The article is devoted to the key issues of legal regulation of national projects in Russia from the point of view of the methodology of result-oriented budgeting (BOR). Russia has already come a long way in trying to implement policy documents aimed at achieving results when using federal budget funds. This process of federal targeted programs (FTP) began, which were replaced by state programs. At the same time, there was a parallel layering of other documents: priority projects and decrees of the President of Russia. A new stage in the development of the BOR system was the adoption of national projects and the building of all planning systems based on them. However, until now, a full-fledged analysis of the reasons for the failures of the Federal target Program and state programs has not been carried out at the state level. In fact, the names of the documents change, but the very essence of their content and methodology does not change. In this regard, the norms of law become an important component of the analysis, since on the basis of them, the procedures for the development and implementation of strategic planning documents are developed and approved. In our opinion, they are the reasons and problems of the “inefficiency” of attempts to implement BOR in Russia. Therefore, the subject of the study is the process of developing and implementing national projects. The purpose of the study is to form theoretical positions: on systemic shortcomings in the implementation of BOR in Russia, on the effectiveness of the current legal regulation of national projects, on the creation of a unified methodology for the implementation of strategic planning documents, on the need for a systematic analysis of the implementation of such documents. The author uses the dialectical method and special legal methods of scientific cognition, in particular methods of interpretation of law, comparative legal method, formal legal method. The paper draws conclusions about the need to improve legislation in terms of clarifying the procedure for regulating individual elements of national projects. One of the main reasons for the failure of the implementation of the Federal Target Program and state programs is formulated: the unclear and excessive methodology of their development, as well as the unclear nature of legal norms. It is proposed to continue building the BOR system led by national projects and bringing all other strategic planning documents in accordance with them.