Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, at MCL 15.231 and following, provides that all persons are entitled to full and complete information about a public body's fulfilment of its statutory functions and about the inner working of government in general. The Attorney General's guidance sets out the mechanism: on giving a public body's freedom of information coordinator a written request that describes a public record sufficiently to enable the body to find it, a person has the right to inspect, copy or receive copies, and the body may charge a fee to cover the cost of processing. No particular form is needed, because a written request means a writing that asks for information, including one sent by fax, email or other electronic means, but the description has to be good enough to let the body locate the record, and the office advises including specific search terms and a date range, which narrows the search and keeps the cost down.
Who must answer is a long list. Michigan has over 10,000 public bodies subject to the Act, covering state executive branch officers, employees, agencies, departments, divisions, bureaus, boards, commissions, councils and authorities, though not the governor or lieutenant governor or their executive offices; legislative branch agencies, boards, commissions and councils; counties, cities, townships, villages, intercounty, intercity and regional bodies, school districts, special districts and municipal corporations and their component boards and departments; and any other body created by state or local authority or primarily funded through it. The judiciary is excluded, including the office of the county clerk and its staff when acting as clerk to the circuit court. A request goes to the specific body that holds the records. For Michigan records held locally, see the Michigan county pages.
- Five business days: the response period from the legal date of receipt, extendable once by written notice for ten further business days.
- Lowest paid capable employee: labour is charged at that person's hourly wage whether or not they do the work, in fifteen minute increments rounded down.
- Ten cents a sheet: duplication is capped at actual incremental cost and no more than ten cents a sheet for letter or legal paper, using the most economical method.
- Deposits: where the estimated fee exceeds $50 the body may require a good faith deposit of up to half before it starts work.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Michigan's own systems: the Michigan Attorney General freedom of information page, the Attorney General's freedom of information procedures and guidelines, the Attorney General's written public summary of its procedures and guidelines, Act 442 of 1976, the Freedom of Information Act, on the Michigan Legislature site, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The deadline, and the single extension
On the legal date of receipt of a request, a public body has five business days to respond, and where it needs more time it may send a written notice extending the response period by ten further business days. That is one extension, not a rolling series. The statute itself, at section 15.235, deals with the consequences of getting this wrong, covering the failure to respond, damages, the contents of a notice denying a request, the signing of a denial, the notice extending the period and the action a requesting person may take.
For a requester, the practical reading is that silence past five business days, with no written extension, is a breach rather than a delay, and that any denial must come as a signed written notice setting out what the statute requires.
How Michigan calculates a fee
Michigan allows more cost recovery than many states but hedges it carefully. Under MCL 15.234 a public body may charge for the labour of searching for, locating and examining records, the labour of reviewing them and separating exempt from non exempt material, the labour of duplication or publication, the cost of copies, and mailing. The two labour categories at the front of that list carry a condition: a fee for search, examination, review and separation may be charged only where failing to charge would result in unreasonably high costs to the public body, and the body must specifically identify the nature of those unreasonably high costs.
The Attorney General's published procedures and guidelines then show how the arithmetic is done, and they are a useful benchmark for testing any Michigan invoice. Labour is calculated at the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of doing that work, whether or not that person is available or actually does it; time is estimated and charged in fifteen minute increments with partial increments rounded down; the wage comes from payroll records for the applicable financial year; and up to 50 percent of the hourly wage may be added towards fringe benefits, capped at the actual cost of those benefits.
No employee may work overtime for a request or have overtime wages included. Duplication is charged at the actual total incremental cost, excluding labour, calculated per sheet and not exceeding ten cents a sheet for letter or legal size paper, with the body required to use the most economical means available, including double sided printing where that saves money and is available. And where a requester inspects original records, the labour of monitoring the inspection is chargeable, but not for the first hour.
Deposits, itemisation and abandonment
Where the estimated fee runs beyond $50, the body may require a good faith deposit before it starts processing, and that deposit may not exceed half the total estimated fee. The written notice says whether a deposit is required and gives a best efforts estimate of the time needed to finish the work, which is not binding but must be made in good faith and aimed at being reasonably accurate. The Attorney General's practice illustrates the pattern: it charges where processing a request takes more than two hours, issues the detailed itemisation the statute requires, may ask for a deposit first, begins work when the deposit arrives, and releases the non exempt records on payment of the final balance.
Section 15.234 also deals with what happens next if the money does not arrive, covering an increased estimated fee deposit, the treatment of a deposit as a fee, and the failure to pay or appeal a deposit, after which a request is treated as abandoned. A requester who disputes a fee should therefore appeal it rather than simply not paying.
Appealing a fee or a denial
Michigan gives two routes and they can both be used. The first is an administrative appeal to the head of the public body, and the Attorney General's written summary gives the one piece of drafting advice that matters: the appeal must specifically state the word appeal and must identify the basis on which the fee should be reduced or the disclosure decision reversed. The second is court. Section 15.240 sets out the options available to a requesting person, the appeal, the actions a public body must take, judicial review, the civil action and its venue, the proceeding being de novo, the burden of proof, the private view of a record by the judge, contempt, the priority given to such cases for hearing, and attorney fees, costs, disbursements and damages.
Two features of that list favour requesters: the review is de novo rather than deferential, and the burden of proof sits with the public body, which has to justify what it withheld.
Where the Attorney General cannot help
The office that publishes the best guidance on the Act is also the one that cannot advise on it. The Attorney General states that anyone with specific questions about how the statute applies to their situation needs to consult a private attorney, because MCL 14.32 does not permit the office to give legal advice or opinions to private individuals. What it does provide is the statute, its own freedom of information handbook, its procedures and guidelines, the written public summary of those guidelines, and an online payment route for invoices.
Every public body is required to publish its own procedures and guidelines and a written public summary of them, which is the document to read before arguing with any Michigan agency about what it may charge.
Reading a Michigan response
The first thing to check is the date, because five business days is short and the only lawful extension is one written notice of ten further business days. The second is the itemisation, which the statute requires in detail and which should show the wage rate used, the increments charged and the sheet count. Three figures in that itemisation are worth testing: labour billed at more than the lowest paid capable employee's wage, copies billed above ten cents a sheet for ordinary paper, and search or review labour charged without the body identifying the unreasonably high costs that justify it.
The third is the appeal, which must use the word appeal and say why, and which preserves the option of a circuit court action where the burden will be on the body rather than on the requester.
Questions about public records requests in Michigan
Related Michigan records
Michigan's other public records guides on this site are the Michigan background check guide for the State Police criminal history service, the Michigan court records guide for the trial court clerks, the Michigan arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Michigan county pages for every county office.