New Mexico's law is the Inspection of Public Records Act, and the Department of Justice publishes the state's compliance guide to the Act, now in its ninth edition, which reproduces the statute alongside the case law. Section 14-2-7 requires every public body to designate at least one custodian of public records, whose duties are to receive requests, including by electronic mail or facsimile, and to respond in the same medium the request arrived in.
A request may be oral or written, but the statutory procedures and their deadlines respond only to a written request, and a failure to answer an oral one subjects the custodian to no penalty, so anything that matters should be put in writing, which here includes email and fax. A written request must give the requester's name, address and telephone number and identify the records sought with reasonable particularity, and no person requesting records may be required to state a reason for inspecting them. Nothing in the Act requires a public body to create a record. For New Mexico records held locally, see the New Mexico county pages.
- Three business days to explain: where inspection is not permitted within three business days, the custodian must write with the date records will be available or a response given.
- Fifteen days to produce: inspection must be permitted immediately or as soon as practicable and no later than fifteen days after the written request.
- A dollar a page: copies may not exceed a dollar per printed page up to eleven by seventeen inches, and nothing may be charged for the exemption review.
- A hundred dollars a day: damages for an unreasonable failure to give a timely written denial, accruing until one is issued and paid from the body's funds.
Written by SearchSystems.net from New Mexico's own systems: the New Mexico Department of Justice on the Inspection of Public Records Act, the Department of Justice guide to the Act, ninth edition, the earlier Attorney General compliance guide, a state agency notice of the right to inspect public records, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Two deadlines, counted from delivery to the custodian
Section 14-2-8(D) sets the pattern. A custodian receiving a written request must permit the inspection immediately or as soon as is practicable under the circumstances, but not later than fifteen days after receiving the request. Where inspection is not permitted within three business days, the custodian must explain in writing when the records will be available for inspection, or when the public body will respond to the request.
The three day period does not begin until the written request is delivered to the office of the custodian, which is the reason to send a request to the designated custodian rather than to a general agency address. Where a request lands with someone who does not hold the records, subsection (E) requires that person to forward it promptly to the right custodian if known and to notify the requester, and that notification must state the reason the records are not in that person's custody or control, where the records are, and the name and address of the custodian.
Burdensome requests, and what the custodian must still do
Section 14-2-10 handles the large request. Where a custodian determines that a written request is excessively burdensome or broad, an additional reasonable period of time is allowed to comply, but the custodian must give the requester written notification within fifteen days of receiving the request that more time will be needed. The protection for the requester is in the last sentence: if the custodian then does not permit inspection within a reasonable period, the requester may deem the request denied and pursue the remedies the Act provides.
So a burden notice buys time, not silence, and the state's own case law contemplates production on a rolling basis for excessively burdensome requests.
Deemed denial, and what a real denial must contain
Unless a request has been determined excessively burdensome or broad, a written request that has not been permitted within fifteen days of receipt by the custodian's office may be deemed denied, and the requester may go straight to the remedies. Where a request is denied outright, section 14-2-11(B) requires the custodian to provide a written explanation which must describe the records sought, set out the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial, and be delivered or mailed to the requester within fifteen days after the request was received.
Naming the responsible officials is unusual among state records laws and makes the denial harder to write anonymously.
The hundred dollar a day damages
A custodian who does not deliver or post a written explanation of denial within fifteen days of receiving a written request is subject to an enforcement action, and the requester may be awarded damages. The statute then sets four rules for them: damages shall be awarded if the failure to provide a timely explanation of denial is determined to be unreasonable; they shall not exceed one hundred dollars per day; they accrue from the day the public body is in noncompliance until a written denial is issued; and they are payable from the funds of the public body.
The practical effect is that an agency which simply stops answering keeps accruing exposure until it writes something, which is why New Mexico denials tend to arrive even when the agency has no good exemption to cite.
What copies cost, and the format rule
A custodian may charge reasonable fees for copying unless a different fee is prescribed by law, but may not charge more than one dollar per printed page for documents eleven inches by seventeen inches or smaller. The actual costs of downloading records to a computer disk or storage device may be charged, including the cost of the device itself, as may the actual costs of transmitting copies by post, email or fax. Advance payment may be required, a receipt must be provided on request, and one charge is forbidden outright: no fee may be charged for the cost of determining whether a public record is subject to disclosure.
On format, a custodian must provide a copy in electronic format where the record is available in that format and an electronic copy is specifically requested, although the obligation runs only to the file format in which the record exists at the time of the request, so nobody can demand conversion.
Redaction, databases and going to court
Where records contain both exempt and nonexempt information, the custodian must separate them before inspection and make the nonexempt part available. For databases, a partial printout of the data may be furnished instead of the whole database where that is necessary to preserve the integrity of computer data or the confidentiality of exempt information. For electronic documents, the Act requires exempt information to be removed along with the corresponding metadata, using methods or redaction tools that prevent recovery of the exempt information from the redacted file, which rules out the black box that can be lifted off.
Enforcement under section 14-2-12 may be brought by the attorney general, by the district attorney in the county of jurisdiction, or by a person whose written request has been denied. A district court may issue a writ of mandamus, an injunction or any other appropriate remedy, administrative remedies need not be exhausted first, and the court shall award damages, costs and reasonable attorney fees to any person whose written request was denied and who succeeds in the action.
Questions about public records requests in New Mexico
Related New Mexico records
New Mexico's other public records guides on this site are the New Mexico background check guide for the Department of Public Safety record service, the New Mexico court records guide for the judiciary's case lookup, the New Mexico arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the New Mexico county pages for every county office.