The North Dakota Sex Offender Registry is an Office of Attorney General site, and its offender information page explains the system in a few paragraphs: a person who pled guilty to or was convicted of certain offenses in North Dakota, or an equivalent offense in any state, federal, tribal or international court, may have to register, registers in the jurisdiction of residence, and may have to register here while living in a neighboring state and working or studying in North Dakota; every registered sex offender appears on the state website with full details and on the national website, and the site is updated in real time, all day every day, as changes are entered. Every offender is given a risk level for reoffending by a team of professionals from the Attorney General's office, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, juvenile services and other criminal justice entities, which reviews the criminal history, the evaluations and the other documents and assigns low, moderate or high, and the level sets the term: a low risk offender registers for a minimum of 15 years, a moderate risk offender for 25 years and a high risk offender for life. The search page finds offenders by name, address, city or county, and the Track All button or any Track Offender link on the results page signs the visitor up for email notifications about those offenders.
Two groups the public often expects are missing on purpose. The registry's questions page explains that the website is one of the ways North Dakota implements Megan's Law, so the offenders against children, people convicted of non sexual crimes involving force against or restraint of a child, are not on it and are listed instead on the Public Safety page of the Attorney General's website, and that juveniles convicted of a registerable offense appear only when they are high risk or carry a lifetime requirement. The page also answers the question people ask most, why a high risk offender or lifetime registrant is out of prison: such an offender has usually already served the sentence imposed by the time registration begins, the Constitution does not permit keeping a person in prison because the risk remains or the convictions are several, and civil commitment of sexually dangerous individuals exists only for extreme cases. The police department or sheriff's office that registers offenders in each county is on the North Dakota county pages.
- Search: the Attorney General's registry by name, address, city or county, updated in real time, with Track Offender email alerts; offenders against children and most juvenile offenders are listed elsewhere or not at all.
- Risk levels and terms: low, moderate or high, set by the Attorney General's committee from an actuarial tool, psychological evaluations and the record; 15 years for low risk, 25 years for moderate risk and life for high risk, two or more offenses or the listed forcible and child offenses after August 1, 1999.
- Registration: papers before release from a correctional facility, registration with the local police or sheriff within three days of arriving with fingerprints and a photograph, a change form at least ten days before a move, new job or school, and re-registration within three days in a new jurisdiction or every three days when homeless.
- Verification: four times a year in January, April, July and October for high risk, twice a year in February and August for moderate risk, and once a year in the birth month for low risk or unassigned offenders, with the photograph updated regularly.
Written by SearchSystems.net from North Dakota's own systems: the North Dakota Sex Offender Registry search page, the registry's offender information page, the registry's laws page, the registry's frequently asked questions, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who registers: the sex offenses and the separate list
The laws page puts the registration statute at section 12.1-32-15 of the North Dakota Century Code and lists the sex offenses that require registration: gross sexual imposition, continuous sexual abuse, sexual imposition, corruption of minors, luring minors by computer, sexual abuse of wards, sexual exploitation by a therapist, sexual assault as a class C felony or class A misdemeanor, incest, indecent exposure, surreptitious intrusion, sexual extortion, every offense in the sexual performance by children chapter, sex trafficking, patronizing a victim of sexual servitude and patronizing a minor for commercial sexual activity, plus any offense from another court in the United States, a tribal court or a court of another country that the Attorney General deems equivalent, after a guilty plea, a plea of nolo contendere or a verdict.
A second list, the offenses against children, covers non sexual crimes that still require registration as an offender against children: homicide, assault of a victim under 12, aggravated assault, terrorizing, felony stalking, kidnapping, felonious restraint, removing a child from the state in violation of a custody decree, prostitution offenses, child abuse and labor trafficking of a minor; those registrants verify once a year in the birth month and appear on their own list, not on the sex offender site.
A juvenile may be required to register after a conviction or plea under the same statute, and the gross sexual imposition entry, the page notes elsewhere, covers any sexual act or sexual contact with a person who has not consented or cannot consent, from forcible rape to conduct with an intoxicated, unconscious, disabled or mentally ill victim or a child under 15.
The committee, the levels and the terms
The risk level is assigned by a team drawn from the Attorney General's office, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, local law enforcement, victims' services, juvenile services and other professionals, using an actuarial risk assessment tool, psychological evaluations and all available documentation from the offender's past. For an incarcerated offender the assessment is done shortly before release so that the most current information is used, for one not incarcerated it begins within a few days of sentencing, and for one arriving from another state or the federal system it begins within days of the first registration here and may take several weeks while records are gathered, the level is assigned and the offender is given a due process hearing, the Attorney General warning that North Dakota's own assessment may come out higher than the other state's.
High risk means the offenders statistically most likely to commit another sexual offense, typically those with more than one offense or with behaviors that raise the risk. The registration period is a minimum of 15 years for low risk, 25 years for moderate risk and lifetime for high risk, and lifetime as well for anyone convicted of two or more offenses requiring registration in North Dakota, for anyone who pled guilty to or was found guilty of an offense committed after August 1, 1999 that is gross sexual imposition involving force or the threat of serious bodily injury, continuous sexual abuse, gross sexual imposition by a sexual act where the offender is an adult and the victim under 12, or kidnapping by an adult other than the victim's parent, and for an equivalent offense from another court; the period begins after sentencing, after an order deferring or suspending sentence, or after release from incarceration, whichever is later, and a reassessment after a new conviction can change both the level and the period.
Registering: before release, within three days, ten days before a move
Before leaving a correctional facility the offender completes registration papers showing the address where the person says the person will live, a copy goes to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and the bureau tells the police department or sheriff's office to expect the offender. Within three days of arriving at the new location the offender registers with the law enforcement agency where the person will live, is fingerprinted and photographed, and a copy of the completed form goes to the bureau; an offender with more than one residence registers in every jurisdiction where one lies.
The registration covers the residence address, the address of every employer, school information, motor vehicles, and email addresses and social networking information, and any change in anything the Attorney General requires is registered with the registering agency within three days of taking effect. A move, a new job or a new school is handled in advance: at least ten days before changing residence, employment or school the offender returns to the local agency to complete a change of address form, and after moving outside the jurisdiction re-registers with the agency in the new city, county or state within three days of arriving, becoming employed or starting school there.
A homeless offender, meaning one physically present in the state but living in a park, under a bridge, on the streets, in a vehicle or camper or otherwise without a traditional dwelling, or one who lives in the state without a permanent address, but not one temporarily domiciled or staying in a public or private shelter, registers with the law enforcement agency for the area every three days. An out of state offender who is temporarily working in or visiting North Dakota registers when staying overnight for ten or more consecutive days or for 30 days or more in a calendar year, consecutive or not, and one who relocates here undergoes the state's own risk assessment review.
The verification months
Every registrant verifies the registration information with law enforcement on a schedule fixed by the North Dakota risk level, with the photograph updated regularly: a high risk offender four times a year, in January, April, July and October; a moderate risk offender twice a year, in February and August; and a low risk offender, or one not yet assigned a North Dakota level, once a year in the month of the date of birth. The bureau keeps a paper trail to make sure every offender registers as required, and when one does not, law enforcement agencies are told to search for the person, a warrant follows, and the county state's attorney prosecutes the failure to register, a class C felony on a first offense with a maximum of five years' imprisonment, a $5,000 fine or both, carrying, the questions page adds, a minimum mandatory jail sentence; the registry also keeps a public list of non compliant offenders.
Community notification, and the email tracker
Community notification belongs to the local police and sheriff's departments, which notify the public when a registered offender moves into a neighborhood through the news media, public meetings or personal notification, weigh many factors before deciding when and how, need not wait for a risk level to be assigned, and have some discretion over the method even though federal and state law require them to notify the public about high risk offenders, so a question about whether a particular agency has met that duty goes to the agency.
The Attorney General explains why not every offender brings a notice: notifying the community about everyone would dilute the usefulness of the information about the few who pose a very serious risk, and public notification about low risk offenders may have the unintended effect of making them more risky. Anyone can watch an offender without waiting for the police by using the Track Offender links on the search results, and sharing what the site shows with neighbors, a school or others is encouraged as a way of making communities safer, while any illegal action against an offender, vandalism, intimidation, harassment or threats against the person, the family, the landlord or the employer, will likely bring arrest and prosecution of the vigilante.
Schools, 500 feet and the day care ban
North Dakota law does not stop a low or moderate risk sex offender from living near a school, a park or a day care facility unless a condition of probation does, since the terms of probation are set by the court case by case; a high risk offender may not reside within 500 feet of a public or nonpublic preschool, elementary, middle or high school. A sex offender is generally prohibited from being on or in school property, including playing fields, playgrounds and other facilities of every public and nonpublic elementary, middle and high school, except as school board policy permits and for purposes such as voting or attending a public meeting, and may attend parent teacher conferences and school functions under school policy or with the school's written permission.
Under section 50-11.1-13.1 a registered sex offender may not provide early childhood services such as day care to any child other than a member of the offender's own household, and no provider of such services, licensed or not, may allow a registered offender to be in the presence of a child receiving them, a violation being a class B misdemeanor. Employers and landlords, the questions page adds, are free to weigh the liability of hiring or renting to a registered offender, since sex offender status is not a protected class.
Reading a North Dakota result
A record on the Attorney General's site carries the risk level, which tells the reader the verification months and the term, 15 years, 25 years or life, and may carry a plain language description of the offense, which is missing when the documentation is still being gathered or when the conviction came from another state with little detail available; a name absent from the site may be an offender against children on the separate list, a juvenile below high risk, or a person whose term has run.
The local police or sheriff hold the registration form and the change forms, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation holds the paper trail, the Attorney General's committee holds the risk assessment, and the clerk of court in the county of the offense points to the police report once the case is closed; the state's five tribal registries, for the Standing Rock Sioux, Turtle Mountain, Three Affiliated Tribes, Spirit Lake and Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, are linked from the offender information page.
Questions about the North Dakota sex offender registry
Related North Dakota records
North Dakota's other public records on this site: the North Dakota arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the North Dakota inmate search guide for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the county jails, the North Dakota court records guide for the district court records search, and the North Dakota county pages for every sheriff and police department.