The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, runs the Sexual Offender and Predator Registry, reported to it by the Department of Corrections, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, local law enforcement and the registrants themselves, compiled for public access without independent confirmation, and updated continuously as the partner agencies send changes. The search runs by first and last name, by neighborhood with an address, city, ZIP Code and radius, by university or campus, and, through the internet identifier search, by a complete email address or screen name, which answers only whether the identifier belongs to a registrant, never with a name; a result is a flyer with the photo, designation, status, physical description, crime and registered address, mapped, with the county of conviction linked to the clerk of court for the case itself. The home page lists absconded offenders the department asks for help finding, and the about page traces the registry to the Public Safety Information Act of 1997, when Florida listed 471 sexual predators and about 8,000 offenders, against more than 17,000 predators and 72,000 offenders now.
The department states that the database describes convictions for sex related crimes, that placement in it says nothing about the level of risk a particular person presents, that the listing may not reflect the person's whole Florida criminal history, which FDLE sells separately, that positive identification needs a fingerprint comparison, and that misusing the records to extract payment from a registrant, to spread false information as if public record or to alter it is a crime under section 775.21(10)(d). The Offender Registry Services Bureau answers at 1-888-357-7332, the FL-PREDATOR line, on weekdays, at P.O. Box 1489, Tallahassee, FL 32302-1489 and sexpred@fdle.state.fl.us, with anonymous tips by phone because email to the bureau is a public record; the sheriffs who register and reregister every offender are on the Florida county pages.
- Search: the FDLE registry search by name, neighborhood, campus or email address, with free alerts when a registrant moves and the whole registry and its employment addresses downloadable as CSV files.
- Who appears: every registered sexual offender, sexual predator and juvenile sexual offender, for life, including people who have moved away and, for a year after the date of death, the deceased.
- Reregistration: in person at the sheriff's office twice a year, in the birth month and six months later, or four times a year for predators, juveniles and the offenses listed in section 943.0435(14)(b); transients report every 30 days.
- The 48 hour rule: a new residence, a release from custody, a new email address or internet identifier, a change of phone, job, vehicle or college status, and a driver license update each within 48 hours; a move out of state 48 hours ahead and foreign travel 21 days ahead; each failure a third degree felony.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Florida's own systems: the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Sexual Offender and Predator Registry, the registry's search page, the registry's internet identifier search, the registry's Frequently Asked Questions, the registry's Important Information page, the registry's Florida Laws page, the registry's About Us page, the registry's downloads page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Offenders and predators: who registers
Under the registry's questions page, a sexual offender is anyone convicted of a qualifying offense in Florida or elsewhere who has been released from or is serving a sanction for it on or after October 1, 1997, anyone who lives in Florida and must or would have to register in another jurisdiction, and anyone adjudicated delinquent on or after July 1, 2007 at 14 or older for sexual battery, lewd or lascivious battery on a child under 12 or by force, or lewd or lascivious molestation involving unclothed genitals or force.
The qualifying adult convictions run from sexual misconduct under the mental health and developmental disability laws, kidnapping, false imprisonment and luring of a minor, human trafficking and sexual battery through unlawful sexual activity with minors, procuring or selling minors, lewd or lascivious offenses on a child under 16 or on an elderly or disabled person, digital voyeurism of a minor, sexual performance by a child, computer pornography, transmission of child sexual abuse material or material harmful to minors, selling or buying of minors, racketeering with a sexual offense among its acts, sexual misconduct by forensic and juvenile justice staff, and similar offenses elsewhere, all listed with their statute numbers on the Florida laws page, which the department updated for 2025.
A withheld adjudication counts as a conviction, and so does a plea of nolo contendere. A sexual predator is a person convicted of a sexually violent offense under the Florida Sexual Predators Act, section 775.21, and designated as such by written court order, or a person civilly committed under the Jimmy Ryce Act with the same order; the act defines a permanent residence as three or more consecutive days and a temporary one as three or more days in a year, counted from the second day.
A juvenile convicted as an adult registers as an adult, and an out of state offender visiting Florida reports to the sheriff within 48 hours of establishing a temporary residence and to a driver license office within 48 hours after that; a person who leaves Florida stays on the public site.
The legal statuses on a flyer
Each flyer carries a status the home page defines. Absconded means no longer at the last reported address, with absconded from probation, from juvenile justice supervision or from registration spelled out in the FAQ; civil commitment means confined by the Department of Children and Families under the Jimmy Ryce Civil Commitment Act; confinement means a Florida prison, county or municipal jail or juvenile facility, a federal prison or U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, with state, county, federal and juvenile incarceration and ICE custody as separate entries; deceased means an official document of death received, with the record kept on the website for one year after the date of death so that victims, the community and local police can be told, and reported deceased means a report without the certificate yet; deported means expelled from the United States; released means no longer confined or supervised by any court imposed sanction but still required to register; and supervised means a term of community monitoring under the Department of Corrections or the Parole Commission, the Department of Juvenile Justice or the United States Probation system, with parole, community control and administrative probation among the forms.
A separate downloads page offers the registration list and the employment address list as CSV files with memos describing them.
What a registrant must report, and when
The important information page sets out the duties as the registrant signs for them. Within 48 hours of establishing a residence in Florida or of release from the Department of Corrections, Children and Families or Juvenile Justice, the person reports in person to the sheriff with name, date of birth, Social Security number, race, sex, height, weight, marks, hair and eye color, photograph, every home and cellular number, every email address and internet identifier with its website or application, every permanent, temporary and transient residence with no post office box in place of a physical address, employment, the make, model, color, VIN and tag of every vehicle owned, including vehicles of anyone living at the residence five days or more, the date and place of each conviction, fingerprints, palm prints, passport, immigration documents, professional licenses, and the identifiers of any vehicle, trailer, mobile home or vessel used as a residence.
Within 48 hours after that the person goes to a driver license office for a license or identification card marked SEXUAL PREDATOR or 943.0435, F.S., renewed at every change of name or residence. Within 48 hours the person reports any new email address or internet identifier, any change of phone, employment, vehicle or college enrollment, work or volunteering, a vacated residence with nowhere new, an in state travel residence, and a decision to stay after announcing a departure, through the Cyber Communication System if not under supervision, in person at the sheriff's office, or to the probation officer if supervised; vehicles are always reported in person to the sheriff.
A move to another state is reported in person at least 48 hours before leaving, with the full new address, and foreign travel at least 21 days before departure with the dates, flight or cruise and port, or as soon as possible when the trip was unknown. Reregistration in person comes twice a year, in the birth month and six months later, or four times a year, in the birth month and every third month, for every predator, every juvenile registrant and adults convicted of kidnapping or false imprisonment of a minor, sexual battery, the listed lewd or lascivious battery and molestation offenses, lewd or lascivious battery on an elderly or disabled person, attempts and conspiracies and similar offenses elsewhere; a transient registrant also reports every 30 days, an address verification letter is answered within three weeks, and false information, like each missed duty, is a third degree felony, with staying after a reported departure a second degree felony.
The page warns that neither FDLE nor any police agency calls or texts registrants to demand payment, and the department posts the reregistration days, times and locations by county with 2024 and 2025 registration updates.
Alerts, removal and the limits of the law
The Florida Offender Alert System sends free emails when a registrant moves within a chosen distance of a location the subscriber sets, such as a home, or when a particular registrant moves anywhere in the state, signed up for under Alerts on the registry site. Removal is rare: registration is for life under section 943.0435(11), a court designated predator leaves the registry only with a full pardon or post conviction relief, and an offender may petition the circuit court only under the Romeo and Juliet law, section 943.04354, when the victim was 13 to 17 and no more than four years younger, the activity consensual and the offense the only registrable one, or after 25 years free of sanctions and of any felony or misdemeanor arrest, provided the offense was not kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual battery, the listed lewd or lascivious offenses, an attempt or a similar offense elsewhere, with notice to FDLE and the state attorney three weeks before the hearing; a person who registers because of another state's requirement stays until proving release from every other state's duty.
A person with an out of state conviction who wants to move to Florida may ask the bureau for a case review by mail with the planned addresses, the offense details, a notarized release and certified court records, with no timeline promised and registration within 48 hours urged meanwhile. The registration law sets no residence restriction of its own, leaving those to section 775.215 for certain convictions, to county and city ordinances, to section 856.022 on loitering near children and to the conditions a judge sets during supervision; it does not bar internet or social networking accounts, though supervision conditions may and section 943.0437 governs commercial sites; and a registrant may be ineligible to vote and faces prosecution for registering or voting while ineligible.
Failing to register is a felony, and information about a registrant not at the registered address goes to local law enforcement at once.
Reading a Florida result
A flyer means a qualifying conviction, as the statute defines it, with a designation of offender or predator and a status that says where the person is, from confinement to released to absconded; it is not a risk rating, it may omit the rest of the criminal history, and it stays after the person leaves Florida and for a year after death. The duties behind it run in hours and the reregistration in birth months, so a flyer's address was reported within 48 hours of a move and verified by the sheriff, and anything older than that is checked by the hotline.
Questions about the Florida sex offender registry
Related Florida records
The registry is one of the Florida records this site covers: the Florida arrest records guide explains what a booking makes public, the inmate search guide covers the Department of Corrections offender search, the background check guide covers the FDLE criminal history search, and the Florida county pages list each sheriff and police department.