red tape

noun

: official routine or procedure marked by excessive complexity which results in delay or inaction

bureaucratic red tape

… enterprisers that show how people across the Nation are coping (or not coping) with such problems as unemployment, the budget deficit and Government red tape.

—John Weisman

… pompous officials (often lowly clerks) in love with red tape who delight in obstructing the expedition of what should be simple procedures.

—Norman W. Schur

Initial plans became irretrievably mired in the red tape of building permissions.

—Bella Pollen

Their plan is simple enough and none too glamorous: create a Web site to help people cut through red tape; i.e., pay for parking tickets and so on.

—Sarah Kerr

Examples of red tape in a Sentence

You would not believe the red tape involved in getting the required permits.

Recent Examples on the Web

Every minute an infrastructure project waits — due to red tape, political wrangling, indecision, prolonged negotiations, burdensome rules, lack of funding and too few hands to move it forward — the costs go up, support softens, champions go quiet and good projects die. —Gia Biagi, Chicago Tribune, 5 Apr. 2026

And there's red tape that prevents them from crossing state lines to provide free care. —Brit McCandless Farmer, CBS News, 5 Apr. 2026

For Americans chasing a Canadian passport, the rules may have loosened but the red tape hasn’t. —Michelle Del Rey, USA Today, 3 Apr. 2026

Most of its 102 pages are tweaks to goals already stated in its version from last year, along with broad calls to increase production, reduce red tape and expand exports, with no details on how to do so and little connection to the difficult reality the country faces. —Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 1 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

from the red tape formerly used to bind legal documents in England

First Known Use

1736, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for red tape

• agape
• escape
• landscape
• lenape
• reshape
• seascape
• soundscape
• ape
• cape
• crape
• crepe
• drape

Kids Definition

red tape

noun

: rules and regulations that waste people's time