Public Records, Explained: Where Every Record Lives and How to Get It

What You Can Look Up Here

Sixteen kinds of records, each with its own page for every state, county and city. Pick the record first, then the place.

Arrest records are the booking entries a sheriff or police department creates when someone is taken into custody. They show the charge at arrest, the date and the agency, and they exist whether or not a case is ever filed. Jail and inmate searches tell you who is in custody right now, in a county jail, a state prison or the federal system, usually with the booking date and the next court date.

Criminal records are the court side of the same story: charges filed, pleas, verdicts and sentences, kept by the trial court and, in most states, compiled into a state repository that only the person and authorized employers can see. Court records cover everything else a court handles: civil suits, family law, probate, small claims, evictions, traffic and appeals. Warrants are court orders for an arrest or a search, and whether a warrant list is public depends on the state and the county.

Sex offender registries are the one criminal record every state publishes by name and address. Police reports and incident reports come from the department that took the report, under that state's public records law. Background checks are not a record at all but a process, and the page for your state explains what an employer, a landlord or you yourself can lawfully obtain and from where.

Property and deed records live with the county recorder, register of deeds or clerk, and the assessor holds the values. Birth, death, marriage and divorce records are the vital records, split between the state health department, the county clerk and the court that granted the divorce. Business filings and licenses come from the secretary of state and the licensing boards. Bankruptcies and liens are federal court and county recorder matters. And a public records request is how you get anything not already posted online, under a state law with a deadline the agency has to meet.

Start With Your State

The rules that decide what you can see are state rules. Each state page explains them in plain English and lists the statewide databases.

Public records law is state law. Florida's Sunshine Law, the California Public Records Act, the Texas Public Information Act, New York's Freedom of Information Law and Illinois's FOIA all give you a right to records, but they differ on deadlines, fees, what is exempt and whether you have to say who you are. Court access rules are set by each state's judiciary, criminal history by the state repository, vital records by the state health department. The state page is where all of that is laid out, with the actual section numbers, the current fees and the dates they last changed.

Each state page also carries the statewide systems that exist: the court case search where there is one, the department of corrections inmate locator, the sex offender registry, the secretary of state business search, the unclaimed property search and the vital records office. Where a state has no statewide system, the page says so and sends you to the county.

Then Your County or City

Most records are kept locally. The county and city pages name the office, the address, the phone, the hours and the online search, and say when each fact was last checked.

Of the roughly 3,144 counties and county equivalents in the United States, almost every one runs its own recorder, clerk, assessor, sheriff and trial court, and none of them share a database with the county next door. Cities add their own police records units, city clerks and business license offices. That is why a name search in the wrong county returns nothing and tells you nothing, and why the county page is where a real search begins.

These are the county pages people open most often. Every county in the country has one, and every city page sits under its county.

One rule saves more time than any other: ask where the event happened, not where the person lives now. A deed is filed where the land is, a divorce where it was granted, a criminal case where the arrest was made, a death where it occurred. Start from the place, and the office is usually one click away.

How Records Are Kept in the United States

Four layers of government, four sets of files. Federal courts and agencies, then the state, then the county, then the city. Nothing sits on top of them.

Federal. Federal court cases, including bankruptcies, live in PACER, the federal judiciary's system, at 10 cents a page with the fee waived if you use less than 30 dollars in a quarter. Federal prisoners are in the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator. Patents, trademarks, securities filings, aircraft, ships and immigration records each have their own federal agency and their own search.

State. Each state keeps a criminal history repository, usually under the state police or the department of public safety, and most only release it to the person and to employers the law names. The secretary of state holds business filings, the health department holds vital records for the whole state, the department of corrections holds prisoners, and a growing number of states run one court case search for every trial court.

County. This is where most records are. The recorder or register of deeds holds deeds, mortgages, liens and plats. The assessor holds property values. The clerk holds marriage licenses, business names and, in many states, the court files. The sheriff holds the jail roster and serves warrants. The trial court holds the cases.

City. Police departments hold their own reports and arrest logs. City clerks hold council records, permits, licenses and, in New England, vital records and land records too. Municipal courts handle ordinance violations and traffic.

How to Run a Search That Actually Works

Six steps that work in every state. Most searches finish at step three.

1. Name the record. An arrest, a case, a deed, a certificate, a license. Each one has a different keeper, so decide which one you are after before you look anywhere.
2. Name the place. The county where the event happened, not where the person is today. If you only know the state, start on the state page and work down.
3. Use the official online search first. Most county courts, recorders, assessors and sheriffs post a free lookup. The county page links the real one and says what it covers, because many indexes only go back to the year the office went digital.
4. Read the index, then order the document. An online index tells you a record exists and gives you its number. The document itself, and any certified copy, comes from the office, for a fee the page lists.
5. If it is not online, make a public records request. Every state has a law with a response deadline. The state page gives you the section, the deadline and what to write. You do not need a lawyer and, in most states, you do not have to give a reason.
6. Check the date. Records change. A dismissed case can be sealed, a lien released, an address updated. Every page here shows the day its facts were last checked against the office, and you should check the office again before you act on anything important.

What Is Free and What Costs Money

Looking is usually free. Copies, certifications and background checks are not. The page for each office lists the real fee.

Online indexes run by courts, recorders, assessors and sheriffs are free in the large majority of counties, and the ones that charge tend to charge per search rather than per month. Plain copies from a court or a recorder run from a few cents a page to about a dollar a page depending on the state. Certified copies of birth, death, marriage and divorce records are set by state statute and generally fall between 10 and 35 dollars each, with the county often cheaper and faster than the state office.

Your own criminal history from a state repository usually costs between 15 and 50 dollars plus fingerprinting. A name-based check that an employer orders costs more and comes with rules: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and a long list of state and city fair chance laws limit what can be asked, when, and what can be reported.

Federal court records in PACER cost 10 cents a page and 3 dollars at most for a single document, and the fee is waived entirely if your quarterly usage stays under 30 dollars. Public records requests are free to make; agencies may charge the direct cost of copying and, in some states, staff time beyond a free allowance.

Nationwide and Federal Sources

A short list of searches that really are national. Everything else is state by state.

The National Sex Offender Public Website run by the Department of Justice searches every state registry at once. The Bureau of Prisons inmate locator covers every federal prisoner since 1982. PACER covers every federal court. The Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR system holds public company filings, the Patent and Trademark Office holds patents and marks, and the Federal Aviation Administration and the Coast Guard hold aircraft and vessel registrations. Unclaimed property is state by state, and most states also list their accounts in a shared search run by their national association.

What does not exist is a national court search, a national arrest search or a national criminal history that the public can use. The FBI's Interstate Identification Index is not public. Anyone selling a nationwide criminal search is selling a collection of county indexes with gaps, and the gaps are where the trouble is.

The nationwide sources page walks through each federal system, what it holds, what it costs and how far back it goes.

Records Outside the United States

Other countries keep records differently, and most keep far less of them public.

Canada's provinces run their own court, land and corporate registries and most of them charge per search. The United Kingdom publishes company filings free through Companies House, land ownership through HM Land Registry for a small fee, and court judgments through a public register, while criminal records are not public at all. Most of Europe treats criminal history and court files as private under data protection law, and property registers are open in some countries and closed in others.

The international section covers more than 70 countries, country by country, with the same approach: what is public, which office holds it and what it costs.

Five Mistakes That Waste People's Time

After 29 years of answering the same questions, these are the ones that come up most.

1. Searching the state when the record is at the county. Deeds, most court cases, marriage licenses and jail bookings are county records. The state page tells you which is which.
2. Treating an arrest as a conviction. An arrest log shows that someone was booked. Only the court file shows what happened next, and in many cases nothing was filed or the charge was dismissed.
3. Trusting a people-search site over the office. Those sites copy public indexes months or years late and mix people with the same name. The office is free and current.
4. Assuming online means complete. Many county indexes begin in the 1990s or 2000s. Older records exist on paper or microfilm at the office, and the county page says where the online index starts.
5. Giving up when the record is not online. A public records request is a right, not a favor. The state page has the law, the deadline and a plain request you can send today.

What Changed Recently

Record access moves every year. These are the changes that affect the most searches, and each state page carries its own.

Automatic sealing is spreading. New York's Clean Slate Act took effect in November 2024 and seals eligible misdemeanor convictions three years after sentencing and eligible felonies after eight, with the courts working through the backlog over the years that follow. Michigan began automatic set-asides in April 2023, California expanded automatic relief under SB 731 in July 2023, and Pennsylvania widened its Clean Slate law in 2024. A conviction you could find last year may lawfully be gone this year, which is one more reason to check the court, not a cached copy.

More courts are online, and more of them charge. Statewide portals now cover most of the country, but several of the largest courts, Los Angeles among them, charge per name search, and the state page for each court system says which searches are free and which are not.

Vital record fees rise on a schedule. Many states adjust certified copy fees on January 1. California's rose two dollars in 2026. The state pages carry the current figure and the date it changed.

Public records portals are the norm. Most larger agencies now take requests through a portal and post the answers, which means someone else's request may already have surfaced the record you want.

About SearchSystems.net

Online since 1997. Written by people, checked against the offices, with the review date on every page.

SearchSystems.net went online in 1997 as the first free directory of public record sources on the internet, and it has been cited by the Wall Street Journal, TIME, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2026 it became something more than a directory: a written guide to how records work in every state, county and city, with the offices, fees, hours and laws verified against the source and dated.

We do not hold personal records, we do not sell reports and we do not collect your searches. The sponsored search box above is a clearly labeled third party service and is the only advertising on the page. Everything else on the site points to a government office or explains how one works.

If a fact on any page is wrong or out of date, the contact page reaches an editor, and corrections are made on the page with a new review date.