The Trump Administration is seeking to relax the rules for companies to go public, echoing calls from the exchange industry that the regulations are too burdensome.

In a report released Friday, the Treasury Department recommended changes for financial markets regulators to consider, calling for an easier pathway to initial public offerings, with an emphasis on encouraging small companies. Although this was the focus of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, the report said that regulators could go further to prop up IPOs, as the number of domestic public companies listed in the U.S. has declined by almost 50% in the past 20 years.

Treasury said IPO standards should be relaxed by allowing all companies to "test the waters," or contact institutional investors and gauge their interest in buying the shares before they file for a public offering. Currently the practice is only allowed for so-called emerging-growth companies, meaning businesses with less than $1 billion in annual gross revenues.