NMFS issues a final rule to revise the criteria for rural residents to participate in the subsistence fishery for Pacific halibut in waters in and off Alaska. This action is necessary to allow subsistence halibut fishing opportunities for rural residents who reside in locations outside the legal boundaries of specified communities and who were prohibited from participating in the subsistence halibut fishery by previous regulations. This action is intended to allow these inadvertently-excluded rural residents to participate in the subsistence halibut fishery and to support the conservation and management provisions of the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982.