The North Carolina General Statutes table of contents is published on the General Assembly’s website at ncleg.gov, under the Laws section. It lists every chapter of permanent state law by number and title, from Chapter 1 forward, and lets you click into any chapter to see its articles and sections. The online version is currently updated through Session Law 2025-97.1North Carolina General Assembly. General Statute Chapters
How the Chapters, Articles, and Sections Fit Together
Three tiers. Each chapter covers a broad subject and carries a number: Chapter 15A is the Criminal Procedure Act, Chapter 20 is motor vehicles.2North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes – Chapter 20 – Motor Vehicles Within a chapter, articles group related subtopics; Article 17 of Chapter 20 covers vehicle financial responsibility.
Sections hold the actual text. A section number joins the chapter and the specific section with a hyphen, so G.S. 20-1 means Chapter 20, Section 1, which establishes the Division of Motor Vehicles.3North Carolina Legislative Publications. Statutes Once you know the format, you can read any citation and know where to look in the table of contents.
Two Ways to Pull Up a Statute
If you already have a citation, use the citation search box on the General Statutes page. Type the number (for example, 17D-4) and the site returns the HTML or PDF version directly.1North Carolina General Assembly. General Statute Chapters This is the fastest route when you know what you want.
If you don’t have a citation, browse. Click a chapter number in the table of contents and it expands to show the articles and sections inside. Researching trespass law, you’d open Chapter 14 (Criminal Law) and work through the articles until you find the right sections.
Keyword search is the third option, scanning statute titles and text for your terms. The results tend to be broad, so narrow phrases work better than single words. “Criminal trespass” returns more useful hits than “trespass” alone.
Every section is available in HTML for quick on-screen reading and PDF for download or print. The text is identical in both formats.1North Carolina General Assembly. General Statute Chapters
What the Entries in the Table of Contents Mean
When the General Assembly repeals a chapter or section, the table of contents keeps the entry and marks it. Chapter 2 appears as “Clerk of Superior Court [Repealed and Transferred.]” rather than being removed.1North Carolina General Assembly. General Statute Chapters Keeping the entry preserves the numbering sequence so citations in older opinions, contracts, and filings still land in the right place, and the notation tells you whether the content moved elsewhere or was eliminated.
Amendments are folded directly into the section text, so what you read on the site is the cumulative current law. A note at the top of the General Statutes page states how current the version is, such as “The General Statutes include changes through SL 2025-97.”1North Carolina General Assembly. General Statute Chapters Check that note before you rely on a section for anything time-sensitive.
At the end of each section, history notes list the session laws that created or amended the statute. Those notes let you trace how a provision changed over time, which matters when the version in effect on a particular date is the one you need.
What the Free Online Version Doesn’t Include
The ncleg.gov version is unannotated. You get the statute text and the history notes, and that’s it. For reading what the law says, that’s enough.
Annotated editions, sold by commercial services like LexisNexis and Westlaw, layer research material onto the same statutory text: case citations interpreting the section, references to administrative regulations, and legal commentary. The underlying language is identical; what differs is everything built around it.
One gap matters more than it looks. When a section contains a parenthetical like “(see Editor’s note)” or “(see note),” the note itself is not posted free online. You’d need the printed General Statutes at a law library or courthouse, or a LexisNexis subscription, to read it.4North Carolina General Assembly. General Statutes Editor’s notes often explain how a statute interacts with other laws or how a recent amendment should be read.
When the Table of Contents Is Behind the Latest Law
A bill the General Assembly passes and the governor signs becomes a session law, numbered sequentially within the session (SL 2025-97, for example). Session laws don’t appear in the statute text until they’re codified and assigned chapter and section numbers. If the legislature just enacted something, it may already be in effect without yet showing up when you browse the table of contents. During that interval, pull the session law itself from the General Assembly website to see the current enactment, and compare it against the currency note at the top of the General Statutes page to know what’s in and what isn’t.