Horse Protection Amendments; Further Postponement of Regulations

Document 2026-01648 is a Final Rule published by the Department of Agriculture in the Federal Register on January 28, 2026, with an effective date of December 31, 2026. On May 8, 2024, we published a final rule amending the horse protection regulations. The provisions of the final rule, initially scheduled to go into effect on February 1, 2025, were delayed until April 2, 2025. On March 21, 2025, we published a further delay of the effective date to February 1, 2026, and a request for comment on whether the length of the postponement should be extended. In this document, based on intervening developments since the issuance of the March 21, 2025 delay of effective date, we are further delaying the effective date of the provisions effective February 1, 2026, to December 31, 2026. View the original at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/01/28/2026-01648/horse-protection-amendments-further-postponement-of-regulations.

No. Document 2026-01648 is not classified as economically significant under Executive Order 12866. Economically significant rules require OIRA review and are estimated to have impacts of $100 million or more per year.