SearchSystems Editorial

Reviewed and updated September 27, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. Fees and office hours are checked against the issuing agency at review time.

About this guide

An arrest in Florida produces three different records in three different places: a booking entry at the county jail, a case in the clerk of court's index if the state attorney files charges, and an entry in the state criminal history repository kept by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The first is public today, the second is public for good, and the third is sold by name for a set fee. Knowing which one you are looking at answers most questions.

In this guide: What an arrest record is, What is public, Where to look, The FDLE check, Sealing and expunction, Employers, Mugshots, Arrests by county and Questions.

Arrest Record, Court Record, Criminal History: Three Different Things

People use the terms interchangeably. Florida's public records law does not, and neither do the databases.

An arrest record is the booking record created when an officer takes someone into custody: the name, sex, age and address of the person arrested, the time, date and location of the arrest, and the crime charged. It exists whether or not a prosecutor ever files a case. An arrest is an allegation by an officer, and many arrests end with no charge filed, a dropped charge or a lesser one.

A court record is created only when the state attorney files a charging document. It shows the charges actually filed, every hearing, the plea, the verdict or dismissal and the sentence. Court records sit with the clerk of court in each county, are public and are searchable by name.

A criminal history record is the state's compilation of both, kept by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It is the record a background check pulls, it is the record that gets sealed or expunged, and it is the one you buy a copy of by name.

The three records are kept by three different bodies, the sheriff or police department, the clerk of court and FDLE, and each answers only for its own. A jail lookup does not show a dismissal, a clerk's index does not show an arrest that never reached court, and the FDLE file does not show what happened in the courtroom last week until the court reports it.

What Every Florida Agency Must Release About an Arrest

Chapter 119 exempts active investigations but lists the arrest facts that can never be called investigative.

Florida's public records law closes active criminal investigative information and active criminal intelligence information. Section 119.071(2)(c) of the Florida Statutes says both are exempt from the inspection right in section 119.07(1) and from section 24(a) of Article I of the state constitution. That exemption is what an agency cites when it refuses to hand over a case file that is still open.

The same law then takes the arrest itself back out of the exemption. Section 119.011(3)(c) says criminal intelligence information and criminal investigative information do not include the name, sex, age and address of a person arrested or of the victim of a crime, subject to the victim protections in section 119.071(2)(h) and (o), the time, date and location of the incident and of the arrest, the crime charged, and documents given or required by law or agency rule to be given to the person arrested. Those items are public from the moment of booking even while the investigation is active, which is why a jail roster and an arrest affidavit are public on day one and the detective's file is not.

The statute text is on the Legislature's site at section 119.011 for the definitions and section 119.071 for the exemptions.

Good to know

Because section 119.011(3)(c) lists the arrest items by name, a request that asks for exactly those items for a named person and date cannot be refused as investigative. Ask for the arrest affidavit and the booking information, not the case file.

Where Florida Arrest Records Actually Live

Sheriff jail lookups for today, clerk of court indexes for history, the FDLE check for the whole state.

The fastest source for a recent arrest is the county jail lookup, run by the sheriff in most counties. Broward County's Arrest Search at apps.sheriff.org/ArrestSearch, Hillsborough County's Arrest Inquiry at webapps.hcso.tampa.fl.us/arrestinquiry, Pinellas County's Who's In Jail at whosinjail.pinellassheriff.gov and Polk County's Jail Inquiry at polksheriff.org search by name and show the booking, the charges and the custody status. Miami-Dade County's inmate search is on the county site, and the Orange County Sheriff answers inmate questions through ocsheriff.gov. Palm Beach County's sheriff keeps the arrest and jail pages at pbso.org, Brevard's at brevardsheriff.com, Sarasota's at sarasotasheriff.org and Seminole's at seminolecosheriff.com. Every other county runs its own, listed on that county's page on this site. These tools answer who is in custody now, not who was arrested last year.

For arrests older than a few days, the source is the clerk of court's case index in the county where the arrest happened, because once a charging document is filed the case is public and stays public. The Miami-Dade Clerk's records are at miamidadeclerk.gov, the Broward Clerk's at browardclerk.org, the Palm Beach Clerk's at mypalmbeachclerk.com, the Pinellas Clerk's at courtrecords.mypinellasclerk.gov, the Duval Clerk's at duvalclerk.com, the Lee Clerk's at matrix.leeclerk.org, the Polk Clerk's at polkclerkfl.gov, the Brevard Clerk's at brevardclerk.us and the Volusia Clerk's at clerk.org. An arrest that shows in a jail lookup but never appears in the clerk's index was not filed, or is still under review.

For the whole state at once, the FDLE criminal history check described below searches the state repository by name for a fee, and covers every county.

After conviction and a state prison sentence, the record is the Florida Department of Corrections Offender Information Search at pubapps.fdc.myflorida.com/OffenderSearch, the Corrections Offender Network, which lists people in state custody and under state supervision. Federal arrests go through federal court and federal custody, and never appear in a county jail lookup unless the person was first booked locally.

The FDLE Criminal History Check: 24 Dollars Per Name

The state repository is searched online by name. The fee is set by statute at 24 dollars per name submitted.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement keeps the state criminal history repository and sells a name based check to anyone through its Florida Checks service at fdle.state.fl.us. FDLE's own page says the fee for public requests is 24 dollars, and section 943.053(3)(e) of the Florida Statutes sets the fee per record for criminal history information at 24 dollars per name submitted, with a separate fee for the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office and certain vendors. The statute is at section 943.053.

The check is done online. FDLE's page states that effective July 1, 2020 it discontinued the use of the Florida Criminal History Information Request forms sent by mail, so a paper request is no longer the route. A name based search returns records that match the name and identifiers you enter, which means a common name can return records that belong to someone else.

The same check is open to an employer, a landlord or anyone else who wants the state record rather than a single county's court index, and it is the way to see your own Florida record before an employer does.

Sealing and Expunging a Florida Arrest: Automatic, Court Ordered, and the Right to Deny

FDLE seals qualifying non conviction records on its own. Court ordered sealing and expunction need a certificate of eligibility and a 75 dollar fee.

Florida has three routes. The first costs nothing and needs no petition. Under section 943.0595, Automatic sealing of criminal history records, the department shall automatically seal a criminal history record that does not result from an indictment, information or other charging document for a forcible felony as defined in section 776.08 or for the other offenses the section lists. The section's own eligibility rules decide which records qualify, and the section also makes the related court records confidential. The text is at section 943.0595.

The second route is court ordered sealing under section 943.059, Court-ordered sealing of criminal history records, which opens with an eligibility list: a person is eligible to petition a court to seal a criminal history record when the conditions in subsection (1) are met. The third is court ordered expunction under section 943.0585, Court-ordered expunction of criminal history records, with its own eligibility list in subsection (1). Both petitions run through FDLE first. Under section 943.0585(2) the petitioner remits a 75 dollar processing fee to the department for placement in the Department of Law Enforcement Operating Trust Fund, unless the executive director waives the fee, and supplies a certified copy of the disposition of the charge the petition covers, and FDLE then issues the certificate of eligibility the court needs. The statutes are at section 943.059 and section 943.0585.

What the order buys is the right to deny. Under section 943.0585(6) a person whose record is expunged, under that section or under other provisions of law including former sections 893.14, 901.33 and 943.058, may lawfully deny or fail to acknowledge the arrests covered by the expunged record, except in the situations the subsection lists, the first of which is being a candidate for employment with a criminal justice agency. Section 943.059(6) gives the same right to deny for a sealed record, with the same list of exceptions. The exceptions matter: the right to deny does not apply when applying to a criminal justice agency and in the other listed cases, so read subsection (6) of the section that covers your record before answering a question about arrests.

Good to know

Sealing and expunction act on the FDLE record and the court record. A news story, a mugshot site or a background screener's old copy is not sealed by the order, which is why the mugshot rule below exists.

What a Florida Employer Can Do With an Arrest

Public employers may not turn you down solely for a prior conviction. A sealed or expunged arrest may be denied.

For public jobs the rule is section 112.011 of the Florida Statutes: a person may not be disqualified from employment by the state, any of its agencies or political subdivisions, or any municipality solely because of a prior conviction for a crime. The same section then sets out when a public employer may still deny the job, so the protection is against a blanket bar, not a guarantee of hiring. The text is at section 112.011.

For any employer, a sealed or expunged arrest is one the applicant may lawfully deny or fail to acknowledge under sections 943.059(6) and 943.0585(6), outside the listed exceptions. An arrest that is neither sealed nor expunged is in the FDLE record and in the clerk's index, and a background check will find it.

Booking Photos and Mugshot Websites: Removal Within 10 Days, No Fee

Section 901.43 bars charging for removal and sets a 10 calendar day clock after a written request.

Section 901.43, Dissemination of arrest booking photographs, governs the mugshot websites. Under subsection (1) any person or entity engaged in the business of publishing through a publicly accessible print or electronic medium or otherwise disseminating arrest booking photographs of persons who have previously been arrested may not solicit or accept a fee or other form of payment to remove the photographs. Under subsection (2) a person whose arrest booking photograph is published or otherwise disseminated, may send a written request for removal that identifies the photograph, and within 10 calendar days after receipt of the written request the person or entity who published or disseminated it must remove it. The statute is at section 901.43.

The booking photo itself comes from the county jail, and the jail rosters linked above are where the photos are first published. A written request under section 901.43 goes to the website that republished it, with the specific information identifying the photograph the request is about.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are arrest records public in Florida?

Yes. Section 119.011(3)(c) of the Florida Statutes says the name, sex, age and address of a person arrested, the time, date and location of the arrest, and the crime charged are not criminal investigative information, so they are public even while the case is active. What stays closed under section 119.071(2)(c) is the active investigative and intelligence information in the case file.

How do I find out if someone was arrested in Florida?

For a recent arrest, search the county sheriff's jail lookup by name. For an arrest more than a few days old, search the clerk of court's case index in the county where it happened, since an arrest that led to charges is in the clerk's index and one that did not is not. For the whole state, run the FDLE Florida Checks name search, 24 dollars per name.

How much does a Florida criminal history check cost?

24 dollars per name. Section 943.053(3)(e) sets the fee per record at 24 dollars per name submitted, and FDLE's Florida Checks page lists the public request fee at 24 dollars. Since July 1, 2020 FDLE no longer takes the paper request form by mail; the check is done online.

How do I get an arrest sealed or expunged in Florida?

Three routes. FDLE seals qualifying records automatically under section 943.0595 with no petition. Court ordered sealing under section 943.059 and court ordered expunction under section 943.0585 start with an application to FDLE for a certificate of eligibility, a certified copy of the disposition and a 75 dollar processing fee unless the executive director waives it, then a petition to the court.

Can I say I was never arrested after a Florida expunction?

In most settings yes. Sections 943.0585(6) and 943.059(6) let a person whose record is expunged or sealed lawfully deny or fail to acknowledge the arrests covered by the record, except in the situations each subsection lists, starting with a candidate for employment with a criminal justice agency.

Can a website charge me to remove my Florida mugshot?

No. Section 901.43 bars anyone in the business of publishing arrest booking photographs from soliciting or accepting a fee or other payment to remove them, and requires removal within 10 calendar days after receipt of a written request that identifies the photograph.