AI-powered · EU law · Methodology v1.0 (PDF)

Measure the friction
of any regulation

The Regulatory Friction Index measures resistance regulations introduce into everyday lawful actions for citizens and businesses, with separate cohort scores and a combined societal measure.

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Societal Regulatory Friction (SRF)
combined citizen + business GRF
Citizen IRF
person-level burden per interaction
Citizen GRF
citizen aggregate burden
Citizen Exposure
normalised 0-1
Business IRF
organisation-level burden per cycle
Business GRF
business aggregate burden
Business Exposure
normalised 0-1
Friction dimensions
Citizen
Business

How the RFI works

EU Regulations, Directives, and Decisions — scoring friction separately for citizens and organisations, then combining both in SRF.

The methodology document sets out the full RFI framework, definitions, and scoring rubric: RFI methodology v1.0 (PDF).

01
Five friction dimensions
Both cohorts - citizens and businesses - are scored on five dimensions: effort, time cost, cognitive load, autonomy reduction, and avoidability.
02
Individual Friction
This shows how intense the friction feels in a single interaction, separately for citizens and for businesses.
03
General Friction and Societal Friction
General Friction reflects burden at scale for each cohort, while Societal Friction combines both into one overall signal.
04
Policy matrix
The matrix shows whether burden falls mainly on citizens, mainly on businesses, on both, or on neither, to guide redesign priorities.

Interactive calculator

Score citizen and business friction manually, estimate cohort exposures, and see Citizen GRF, Business GRF, and SRF in real time.

Citizen friction dimensions
Citizen hard tier dimensions (evidence-based)
Physical Effort (PE)0
Extra bodily actions required to comply with the regulation.
012345
Suggested: n/a
Time Cost (TC)0
Additional time added per interaction as a direct result of the regulation.
012345
Suggested: n/a
Observed action count
Discrete motor actions per interaction
Measured time (seconds)
Observed or estimated seconds per interaction
Citizen soft tier dimensions (proxy-based)
Cognitive Load (CL)0
Attention, decision-making, or confusion introduced by the regulation.
012345
Autonomy Reduction (AR)0
The degree to which the regulation narrows the individual's choice.
012345
Avoidability (AV)0
The degree to which the person cannot opt out or route around the friction.
012345
Business friction dimensions
Implementation Burden (IB)0
Institutional effort required to set up and maintain compliance systems.
012345
Business Time Cost (TC)0
Staff time consumed per compliance cycle.
012345
Compliance Complexity (CC)0
Difficulty of determining what compliance requires.
012345
Operational Constraint (OC)0
Restriction on organisational operating methods.
012345
Scope Avoidability (SA)0
Whether organisations can realistically fall outside scope.
012345
Exposure parameters
Citizen exposure
Reach (millions)
People who encounter friction.
Frequency (per year)
Interactions per person per year.
Rmax (millions)
Adult population in scope.
Business exposure
Reach (millions of organisations)
Default assumes a broadly applicable EU rule (~3M organisations).
Frequency (per year)
Default assumes a monthly recurring compliance cycle.
Rmax (millions)
Total businesses in jurisdiction.
Live results
0.000
Societal Regulatory Friction (SRF)
Citizen
0.00
IRF
0.000
Exposure
0.000
GRF
Business
0.00
IRF
0.000
Exposure
0.000
GRF
Citizen GRF = √(0.00 × 0.000) = 0.000
Business GRF = √(0.00 × 0.000) = 0.000
SRF = √(Citizen GRF² + Business GRF²) = 0.000
No flags triggered
Guidance will appear once evidence inputs are provided.

Compare regulations

Select two regulations from the library for a side-by-side friction comparison.

Regulation A
Regulation B
Select two regulations above to see a detailed comparison
of friction dimensions, exposure, and aggregate scores.

Assessment library

All past RFI assessments, searchable and browsable.

Friction leaderboard

Regulations ranked by SRF (default), with citizen and business GRF views.

#RegulationSRFCitizen GRFBusiness GRFFlag
Policy matrix
Individual friction (IRF) →
InvestigateHigh IRF · Low GRF
Redesign urgentlyHigh IRF · High GRF
AcceptableLow IRF · Low GRF
Monitor closelyLow IRF · High GRF
Low GRF High GRF →
Each dot is one regulation. Use Citizen / Business / Societal views. Hover for leaderboard #. Click to open.