation Generator

Your citations

Enter the act's type and number and its Official Journal reference to see your citations.

How to Use the EU Law Citation Generator

1. 1. Choose legislation or a judgment. Regulations, directives and decisions are cited to the Official Journal; judgments of the Court of Justice and the General Court are cited by case number and ECLI.
2. 2. Copy the details from EUR-Lex. For an act, take its type and number, the institutions that adopted it, the date and the rest of the title, and paste the Official Journal reference exactly as EUR-Lex shows it: OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1–88.
3. 3. Add a pinpoint and a short form. Give the article you cite and a short form such as GDPR for later OSCOLA footnotes, plus the URL and the date you accessed it for Harvard.
4. 4. Copy the citations. OSCOLA's footnote and table entry, APA's reference and in-text citation, and Cite Them Right's reference each have a copy button.

Why OSCOLA, APA and Harvard

OSCOLA, the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities, is the style most UK law schools and law journals use, and so the one most students meet for EU law; its fifth edition (2026) moved EU sources into its international-law chapter and now cites EU judgments by ECLI. Harvard in its Cite Them Right version is the default referencing style at many UK universities outside law. APA 7 is the standard in psychology and is widely used in education, business and the social sciences, including at many European universities — but its manual covers only U.S. legal materials, so its EU form here is built from APA's general legal-reference pattern.

Reading an Official Journal Reference

EU legislation appears in the L (legislation) series of the Official Journal of the European Union; the C series carries information and notices. Until 30 September 2023 the reference gave the issue number, date and page — OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1. Since 1 October 2023 each act is published on its own, so the reference is the act's number and date — OJ L, 2024/1689, 12.7.2024 for the Artificial Intelligence Act.

Recent acts. OSCOLA's printed examples predate act-by-act publication, so for an act published since October 2023 the generator writes the EU's reference with OSCOLA's punctuation — [2024] OJ L 2024/1689 — and flags it. Check your law school's rule.

EU Law Citation Examples

A regulation: the GDPR

Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation, published in OJ L 119 on 4 May 2016, with a pinpoint to Article 17, the right to erasure:

A judgment: Schrems II

Case C-311/18, decided by the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice on 16 July 2020:

Common Mistakes

• Mixing up old and new numbering. Since 1 January 2015 every act is numbered (EU) year/number — Regulation (EU) 2016/679. Older regulations put the number first, Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006; older directives put the year first, Directive 95/46/EC.
• Citing a consolidated text as the original. EUR-Lex's consolidated versions are not the Official Journal text; cite the Official Journal and say as amended when it matters.
• Inventing a page for a recent act. Acts published since October 2023 have no Official Journal page; cite the act number and date.
• Leaving out the ECLI. OSCOLA's fifth edition cites EU judgments by ECLI instead of a law report, and Cite Them Right includes it too.
• Writing OJ L119/1 in Harvard. Cite Them Right writes the italic Official Journal, the series and issue, and the page range.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you cite an EU regulation in OSCOLA?

Give the full title — type, number, institutions, date and subject — then the year in square brackets and the Official Journal series, issue and first page: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons … (General Data Protection Regulation) [2016] OJ L119/1. A pinpoint follows a comma (art 17), and a short form in brackets lets later footnotes say just GDPR.

How do you cite the GDPR in Harvard (Cite Them Right)?

Put the type, number and title in single quotation marks, then the year, the italic Official Journal, the series and issue, and the pages: ‘Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons … (General Data Protection Regulation)’ (2016) Official Journal L119, pp. 1–88. In text: (Regulation (EU) 2016/679).

How do you cite EU law in APA?

APA 7's manual covers only U.S. legal materials, so there is no official EU template. APA's legal references run title, source, year, so the generator gives the act's official title, the Official Journal reference the EU prints and the year — ending OJ L 119, p. 1 (2016) — then the URL, and cites (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, 2016) in text. Check your department's guide, since some set out a different layout.

How do you cite a Court of Justice judgment?

In OSCOLA's fifth edition: Case C-311/18 Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Limited and Maximillian Schrems EU:C:2020:559, with paragraph pinpoints in square brackets. Cite Them Right puts the name in single quotation marks, then the year, Case no., the ECLI and the URL with an access date. APA gives the name, case number, ECLI and year, and italicizes the name only in the in-text citation.

What is an ECLI?

The European Case Law Identifier, a standard code for a judgment. ECLI:EU:C:2020:559 means an EU court (EU), the Court of Justice (C), the year 2020 and the 559th identifier issued that year. OSCOLA writes it without the ECLI: prefix, as the Court of Justice does.

How do you cite an act published after October 2023?

The Official Journal now publishes each act separately, with no issue or page number, and EUR-Lex gives the reference as OJ L, 2024/1689, 12.7.2024. The generator writes [2024] OJ L 2024/1689 in OSCOLA and OJ L, 2024/1689 (2024) in APA, and gives the URL with an access date in Cite Them Right.