How to search

You can search EUR-Lex in different ways, depending on your needs and on your specific criteria.

Quick search

For targeted searches, combining several criteria.
There are pre-defined, dynamic advanced search forms for each collection (for example legal acts, case-law). Once you select one, only the relevant search criteria are displayed.
You can also search simultaneously in more than one collection.
Advanced search is available from any pages of EUR-Lex.

For very specific and complex searches, usually performed by specialist users
You need to build your own search query with Boolean operators by choosing from the available metadata
To use the expert search, you need to have your own account on EUR-Lex and to sign in
Once signed in, you can launch an expert search from any EUR-Lex page

Recommended if you know the references of the document you are looking for.
You can find a document by typing the year, number and type. The results are limited to that document and its corrigenda, if any.
Available only on the EUR-Lex home page.

Recommended if you are familiar with Celex numbers.
Type the Celex number of the document you are looking for and it returns the results as in Search by document number. More on Celex numbers.
Available only on the EUR-Lex home page.

You can access the latest issues of the Official Journal directly from the EUR-Lex home page.
Click More to reach the Official Journal access page, where you can select several criteria to search for an Official Journal issue.

You can also browse by institutions that adopt EU acts: European Parliament, European Council, Council of the European Union, European Commission, Court of Justice of the European Union, European Central Bank, Court of Auditors, European Economic and Social Committee, European Committee of the Regions.
The European Central Bank has a specific section with customised search tools, a β€�Recently publishedβ€™ widget and statistics on ECB legal acts.
You can access β€�Browse by institutionsβ€™ on the EUR-Lex home page and on any other pages by clicking Menu.

EuroVoc is a thesaurus in multiple languages covering a wide range of fields related to the European Unionβ€™s activities (e.g. law, finance, trade). It is used to describe and index the documents in EUR-Lex and improve access to legislation. It is organised in 21 domains and 127 sub-domains.
You can access β€�Browse by EuroVocβ€™ on the EUR-Lex home page and on any other pages by clicking Menu.