Nebraska's law runs from Neb. Rev. Stat. 84-712 to 84-712.09, and the Attorney General publishes an outline of the public records statutes that collects the statute, the opinions and the case law in one place. The basic rule has been on the books in some form since 1866: all residents of the state and all other persons interested in the examination of public records may examine them, make memoranda, make copies using their own copying equipment and take abstracts, all free of charge, during the hours offices are open for the ordinary transaction of business, and may obtain copies except where federal copyright law provides otherwise. The word citizen was replaced with resident by a 2024 amendment.
Three limits are worth knowing before asking. The statutes do not require an agency to review documents and create abstracts or lists, to answer questions, or to create documents that do not otherwise exist. No requester has to show a reason for wanting a record, and the Supreme Court has held the statute applies equally to all persons without regard to purpose. And a custodian need not copy a record already available to the requester on its own website, unless the requester lacks reasonable internet access through want of a computer, want of availability or inability to use one, in which case the custodian must at least give the location of the record online. For Nebraska records held locally, see the Nebraska county pages.
- Four business days: counted by excluding the day of receipt and any day the office is closed, with a cost estimate due in that time too.
- Three permitted answers: access or copies, a written denial with the statutory information, or a written explanation of delay with the earliest practicable date.
- Eight free hours: residents, including news media wherever based, pay nothing for existing staff pay on the first eight cumulative hours of work.
- No charge for the withholding review: the time an attorney or anyone else spends deciding whether a record can be withheld is not billable to a resident.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Nebraska's own systems: the Nebraska Attorney General outline of the public records statutes, Neb. Rev. Stat. 84-712, free examination, copies and fees, the Attorney General's open government pages, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Four business days, and what has to arrive in them
Section 84-712(4) requires the custodian, on receiving a written request, to give the requester an estimate of the expected cost of copies together with one of three responses, as soon as is practicable and without delay but not more than four business days after actual receipt. The first is access to the record or copies of it, where copying equipment is reasonably available. The second is a written denial, where there is a legal basis for refusing, carrying the information section 84-712.04 requires.
The third is a written explanation of delay, available only where the entire request cannot be fulfilled in four business days with reasonable good faith efforts because of the significant difficulty or extensiveness of the request, and that explanation must give the earliest practicable date for fulfilling the request, an estimate of the expected cost of copies, and an opportunity for the requester to modify or prioritise the items within the request.
The counting rule is in the statute: the four business days are computed by excluding the day the request is received, and business day does not include a Saturday, a Sunday, or a day on which the custodian's offices are closed, so a request received on a Monday is due by that Friday.
The eight free hours, and who counts as a resident
Since the 2024 amendment, the actual added cost that a fee is based on cannot, for residents of Nebraska, include any charge for the existing salary or pay obligation to public officers or employees with respect to the first eight cumulative hours of searching for, identifying, physically redacting or copying records responsive to a particular request. Beyond those eight hours a special service charge may be imposed, on the reasoning that a large request may delay or disrupt the custodian's office.
The definition of resident is generous: a person domiciled in the state, and news media without regard to domicile, so a national newspaper is treated as a resident for fee purposes. Nonresidents are in a different position, since for them the actual added cost may include a proportion of the existing salary or pay of the officers or employees involved, including a proportional charge for an attorney's time, for searching, identifying, physically redacting, copying or reviewing the records.
The review nobody can bill a resident for
One sentence of the fee provision settles a fight that reached the Supreme Court. The fee for copies may not include any charge for the services of an attorney, or any other person, to review requested records to determine whether there is a legal basis to withhold them. In Nebraska Journalism Trust the court had held that a body could charge a special service charge for nonattorney staff time spent reviewing records for a basis to withhold, reasoning that review is intrinsic to identifying and redacting; the 2024 amendment legislatively superseded that holding by removing the ability of nonattorneys to charge for that review.
For a resident, then, the billable work is searching, identifying, physically redacting and copying, after the first eight hours, and nothing else.
The rest of the price list
Fees may not exceed the actual added cost of making copies available, and the statute defines that cost by medium. For photocopies it is the reasonably calculated added cost, which may include a reasonably apportioned share of supplies such as paper, toner and equipment, and any additional payment the custodian must make for contractor time. For paper printouts of computerised data it includes computer run time and materials. For electronic data it includes computer run time, any necessary analysis and programming by the body or its contracted information technology provider, and the production of the report in the form furnished.
The Attorney General's enforcement policy is not to question copying charges of up to twenty five cents a page on top of the other allowable charges. No charge at all may be made for blank forms or pages with all meaningful information redacted. A deposit may be required where copies are estimated to cost more than fifty dollars. Fees may be waived or reduced in the public interest, which the statute now defines as where disclosure is likely to contribute to the understanding of the operations or activities of government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.
And no public body is required to produce or generate a record in a new or different form or format modified from the original.
What counts as a public record, including in private hands
Section 84-712.01 defines public records as all records and documents, regardless of physical form, of or belonging to the state and its political subdivisions, departments, boards and commissions, except where another statute expressly provides otherwise, and data that is a public record in its original form stays one when held in a computer. The courts have read of or belonging to broadly. In Evertson v. City of Kimball the Supreme Court held that the phrase covers any documents a public body is entitled to possess whether or not it has taken possession, that access does not depend on where records are physically kept, and that a body cannot conceal records by delegating or contracting its duties to a private entity; material in a private party's hands is a public record where the body delegated a government function by contract, the private party prepared the records under that delegation, the body was entitled to possess them to monitor performance, and they are used to make a decision affecting the public interest.
Frederick v. City of Falls City added the four part functional equivalency test for deciding whether a private entity is effectively an arm of government, looking at whether it performs a governmental function, the level of government funding, the extent of government involvement or regulation, and whether it was created by government.
Mandamus, fee challenges and the penalty
Remedies sit in section 84-712.03. A requester seeking mandamus over a refusal must show that they are a resident or other person interested in examining public records, that the document sought is a public record as defined, and that access guaranteed by section 84-712 has been denied. There is a parallel route aimed squarely at money: where the complaint is about a denied fee estimate or one containing an unauthorised charge, the requester shows that they are such a person, that they sought a copy of a public record and that they were refused an estimate or given one with a fee they say is unauthorised, after which the public body must show by clear and conclusive evidence that the fees charged are authorised.
The court decides the matter de novo with the burden on the public body to sustain its action, may inspect the records in camera, may enjoin withholding and order disclosure with other equitable relief, and proceedings are advanced on the trial docket, take precedence over other cases and are expedited in every way. Officials are personally exposed: any official who violates the public records statutes is subject to removal or impeachment and is guilty of a Class III misdemeanour, punishable by up to three months in jail, a fine of up to five hundred dollars, or both.
Questions about public records requests in Nebraska
Related Nebraska records
Nebraska's other public records guides on this site are the Nebraska background check guide for the State Patrol criminal history service, the Nebraska court records guide for the judicial branch case search, the Nebraska arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Nebraska county pages for every county office.