Federal Lobbying Statistics 2025: The Complete Guide
Updated February 2026 · Source: Senate LDA Filings
The federal lobbying industry hit $2.7 billion in reported income in 2025, the highest single-year total in our dataset. Here's everything you need to know about who's lobbying, how much they're spending, and where the money goes.
Key Statistics at a Glance
How Much Is Spent on Lobbying Each Year?
Federal lobbying spending has grown significantly over the past eight years:
| Year | Total Income | Filings | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $2.70B | 95,275 | +36.3% |
| 2024 | $1.98B | 82,249 | −11.5% |
| 2023 | $2.24B | 95,236 | +9.4% |
| 2022 | $2.05B | 88,232 | +16.5% |
| 2021 | $1.76B | 78,650 | +8.1% |
| 2020 | $1.62B | 75,360 | +10.7% |
| 2019 | $1.47B | 68,815 | +4.9% |
| 2018 | $1.40B | 66,516 | — |
The 2025 spike is notable — a 36% increase over 2024, driven largely by tariff-related lobbying, AI regulation debates, and continued healthcare policy fights.
Who Spends the Most on Lobbying?
The top lobbying spenders include a mix of trade associations, pharmaceutical companies, tech giants, and defense contractors. See our full client rankings for the complete list.
Key industries by lobbying spend:
- Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals — Consistently the largest lobbying sector, driven by drug pricing debates, Medicare/Medicaid policy, and FDA regulation
- Technology — Rapidly growing, fueled by AI regulation, data privacy, antitrust, and content moderation debates
- Defense & Security — Steady spending tied to defense authorization and procurement
- Finance & Insurance — Banking regulation, fintech, cryptocurrency policy
- Energy & Environment — Climate policy, oil/gas regulation, renewable energy incentives
The Revolving Door
One of the most significant dynamics in federal lobbying is the "revolving door" — former government officials who become lobbyists. Our data identifies 5,000 lobbyists with prior government positions, including former members of Congress, agency heads, White House staff, and military officials.
See our full Revolving Door analysis and the investigation exposing the most egregious transitions.
Foreign Lobbying
Foreign governments and entities also lobby the U.S. Congress, primarily through American lobbying firms. Our data tracks 1,000 foreign entities involved in lobbying, from allied nations like the UK and Canada to adversarial governments. See our foreign lobbying tracker.
What Issues Get Lobbied Most?
The Lobbying Disclosure Act requires filers to categorize their lobbying by issue area. The top issue categories by spending include:
- Health Issues (HCR) — Drug pricing, Medicare, Medicaid, FDA approvals
- Budget/Appropriations (BUD) — Government spending priorities
- Taxation (TAX) — Corporate tax policy, individual tax reform
- Trade (TRD) — Tariffs, trade agreements, sanctions
- Defense (DEF) — Military contracts, weapons systems, veterans affairs
- Energy (ENG) — Oil/gas, renewables, climate policy
- Technology (CPT) — AI, data privacy, telecommunications
Explore all 79 issue categories with spending data.
How Does Lobbying Work?
Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (amended 2007), any individual or organization that spends more than $14,000 per quarter on lobbying activities must register with the Senate and file quarterly disclosure reports. These reports include:
- Income received (for lobbying firms) or expenses (for in-house lobbying)
- Names of specific lobbyists involved
- Issue areas lobbied
- Specific bills or executive branch actions targeted
- Whether any lobbyists held prior government positions
- Any foreign entity involvement
For a deeper explainer, read our guide: What Is Lobbying?
About This Data
All statistics on OpenLobby come from the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filing system. We process every filing from 2018 through 2025, normalize entity names, and aggregate spending by client, firm, lobbyist, issue, and state.
Our dataset includes 650,333 filings totaling $15.2 billion in reported lobbying income.