Missouri's open government statute is Chapter 610 of the Revised Statutes, and the Attorney General, who enforces it, describes the Sunshine Law as the embodiment of the state's commitment to openness in government. The first of the ten points the office publishes sets the default: when in doubt, a meeting or record of a public body should be opened to the public. The second makes the law format blind, applying to all records regardless of what form they are kept in and to all meetings regardless of how they are held. The third is the one most often missed by officials, that the law permits a body to close certain meetings and records but almost never obliges it to.
Every public governmental body must have a written Sunshine Law policy and a custodian of records responsible for answering requests, and must make that custodian's name and contact details available on request, which is where an Missouri request should start. The Attorney General's office is not a repository for the state's records and cannot produce another body's files, so a request for city meeting minutes goes to the city. No format is prescribed, although the office encourages writing so the requester keeps a record of what was asked and when, and publishes sample language to help draft one. For Missouri records held locally, see the Missouri county pages.
- Third business day: the custodian must answer as soon as possible and no later than the end of the third business day after receiving the request.
- Delay with a date: where access is not immediate, the custodian must give the reason and the earliest date and time the records will be ready.
- Ten cents and research time: standard paper copies are capped at ten cents a page, with clerical duplication time and actual research cost chargeable on top.
- Lowest salaried staff: the body must use the lowest paid employees capable of searching, researching and copying, which limits what the hourly charge can be.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Missouri's own systems: the Missouri Attorney General Sunshine Law pages, the Attorney General's Sunshine Law questions and answers, the Attorney General's ten points on the Sunshine Law, the Missouri Sunshine Law book, the Attorney General's sample language forms, the Sunshine Law complaint form, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Three business days, and the lawful way to take longer
The single most quoted number in Missouri practice is three, and the Attorney General answers the obvious complaint about it directly. Told that a request would be ready in two weeks, a requester asks whether the law does not demand the records in three days; the answer is that 610.023.3 requires each request to be responded to as soon as possible but no later than the end of the third business day following the custodian's receipt of it, and that where access is not granted immediately the custodian must explain the reason for the delay and give the earliest date and time at which the records will be available.
Bodies are therefore allowed to exceed three days for production, provided they notify the requester of the delay and say when they expect to be ready. A two week estimate is lawful; a two week silence is not. The office also notes that a body cannot escape a request by destroying the records after it arrives, although the law generally says nothing about what records must be kept or for how long, with retention schedules held by the Secretary of State through the Local Records and Records Management divisions.
The form you cannot be made to fill in
Bodies often build a standard request form and then insist on it. The Attorney General addresses that from the agency side, answering a body that complains a requester refuses to use its form and sends numerous emails instead: 610.023.3 requires each request for access to be answered as soon as possible and does not specify how requests must be submitted, so a public governmental body may ask that requesters fill out a form, but it cannot require them to do so. An email naming the records wanted is a valid Missouri request, and the three day clock starts when the custodian receives it.
What a Missouri request costs
Fees come from 610.026.1(1), which allows a body to charge up to ten cents per page for standard paper copies, the average hourly rate of pay for clerical staff to duplicate the documents, and the actual cost of the research time spent fulfilling the request. The same provision requires the body to use the lowest salaried employees capable of searching, researching and copying the records, so a bill calculated at a department head's rate is open to challenge.
Fees for records on other media, or for non standard paper copies, must reflect the actual cost involved. The Attorney General's practical advice is to ask for a breakdown of the costs associated with the request, which is the only way to see how the body arrived at its figure, and the office's ten points note plainly that the law limits what can be charged both per page and per hour.
Police records, 911 calls and the accident report rule
Chapter 610 treats law enforcement separately. Incident information, meaning the date, time, specific location and the immediate facts and circumstances, is open, and the Attorney General notes that how much detail an incident report must give varies, since describing an event as a vehicle accident or a domestic assault will sometimes be enough and sometimes not. For a 911 call the incident information is open but the recording itself is not accessible to the public, under 610.150.
An agency may withhold records that would otherwise be disclosable in two situations under 610.100.3 and 610.100.4, where it has an articulable concern for the safety of a victim, witness or other person, or where the criminal investigation would likely be jeopardised, and it may need court approval to do so. Running the other way, a person involved in an incident, or whose property was, is generally entitled to otherwise closed records including an accident report for the purpose of investigating a civil claim or defence, and that entitlement extends to their lawyer, insurance company or a close family member.
A defendant facing filed charges is in a different position: Attorney General Opinion No. 200-94 holds that disclosure then happens under the Supreme Court's rules of criminal procedure, so the defendant goes to the prosecutor rather than to the police agency. Records of a suspended imposition of sentence are open during the period of probation and closed once probation is successfully completed, under 610.105, and closed records are retained rather than destroyed, with specified employers able to reach them under 610.120.
Who is covered, including bodies that are not quite government
The definition of a public governmental body in 610.010 reaches bodies created by the state constitution or statutes, by order or ordinance of any political subdivision or district, and by executive order, judicial entities when operating in an administrative capacity, any department or division of the state, of a political subdivision, of a county or municipal government, of a school district or of a special purpose district such as a sewer or water district, any other legislative or administrative deliberative body under the direction of three or more elected or appointed members holding rulemaking or quasi-judicial power, and certain committees and advisory boards those entities appoint, with the custodian obliged to maintain a list of the policy advisory committees.
Missouri then goes further than many states with its quasi-governmental body definition at 610.010(4), which covers persons, corporations, partnerships and unincorporated associations organised under chapters 352, 353 or 355 whose primary purpose is to contract with public bodies or to carry out activities under agreements with them, entities performing a statutory public function such as allocating tax credits, tax abatement, public debt, tax exempt debt or rights of eminent domain, or contracting leaseback agreements whose annualised payments commit public tax revenues, and any association that directly accepts an appropriation from a public body, to the extent a meeting, record or vote relates to that appropriation.
Email between officials is caught too: under 610.025 a member who emails a majority of the body about public business must copy it to their public office computer or to the custodian to be kept as a public record.
Complaining, and what the Attorney General can actually do
Where a body has been asked directly and has not given access, a complaint goes to the Attorney General, who is authorised to pursue enforcement. The office is candid about two things. It cannot act as your attorney, because it represents the state's interest in keeping meetings and records open to the extent the law provides. And its review is not quick: staff conduct a thorough review that may take up to several months depending on the complexity of the complaint, may ask the complainant for more information, and will usually contact the body for its response.
A complaint can end in legal action against the body, a warning letter identifying possible violations, guidance encouraging best practice, a requirement to attend Sunshine Law training, a finding of likely no violation, or no further action. Penalties are not the Attorney General's to impose: only a court can, and only where it finds the violation was knowing or purposeful, and a court may additionally void an action taken in violation of the law, at its discretion and after weighing the public interest.
Questions about public records requests in Missouri
Related Missouri records
Missouri's other public records guides on this site are the Missouri background check guide for the State Highway Patrol criminal record service, the Missouri court records guide for Case.net, the Missouri arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Missouri county pages for every county office.