Utah's records law is the Government Records Access and Management Act, and the Division of Archives and Records Service explains the mechanics in its guidance on government records access. A request goes to the governmental entity that maintains the record, which means working out the right body first, the state's own example being that water usage records sit with a municipality while water rights records sit with the Division of Water Rights in the Department of Natural Resources. Under Utah Code 63G-2-204(1) the request must be in writing and must give the requester's name, address, telephone number where available, and a specific description of the records wanted.
Every agency in the state, local as well as state level, is required to appoint a records officer, and that is the person a request should be addressed to; their names and contact details are listed in the state Open Records Portal, which is also the easiest way to prepare and send a request, although an agency's own form or the generic form published by the State Archives will do. The law allows a records officer up to ten business days to respond, while suggesting a response as soon as reasonably possible. For Utah records held locally, see the Utah county pages.
- Ten business days: the outer limit for the records officer's response, with the law encouraging an answer as soon as reasonably possible.
- A free quarter hour: no fee for inspecting records, for deciding whether a record is disclosable, or for the first quarter hour of staff time.
- Three appeal levels: the chief administrative officer, then the Director of the Government Records Office, then district court, each on a thirty day clock.
- Mediation on request: either side may ask the Government Records Ombudsman to mediate, which can hold the appeal deadline while it runs.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Utah's own systems: the Utah State Archives government records access pages, the State Archives questions and answers on GRAMA, Utah Code 63G-2-203, the fee section, the State Archives on the appeals process, the Government Records Office payment and prepayment notice, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What you can be charged, and the three things that are free
Section 63G-2-203 lets a governmental entity charge a reasonable fee covering its actual cost of providing a record, with the fee approved by the entity's executive officer. Where the entity compiles a record in a form other than the one it normally keeps, actual cost may include staff time for compiling, formatting, manipulating, packaging, summarising or tailoring the record to the request, staff time for search and retrieval and other direct administrative costs, and, for computer output beyond word processing, the incremental cost of the electronic services and products together with a reasonable portion of the cost of formatting or interfacing the information for particular users.
Any hourly charge is capped at the salary of the lowest paid employee who, in the custodian's discretion, has the skill and training to do the work. Three charges are forbidden outright: a fee for reviewing a record to decide whether it is subject to disclosure, except as part of the direct administrative costs allowed above; a fee for inspecting a record; and a fee for the first quarter hour of staff time spent responding. That last protection has a single exception, which catches serial requesters: the first quarter hour may be charged to someone who is not a Utah media representative and who filed a separate request within the ten days before the one being answered.
Media representative is defined as a person seeking information for a story or report for publication or broadcast to the general public, and expressly excludes someone collecting material for a blog, podcast, social media account or similar channel. Fees are set through the budget process at state level, by ordinance or written formal policy at a political subdivision, and by judicial council rule for the courts, so a published instrument always lies behind a bill.
Free of charge, when the request is for the public
Utah encourages free production in three situations, and a requester should say which applies when asking for a waiver. The first is where releasing the record primarily benefits the public rather than a person, which is the ground most civic and journalistic requests rest on. The second is where the individual requesting is the subject of the record, or another individual the statute specifies. The third is where the requester's legal rights are directly implicated by the information and the requester is impecunious.
A refusal to waive is not the end of it: an unreasonable denial of a fee waiver is itself appealable, and the appeals form the State Archives publishes can be used to challenge the fees being charged as well as the refusal of records.
The first appeal: the chief administrative officer
A requester unhappy with the records officer's answer begins by appealing to the chief administrative officer of the entity, under 63G-2-401(1), and the notice of denial is required by 63G-2-205(2) to carry that officer's contact details and to state the right to appeal within thirty days. The chief administrative officer is a person in a managerial position responsible for the entity's overall records management programme, or a delegate, and holds a power the records officer does not: under 63G-2-401(6) they may weigh the competing interests and order disclosure of records that are properly restricted, where after review they believe the interests favouring disclosure prevail.
The decision is due within ten business days, with two exceptions: five days where the requester or another interested party shows that an expedited decision benefits the public, and twelve days from the notice to the person who claimed business confidentiality where such a claim is involved. Where that officer upholds the denial, or simply fails to decide in time, the right to go up a level arises under 63G-2-402.
The second appeal: the Government Records Office
The Government Records Office sits within the Division of Archives and Records Services, with the Director's duties set out in Utah Code 63A-12-201 to 203, hearings held under the Open and Public Meetings Act and the procedure governed by Administrative Rule Title R35. An appeal must be in writing and must reach the Director no later than thirty days after the date the decision being appealed was issued; miss that and the right is lost, leaving a fresh GRAMA request as the only route.
The appeals form covers whole denials, partial denials, deemed denials where the entity never responded by its deadline, fees, and claims of extraordinary circumstances, and a plain letter is also accepted, by email, fax or post. Hearings begin at nine in the morning on the third Thursday of each month, with no individual start times, and inmate appeals are normally taken first because of the arrangements needed to get a prisoner to a telephone with an officer present.
Motions are argued first, five minutes a side, then each party has five minutes to present testimony and evidence with questions from the Director, then five minutes each for closing remarks, after which the Director may review the records in camera. The decision and order, granting the relief sought in whole or part or upholding the denial, is issued no later than seven business days after the hearing. Each party must comply within thirty days, with the entity filing a notice of compliance.
Mediation, and what it protects
At any point in the process either the governmental entity or the person making the request or appeal may ask for mediation through the Government Records Ombudsman under 63A-12-111(2)(c). Mediation does not displace the appeal, except in the obvious sense that a satisfied appellant may withdraw, and an appeal sent to the Ombudsman is a way of putting the thirty day deadline for appealing to the Director on hold while discussions happen.
Both sides must agree to take part and either may stop at any time, after which the Ombudsman documents that mediation has concluded. One feature makes candour possible: no correspondence with the Government Records Ombudsman and no information obtained in mediation may be brought forward at a hearing before the Director or in the district court. For a dispute that is really about scope, format or cost rather than principle, that is usually the fastest route to records.
Going to district court
Either party may take the Director's decision and order to the district court under the Rules of Civil Procedure, and the appeal must be filed within thirty days of the date on the order, under 63G-2-404(1)(a). Where the Director orders production and nobody appeals, the entity must give the requester the records and file a notice of compliance. The Utah Courts self help resources are the state's own pointer for a requester taking that step without a lawyer.
In practice the ladder is what makes GRAMA workable: a written request to a named records officer, ten business days, a managerial review that can override a restriction, a hearing with a seven day order, and only then a courtroom.
Questions about public records requests in Utah
Related Utah records
Utah's other public records guides on this site are the Utah background check guide for the Bureau of Criminal Identification, the Utah court records guide for the judiciary's case search, the Utah arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Utah county pages for every county office.