GLOGood Lookin’ Out

Montana regulations: details

Copied from the Secretary of State’s rules site, through its own public bulk download of effective rules, one PDF per rule on October 21, 2026. Check the official page before you rely on a rule.

What is here

Montana: the Administrative Rules of Montana as the Secretary of State's site (rules.mt.gov) gave them in its public bulk export on 2026-10-21 (effective rules only, one PDF per rule), saved by GLO's desktop session and read by machine: GLO's reading of the export's PDFs, not a certified edition. 13,558 of the 13,901 rule files of the export are served, from 399 chapters of 20 titles, each a whole rule with its Authorizing, Implementing and History lines as printed. One reader gives the text and a second, with no shared code, checks its characters in order; the spaces between words are the first reader's alone, so a word the PDF breaks at a line end after a hyphen keeps a space after the hyphen ("post- DROP") and a space the PDF sets before an apostrophe or comma is kept. Release 1b (2026-10-21) corrects Release 1's table test, which took the one shape every rule draws for a page frame; it is a rule under the rule's last line, on the last page only, so a single line or box on another page was not caught. 82 rules Release 1 served draw one and are now held by name: a line under a web or e-mail address (43), a line under words (28), a box (6), a blank signature or form line (5). Release 2 (2026-10-21) serves 186 rules Release 1 held for a drawing, whose every drawing beyond the end rule is a line under a web or e-mail address; each answer lists those addresses as printed (underlined_links), and the text shows them without the underline. Release 3 (2026-10-24) serves 33 more rules Release 1 held for a drawing, whose every drawing beyond the end rule is a line under a cross-reference the rule cites: a statute or rule number ("75-2-215", "17.30.1033") or an address, listed the same way. Release 4 (2026-10-24) serves again 50 of Release 1b's 82: 43 whose every line beyond the end rule is under a web or e-mail address and 7 whose line is under a statute number the rule cites, listed the same way; their text is, character for character, the text Release 1 served. Release 5 (2026-10-24) serves 22 rules Release 1 held because a page draws a table, read by a reader that keeps the table's cells: each table row is one line, its cells in order between " | " (an empty cell blank), as GLO read the PDF's drawn grid (one finder's grid; each cell's text read by one reader and checked cell by cell by a second); a cell's indentation and its own line breaks are not kept. 69 rules that draw a table stay held by name: a cell spanning columns or rows (38), a row whose cells each print several lines (19), another drawing beyond the tables (9), the readers differing on a cell or on a table's characters (2), a raised character in a cell (1). 343 rules are held, each by name with its reasons (counted once, by the first): a page that draws a table, box, line or form (238), a transferred status line (97), a first line that is not the rule's own number (4), an image (1), a paragraph that begins as a History line does (1), a number given to two files (1), a private-font symbol (1). A rule whose page draws any line, box or table beyond that end rule is held, unless every such drawing is a line under a web or e-mail address (Releases 2 and 4) or under a statute or rule number or an address (Releases 3 and 4), or is a table Release 5's readers cleared; a table drawn without lines would not be caught. The key ("ARM 24.21.411") is the usual citation. Release 1's served rules, Release 2's, Release 3's, Release 4's and Release 5's were each checked by hand on 20 drawn rules, so a fault rarer than about 1 in 7 rules could remain unseen. Nothing here says a rule is current or in force; check the Secretary of State's site before relying on it.
Release 1: 13,349 rules from 395 chapters, copied on October 21, 2026. Release 1b (October 21, 2026): 82 of them are now held, because a page draws a line or box that Release 1’s first check missed; 13,267 rules are shown. Release 2 (October 21, 2026): 186 rules Release 1 held, whose only drawings are lines under web or e-mail addresses, are now shown; 13,453 rules were shown. Release 3 (October 24, 2026): 33 rules Release 1 held, whose only drawings are lines under statute or rule numbers or web addresses the rule cites, are now shown; 13,486 rules were shown. Release 4 (October 24, 2026): 50 of the 82 rules Release 1b held, whose only lines are under web addresses or statute numbers, are shown again; 13,536 rules were shown. Release 5 (October 24, 2026): 22 rules Release 1 held because a page draws a table are now shown, each table row as one line; 13,558 rules are shown.
Of the 13,901 rule files in the export, 343 are held and not shown, each with its reasons: mainly a page that draws a table, box, line or form (238), a transferred status line (97), a first line that is not the rule's own number (4). A held rule comes back as held, with its reasons and no text. Held is not absent.
The export holds effective rules only. What is shown here is our reading of each rule’s PDF, not a certified edition.
Each answer is a whole rule, with its paragraphs and its Authorizing, Implementing and History lines as the PDF prints them.
Look a rule up as ARM 24.21.411. A subsection such as ARM 24.21.411(1)(a) returns the whole rule. ARM 24.21 lists the rules of chapter 24.21: shown and held. A long rule comes in pages.

How we checked it

Two separate readers, written with no shared code, read every rule’s PDF. One gives the text; the other checks that it reads the same characters in the same order. A rule is shown only where they agree.
The second reader does not see the spaces between words in these PDFs, so the word spaces are the first reader’s alone. Where the PDF breaks a word at the end of a line after a hyphen, a space stays after the hyphen (“post- DROP”).
A rule is held when a page of it draws a table, a box, a line or a form, when it prints a transferred status line, when its first line is not its own number, when it carries an image or a private-font symbol, or when a paragraph begins as its History line does.
Release 1’s check for drawings took the one line every rule draws under its last line for a page frame, so it missed a single line or box on any other page. Release 1b corrects it: a rule is held when any page draws anything beyond that end line. 82 rules Release 1 had shown were found this way and are held by name.
Release 2 shows the rules whose only drawings beyond that end line are lines under web or e-mail addresses. Each answer lists the underlined addresses as printed; the text shows them without the underline. Before Release 2 was shown, 20 of its 186 rules drawn at random were read against the second reader’s text of the same PDF; all 20 matched.
Release 3 shows the rules whose only drawings beyond that end line are lines under statute or rule numbers or web addresses, the cross-references the rule cites. Each answer lists them as printed; the text shows them without the underline. Before Release 3 was shown, 20 of its 33 rules drawn at random were read against the second reader’s text of the same PDF; all 20 matched.
Release 4 shows again 50 of the 82 rules Release 1b held, those whose only lines beyond the end line are under web addresses (43) or under a statute number the rule cites (7). Each answer lists them as printed; the text is the text Release 1 showed, character for character. Before Release 4 was shown, 20 of its 50 rules drawn at random were read against the second reader’s text of the same PDF; all 20 matched.
Release 5 shows 22 rules whose pages draw a table. Its reader, built on the first, finds each table’s grid and writes each row as one line, its cells in order between “ | ”, an empty cell left blank; a second reader, with no shared code, reads the same cells and agreed on every one (1,183 cells). A cell’s indentation and its own line breaks are not kept. Rules whose tables have a cell spanning columns or rows (38), or a row whose cells each print several lines (19), stay held, with 12 more for other reasons. Before Release 5 was shown, 20 of its 22 rules drawn at random were read row by row against a separate layout reading of the same tables; all 20 matched.
Before release, we drew 20 shown rules at random and read each one’s heading, first paragraphs and History line against the second reader’s text of the same PDF. All 20 matched. After that check, one rule was found misread (its first paragraph begins “History:”) and is held.
One AI system wrote the readers, ran every check and made every reading and ruling, with no second reader.

What it can't tell you

Whether a rule is in force, valid or current, or is good law.
When a rule took effect beyond what its History line prints.
What the held rules say, a wrong space between two words, or a table drawn without lines.
Whether anything changed after the export was saved.

Known gaps

343 rules are held, not shown; the largest group is rules with a page that draws a table, box, line or form (238, of them 32 held since Release 1b).
Rules not effective on the export’s date are not in it.
Bold, italics and indents are not kept; the text is the rule’s words, one paragraph per line.
The rules were read by machine and checked by hand on 20 drawn rules, so a fault rarer than about 1 in 7 rules could remain unseen.
Keyword search reads only the shown rules. Held rules have no text here and never match.

Notes you may see on an entry

A held rule: “GLO holds this rule and does not show its text, because its readers or the release check did not clear it. Its reasons are listed by name.”
A subsection asked for: “The whole rule is shown, with a note; the subsection is inside it under its own number.”
A rule not in this copy: “Not in this copy of Montana’s rules, neither shown nor held by number. That never means the rule does not exist.”

Nothing here is legal advice or a judgment that a rule is in force. Full counts for software: the defect_floor field on every Montana result (source=mt).