Alaska's records law is the Public Records Act at AS 40.25.100 to 40.25.295, with requests processed under either AS 40.25.110, the ordinary route, or AS 40.25.115, which covers electronic services and products. For the executive branch the working detail is in the regulations at 2 AAC 96.100 to 2 AAC 96.900, which the Department of Law's page on the Act describes as covering request and response requirements including deadlines. The Act applies to all state and local government agencies in Alaska, and the federal Freedom of Information Act does not.
A public record is defined by preservation as much as by content: records, regardless of format or physical characteristics, developed or received by a public agency or by a private contractor for a public agency, and preserved or appropriate to preserve for their informational value or as evidence of the organisation or operation of the agency. The Alaska Supreme Court held in McLeod v. Parnell that records preserved or appropriate for preservation under the Records Management Act are subject to the Act, but that not every record a state employee creates, and certainly not every state employee email, is necessarily appropriate for preservation. For Alaska records held locally, see the Alaska borough pages.
- Five days oral, ten days written: an oral request is answered within five working days, a written one within ten where the records are not readily available.
- Ten more with notice: the ten working day period may be extended by another ten in defined circumstances, with notice inside the first period.
- Five person hours a month: search and copying are charged only once the work for a requester passes that point, and then the whole time is billed.
- The review is free: the time spent deciding what is protected, the biggest part of the work, is never charged to the requester.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Alaska's own systems: the Alaska Department of Law on the Public Records Act, a state agency fact sheet on public records requests, a state public records request form, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The deadlines, and the difference between asking aloud and in writing
Under the regulations an agency has five working days to answer an oral request and ten working days to answer a written request where the public records are not readily available. The oral route carries a sharp consequence: an oral request is deemed denied if it is not granted within five working days, and the requester's only remedy then is to make a written request, which is why anything of substance should be written from the start.
Where records are not readily available, the basic ten working day period may be extended by a further ten working days in the circumstances the regulation sets out, such as the need to search multiple sections, or to search for, collect and examine a voluminous amount of separate and distinct records sought in a single request, provided the agency gives notice to the requester within the basic ten working day period. The agency must also make reasonable efforts to help a requester formulate the request, while the requester must describe the records in enough detail for the agency to find them.
Five person hours a month, and the cliff at the end of them
Alaska's fee rule is an allowance rather than a discount, and the distinction matters. Where searching for and copying records under AS 40.25.110 will exceed five person hours in a calendar month, the agency charges the hourly rate, based on salary and benefit costs, of the most cost effective individual who can do the work. The Department of Law states the consequence plainly: if the work exceeds five person hours, the requester must pay for the total time taken, because the first five hours are not excluded from the calculation of recoverable costs.
A request that lands just over the line therefore costs several times more than one that lands just under it, and the five hours are measured per requester per calendar month, so splitting a large project across months changes the bill. Electronic services and products under AS 40.25.115 have no allowance at all: every person hour is charged, again at the rate of the most cost effective individual.
What else is chargeable, and the one thing that is not
Agencies may charge for photocopies, storage media and postage used to provide records, and for retrieving records from and returning them to off site storage, and may pass on any costs a contractor charges. Payment of estimated recoverable costs may be required before any work begins, with an exception in the regulations for news organisations seeking records under the ordinary route, and all recoverable costs must be paid before records are handed over.
Against that stands a rule unusual in its generosity: agencies do not charge the cost of reviewing records for protected information. The Department of Law notes that this review is by far the greatest time burden on agencies in answering requests, since before disclosing anything an agency must examine the material to redact or withhold information covered by the Act's exceptions, a process that can involve consulting subject matter experts and interested parties.
The state's own argument for narrow requests follows from that: because review time is free to the requester, a broad request is expensive to Alaska rather than to the person asking.
Fee relief, and what it takes to get it
A requester is eligible for fee relief where they establish that the records are likely to contribute significantly to the public's understanding of the operations or activities of state government. The Department of Law is explicit that assertion is not enough: merely conclusory statements that the request is in the public interest and that the records concern agency operations or activities will not do. A successful application describes what the requester is seeking, why it bears on how government operates, and how the information will reach the public, and it includes the certifications the regulations require.
For a journalist or researcher, drafting that paragraph carefully at the outset is usually worth more than any argument about the hourly rate.
What is not a public record, and what an agency need not do
Several categories fall outside the Act rather than inside an exemption. Records that are not preserved or appropriate to preserve are not public records at all, which can include auto saved and superseded drafts, deleted records not yet purged, and records past their retention age under a state retention schedule. Purely personal communications of state employees that do not relate to state business are outside the Act too, so a request for an employee's personal emails sitting on the state system will be refused as outside its scope.
Some statutes remove records entirely: state personnel records of most state employees apart from name, title, employment dates and compensation; criminal justice information, which the Department of Law cannot even confirm or deny holding; consumer complaints and related consumer protection records including investigations; and ethics act complaints before formal proceedings begin. Beyond that, the Act does not require agencies to conduct research or analyse records, to answer questions, or to create records responsive to a request, and does not require them to produce records already readily available, for example on the internet, at a public library, or from a court.
Form, specificity and where to send it
Agencies produce a record in the form in which it is maintained or disseminated, and disseminate electronic copies as portable document files. The guidance on drafting is concrete. A request for the current contract with a named company and any amendments is straightforward and will be answered. A request generally for all contract documents regarding that company will prompt a request for more information, and responding takes longer while the agency works out what is actually wanted.
Where a request has several subparts, the agency may ask the requester to prioritise them, answer the first, and let the requester decide whether to pursue the next. Requests go to the agency that holds the records: the Department of Law answers only for itself and will not forward a request to another agency, and it does not enforce the Act, so a requester who believes a municipality or another body has broken it is pointed towards a private attorney rather than to the state.
The executive branch works to the Department of Administration's regulations, while the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the University of Alaska, the legislative and judicial branches and some local governments each have rules of their own.
Questions about public records requests in Alaska
Related Alaska records
Alaska's other public records guides on this site are the Alaska background check guide for the Department of Public Safety criminal history service, the Alaska court records guide for CourtView, the Alaska arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Alaska borough pages for every borough office.