Missouri started its statewide registration program in 1995 under the federal Jacob Wetterling Act, and sections 589.400 to 589.425 and 43.650 of the Revised Statutes now require the State Highway Patrol to keep a sex offender database and a website open to the public, which the Patrol's Criminal Justice Information Services Division runs as a supplement to the registries the registration officials keep in each county. The registry home page opens with the names of absconders, registrants with unknown addresses and a non compliant status, a toll free line for sex offender information at 1-888-SOR-MSHP, which is 1-888-767-6747, and a disclaimer the visitor must accept: the site covers only people convicted of, found guilty of or pleading guilty to committing or attempting sexual offenses and may not show the whole criminal history, registrants for kidnapping, felonious restraint or child abuse may be missing from it, the Patrol has assessed nobody's risk and calls nobody dangerous, listing rests solely on the conviction record and state law, and the maps may miss people whose home, work, school or temporary address cannot be mapped. The registry is updated daily, yet the Patrol makes no representation that it is accurate, since some of the information comes from the registrants themselves; the registering official of the county where the person lives verifies it, and wrong or missing information goes to that official or to mosor@mshp.dps.mo.gov, which forwards it.
The search page takes a last name, first name, date of birth, a predator flag, a tier level, an address type that reaches incarcerated and out of state registrants, and a street, city, county, state or ZIP Code, with true names and aliases both matched and at least one criterion required, or an address, city, state, ZIP Code and distance to find everyone who lives, works or attends school within that radius; a state map opens from the same page, the electronic accounts of registrants, email addresses and social network names, come from the county sheriff rather than the site, and the whole registry downloads as a compressed spreadsheet once the disclaimer is accepted. The registration official for each county is on the Missouri county pages.
- Search: the Highway Patrol registry by name, date of birth, address, county, tier or predator status, or by distance from an address, with an absconder list, a state map and a download of the whole registry.
- Tiers and visits: the registration official assigns Tier I, II or III at the first visit and the Patrol checks it; Tier I reports every year in the birth month, Tier II every six months and Tier III every 90 days, in person.
- Duration: 15 years for Tier I, 25 for Tier II and life for Tier III, cut by five years for a Tier I registrant with ten clean years; removal only by petition to the circuit court after 10 or 25 years, never for an adult Tier III offender.
- Restrictions: no residence within 1,000 feet of a school, child care facility or the former victim's home for the listed offenses, no presence within 500 feet of schools, child care facilities, parks and pools, no coaching, and the Halloween rules every October 31.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Missouri's own systems: the Missouri Sex Offender Registry home page, the registry search page, the registry frequently asked questions, the Highway Patrol sex offender registry disclaimer and history page, RSMo section 589.400 on who registers, the terms and the fees, RSMo section 589.401 on removal and exemption by petition, RSMo section 589.414 on changes, tiers and in person reporting, RSMo section 589.426 on Halloween restrictions, RSMo section 566.147 on residence within 1,000 feet of schools, child care and victims, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What the Patrol's website shows, and the statuses
Each listing carries a registration status the Patrol's disclaimer page defines. Compliant means the person is registering as required. Non compliant means the person has not completed or updated the registration with the chief law enforcement official of the county of residence. Pending registration means the person gave a change of address to another Missouri county, or an address to the Department of Corrections before release, and has not yet registered with the official there.
Absconder means the whereabouts are unknown to law enforcement. Incarcerated means the last known whereabouts is a county, city, state, military or federal facility, and moved out of state means the person no longer lives, works or studies in Missouri. The Patrol mails address verification letters, which the registrant hands to the registration official at the next in person visit, and a registrant who never receives one calls the registry at (573) 526-6348; a non compliant registrant or an absconder is reported to the registration official for the county.
Who registers, and where: the sheriff, with three exceptions
Section 589.400 reaches anyone adjudicated since July 1, 1979 for an offense that makes a person a Tier I, II or III offender, anyone committed since then to the Department of Mental Health as a criminal sexual psychopath, anyone found not guilty of such an offense by reason of mental disease or defect, a juvenile certified as an adult and adjudicated for such an offense, a juvenile of 14 or older adjudicated for an act at least as severe as aggravated sexual abuse under federal law, any Missouri resident adjudicated anywhere else for an equivalent offense or ever required to register in another state, territory or country or under federal, tribal or military law, which the Patrol reads to include people whose obligation elsewhere has already ended, and anyone required to register elsewhere who works, attends school or keeps a temporary residence in Missouri.
The person registers within three business days of adjudication, release from prison, placement on probation or release from the Division of Youth Services, the Department of Mental Health or any other placement, with the registration official of the county or of St. Louis City; the Patrol's questions page names that official as the chief law enforcement official of the county, typically the sheriff, except for the St. Louis City Metropolitan Police Department, the St.
Louis County Police Department and the St. Charles County Police Department. The official forwards the form to every city, town, village and campus police agency in the county, may charge up to $10 for the initial registration and $5 for each later change, and registers a temporary resident who stays more than part time and a nonresident worker, volunteer, intern or student in the county of work first, then of school, then of volunteering.
Fifteen years, twenty five years or life, and the clean record discount
The term is 15 years for a Tier I offender, 25 years for Tier II and the life of a Tier III offender. A registrant who keeps a clean record, meaning no adjudication for any offense punishable by more than a year or for any sex offense, completion of every period of supervised release, probation or parole and completion of a certified sex offender treatment program, court ordered or voluntary, earns a reduction: five years off for a Tier I offender after ten clean years, and for a Tier III offender adjudicated delinquent as a juvenile, a cut from life to the 25 clean years actually kept; a probation discharge order proves the treatment where the program was a probation condition and the records are gone.
None of it is automatic: the questions page stresses that Missouri is a petition based removal state and that a registration requirement does not expire on the first eligible date.
The tiers and the birth month visits
Section 589.414 has the registration official make the initial tier determination when the offender first appears, with the highest applicable tier controlling, and has the Patrol analyze each new registration for accuracy, overriding the official where the tier is wrong and having the registrant told by the next scheduled visit. A Tier I offender then reports in person every year in the month of birth, a Tier II offender every six months, in the birth month and six months later, and a Tier III offender every 90 days, each time to verify the statement on file, and a Missouri registrant who works, volunteers, interns, studies or keeps a temporary residence in another state reports in person to the official there and registers in that state as well.
Three business days for every change, 21 days for travel abroad
Within three business days a registrant appears in person before the official after any change of name, residence, employment including volunteer or intern status, or student status, or the end of any of them, and notifies the official of any change in vehicles, temporary residence, telephone or cellular number or other electronic communication, or online identifiers, a new identifier being reported before it is used. A move to another county means appearing in person before both the old and the new official within three business days with the new address and any new phone number, a move to another state or country means the same with both officials, and the old official tells the Patrol within three business days, which tells the new jurisdiction within three more.
Travel outside the United States requires an in person appearance at least 21 days ahead to complete the United States Marshals Service forms, which the official forwards to the marshals and copies to the Patrol. The questions page adds that section 589.400 sets how many days or nights a visitor working temporarily in Missouri may stay before registering, and that a registrant must report every email address, instant messaging address and other designation used in internet connections, postings or telephone communications.
Coming off: the petition and the exemptions
Section 589.401 is the sole route off the registry. The petition goes to the circuit court of the county or city where the offense was adjudicated, and is dismissed without prejudice unless ten years have passed since the registration date for the most recent offense for a Tier I offender or 25 years for a Tier II offender or a juvenile Tier III offender; an adult Tier III offender may not petition at all. It must carry the full name and aliases, sex, race, date of birth, last four digits of the Social Security number, address and employment, school or volunteer status, the offense and tier, the adjudication and registration dates, the case number and court, original fingerprints on an applicant card, any pardon or reversal order and a statement that the person is registered with no failure to register adjudicated or pending, names the Patrol and the registration official as respondents and is served on the prosecuting attorney, whose lack of notice means automatic denial; the prosecutor tells the victim of the hearings.
The court orders removal only on finding no new offense punishable by more than a year and no new sex offense since the current tier began, supervision completed without revocation, an approved treatment program completed and no current or potential threat to public safety, with a fingerprint based state and federal check at the petitioner's expense; a denial for a new adjudication bars a new petition for 15 years for Tier I and 25 for the other tiers, and any other denial for five years unless the law changed.
A separate petition for exemption, with no waiting period, covers sexual conduct without force with a victim of at least 14 by someone not more than four years older, consensual conduct between adults, and the obscenity offenses of promoting obscenity, furnishing pornographic material to minors, public display of explicit sexual material and coercing acceptance of obscene material, the petitioner bearing the burden and the court free to look at the underlying facts; a reversed, vacated or set aside conviction is removed by petition without waiting; a person adjudicated in another jurisdiction seeks relief there first and registers the order in Missouri, or petitions directly where the offense never required registration there or the person never lived, worked or studied there.
No registrant may change a legal name while registered, and a former legal name is reported as an alias.
Where a registrant may not live, go or coach, and Halloween
The questions page lists the restrictions by statute. Under section 566.147 anyone found guilty since July 1, 1979 of an offense in the sexual offenses chapter, of incest, first degree endangering the welfare of a child, use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child, sexual exploitation of a minor, promoting or possessing child sexual abuse material, formerly called child pornography, or furnishing pornographic material to minors, or of an equivalent offense elsewhere, may not reside within 1,000 feet of any public school, any private school through twelfth grade or any licensed or regulated child care facility that existed when the person moved in, nor within 1,000 feet of the property line of a former victim's residence, measured property line to property line; when a school, facility or victim arrives later, the registrant tells the sheriff within one week with proof of the earlier residence.
Living there is a class E felony, a class B felony on a repeat, and missing the one week notice is a class A misdemeanor. Section 566.148 bars presence or loitering within 500 feet of a child care facility, 566.149 within 500 feet of school property, 566.150 within 500 feet of a public park, swimming pool, athletic complex, museum or nature center, and 566.155 bars serving as an athletic coach, manager or trainer, with the registration official the source for which offenders each rule covers.
Section 589.426 requires every registrant on October 31 to avoid all Halloween related contact with children, to stay inside from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. except for just cause such as work or a medical emergency, to post a sign reading no candy or treats at this residence, and to leave the outside lights off after 5 p.m., a class A misdemeanor to break, though a 2024 federal district court ruling in Sanderson v. Bailey held the sign requirement unenforceable as compelled speech while leaving the rest in force.
Probation, parole and court orders may add conditions on contact with children beyond the statutes.
Reading a Missouri result
A listing on the Patrol's site gives the tier, which fixes the visit rhythm and the term, and the status, which says whether the county official last heard from the person on time; it says nothing about risk, which Missouri never assesses, and it may omit someone registered for kidnapping, felonious restraint or child abuse. The registration official of the county holds the file, the tier decision, the verification letters and the email and social media identifiers, and the circuit court of the county of adjudication holds the only key to removal.
Questions about the Missouri sex offender registry
Related Missouri records
Missouri's other public records are covered on this site: the Missouri arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the Missouri inmate search guide for the Department of Corrections and county jail lookups, the Missouri court records guide for Case.net, and the Missouri county pages for every sheriff.