Lobbying Database

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

You can use the options below to search through our database in four ways: search by name for a company, lobbying firm or individual lobbyist; search for the total spending by a particular industry; search for the total spending by lobbyists on a specific issue; or view the amount spent to lobby a particular government agency.

Total Lobbying Spending

1998 $1.45 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.54 Billion 2001 $1.63 Billion 2002 $1.81 Billion 2003 $2.04 Billion 2004 $2.17 Billion 2005 $2.41 Billion 2006 $2.60 Billion 2007 $2.82 Billion 2008 $1.58 Billion

Number of Lobbyists

1998 10,689 1999 13,674 2000 12,664 2001 11,986 2002 12,264 2003 13,067 2004 13,324 2005 14,445 2006 15,462 2007 15,731 2008 16,982