Pennsylvania's current Right to Know Law was introduced as Senate Bill 1 in March 2007, signed in February 2008 and brought into force in three stages, with the title, the definitions and the creation of the Office of Open Records taking effect immediately, the publication of state contracts over $5,000 following in July 2008, and the rest of the law starting on January 1, 2009. The office's explanation of the law names the biggest change plainly: under the current Act all state and local government agency records are presumed to be public, so an agency that wants to withhold a record must prove it is entitled to do so under the Act, another law or regulation, a privilege such as attorney client privilege, or a court order. Under the old law the burden ran the other way, and every appeal went to court.
That is the second half of the reform. Appeals now go to the Office of Open Records, and the office stresses that filing one is free and needs no attorney. It keeps a searchable docket of its decisions, publishes guidance and training, runs a mediation service for disputes that do not need a formal ruling, and reports annually to the Governor and the General Assembly under section 1310(a)(9) of the Act. Since November 2025 it has been at 555 Walnut Street, Suite 605, Harrisburg. For Pennsylvania records held locally, see the Pennsylvania county pages.
- Presumed public: the agency carries the burden of proving a record may be withheld, not the requester of proving it is public.
- Five business days: no written response in that time means the request is deemed denied and can be appealed at once.
- Fifteen business days: the appeal deadline, measured from the mailing date of the response or the deemed denial, at 11.59 p.m. electronically or 5 p.m. on paper.
- Thirty calendar days: the usual time for the office to issue a binding final determination after an appeal is docketed.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Pennsylvania's own systems: the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, the office's about the Right to Know Law page, the office's how to file a request page, the office's how to file an appeal page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Writing a request that works
The office's guide to filing runs in three steps and each one prevents a common failure. First, work out which agency is likely to hold the records, because asking the wrong one costs weeks; the office publishes a table of commonly misdirected requests for exactly that reason. Second, find the Agency Open Records Officer, whom every agency, state or local, must appoint, sometimes called a right to know officer; the contact details are usually on the agency website, and where they are not, the office keeps a searchable database, with the fallback of addressing the request to the Agency Open Records Officer at the agency's main address.
Third, prepare and submit the request, using the agency's own form where it has one, or the office's standard form, which every agency must accept. A request can go by email, fax, post or in person. The guide gives three rules for the text: be specific and concise so the agency can find the records and decide whether they are public; do not ask questions, because the law provides access to records and does not require agencies to answer them, so a question about why a street was not ploughed should be rewritten as a request for the snow ploughing schedule; and always keep a copy, because a copy of the request must accompany any appeal and without one the office has no choice but to dismiss the appeal as insufficient. Filing is free, although fees may be payable before records are released or inspected.
Two questions agencies are not entitled to win
The office answers both of the questions requesters most often lose arguments about. An agency may ask why someone wants records, but the requester is not required to answer, because the law prohibits an agency from requiring a person to disclose the purpose or motive behind a request; the office suggests politely pointing out that motive is irrelevant and declining, while noting that in some cases explaining the purpose genuinely helps the agency respond better.
And residency is not a bar in the way people assume: the Act defines a requester as a person who is a legal resident of the United States, so any United States resident may file, and while the Act does not define person, the Statutory Construction Act does, covering a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, business trust, other association, government entity other than the Commonwealth, estate, trust, foundation or natural person.
The office also confirms that an agency cannot limit the number of records a requester may ask for or inspect, although it asks requesters to use good judgment.
What an agency may charge
Fees are centrally set rather than invented agency by agency. The office has established an official fee structure that governs what may be charged, and generally no other fees are allowed: the Act says that, except where another statute provides, no other fees may be imposed unless the agency necessarily incurs costs in complying with the request, and any such fee must be reasonable. One charge is forbidden outright, and it is the one agencies most often try: no fee may be imposed for the agency's review of a record to decide whether it is subject to access.
Where a separate statute sets an amount for a particular record, that amount is the ceiling, which is why a Recorder of Deeds may charge fifty cents for an uncertified page and a dollar fifty for a certified page under its own statute. The office also hears appeals about fees themselves, and its published summaries include cases where an agency granted a request but charged outside the statutory limits and was held to the office's fee schedule.
The deemed denial, and the fifteen business days
Silence has a defined meaning here. Where an agency does not respond in writing within five business days of a written request, the request is deemed denied, and the appeal guidance asks requesters to say so when they file. All appeals must be in writing and must reach the Office of Open Records within fifteen business days from the mailing date of the agency's response or from the date the request was deemed denied, and if that window closes the right to appeal is lost and a fresh request may be needed.
The time of day matters too: an appeal sent electronically, by the online form or by fax, is due by 11.59 and 59 seconds in the evening of the fifteenth business day, while an appeal posted or handed in is due by 5 p.m. that day. The office will not docket an appeal, or respond to a request, where it has reason to believe the requester's identity is anonymous or has been misrepresented.
What the appeal must contain, and what follows
The office's online appeal form walks a requester through the process, and it can be used for a full denial, a partial denial, a deemed denial or an appeal about the fees being charged. Four things must be provided: a copy of the right to know request; a copy of the agency's response, or a note that the request was deemed denied; a written statement explaining the grounds on which the requester says the record is public; and a written statement addressing any grounds the agency gave for the denial.
Appeals can also go by fax, by post or in person at the Harrisburg office during business hours. Once an appeal arrives, the office assigns a docket number and an appeals officer and writes to both the requester and the agency with information about the process, and a binding final determination follows on the timeline the Act requires, which in most cases means within thirty calendar days. Those determinations are published and searchable, so a requester can check how the office has treated the same exemption before.
Reading a Pennsylvania response
A Pennsylvania answer is read against the presumption. If the agency releases the records, the matter ends. If it refuses, it has to justify the refusal under a specific provision, and that justification is what the appeal statement should address point by point. If nothing arrives within five business days, the law has already answered for the agency and the appeal can be filed the next day. Three practical habits decide most appeals: keep the request, note the mailing date of any response, and count business days rather than calendar days, because fifteen business days is three weeks on a calendar and less when a holiday falls in the middle.
Questions about public records requests in Pennsylvania
Related Pennsylvania records
Pennsylvania's other public records guides on this site are the Pennsylvania background check guide for the State Police criminal history service, the Pennsylvania court records guide for the unified judicial system portal, the Pennsylvania arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Pennsylvania county pages for every county office.