The Vermont Sex Offender Registry was established at the Vermont Crime Information Center in 1996, when the legislature passed subchapter 3 of chapter 167 of Title 13 of the Vermont Statutes, and the way Vermont lets the public reach it is unusual. Local law enforcement agencies and the center may release relevant registry information to a member of the public only when the person asking can articulate a specific concern about their own safety or the safety of another, and the statute requires that the request name a subject: a query by street address, by town or by county is not allowed, and the registry is forbidden to answer a general question about the whereabouts of sex offenders in a particular community with a list. A victim's identity is never released. Beyond the public, the law lets registry information go to local, state and federal law enforcement for law enforcement purposes alone, to state and federal government agencies conducting confidential background checks, to any employer, a school district included, that is authorized by law to ask the center for records where the disclosure is necessary to protect the public, and to a person named in the registry who wants to check the accuracy of a record about themselves.
Alongside that name by name service the center runs a public website, which it links from its own page and which may be unavailable at times because of the volume of users; the website carries the registrants the statute allows to be posted and nothing more, and anything else about an offender, including what the conviction actually involved, goes to the local police or the court of record. Questions and concerns go to the registry information line at (802) 241-5400. The police department, sheriff or state police barracks for any Vermont town is on the Vermont county pages.
- Search: by name, through the Crime Information Center or a local police agency, with a stated safety concern, or on the public website the center maintains; no search by street address, town or county, and no list of a community's offenders.
- Who registers: anyone convicted in Vermont on or after July 1, 1996, anyone convicted earlier but still incarcerated or supervised on that date, and anyone convicted or released in another state on or after July 1, 1986 who establishes residency here, residency meaning more than ten consecutive days in the state.
- Reporting: every change within three days for a registrant off supervision, immediately to the probation officer for one under supervision, within 36 hours for a high risk registrant's change of address, and daily for a registrant with no permanent address.
- Verification: an annual letter from the center within ten days of the birthday, completed and returned with an updated photograph within ten days after the birthdate.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Vermont's own systems: the Vermont Crime Information Center sex offender registry page, the registry's registration requirements page, the registry's community notification page, the registry's frequently asked questions, the registry's state law page, the Vermont Crime Information Center about page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who registers, and the ten day residency test
The registry's questions page sets out four groups: a person convicted in Vermont on or after July 1, 1996, when the original law took effect; a person convicted before that date who was incarcerated or under Department of Corrections supervision on or after it; a person convicted or released from confinement in another state on or after July 1, 1986 who established residency in Vermont on or after July 1, 1996; and anyone whose state or federal crime appears on the statutory list of offenses requiring registration here.
For the registry's purposes a person has established a residence in Vermont by remaining in the state more than ten consecutive days, and a person required to register in another state, jurisdiction or territory must register with Vermont within ten days of establishing residency. The offenses themselves, the definitions, the reporting duties, the penalties and everything else sit in the sections the state law page lists, from section 5401 on definitions and 5402 establishing the registry through 5403 and 5404 on reporting at conviction and at release, 5405 on the court determination of sexually violent predators, 5407 on the offender's duty to report, 5409 on penalties, 5411 on notification to local law enforcement and the community, 5411a on the electronic posting of the registry and 5411b on the designation of a high risk sex offender, to 5413 on expungement and 5416 on the petition of a person wrongly made subject to registry requirements.
Reporting: three days, 36 hours, or daily
The requirements page gives the deadlines. A registrant must tell the registry within three days of any change to the information held, meaning the address, including a move out of state, the employment, the school, whether anyone under 18 is living in the household, and the telephone number; a registrant without a permanent address must contact the registry daily. A registrant whom the Department of Corrections has designated a high risk sex offender reports any change of address within 36 hours, and one designated a noncompliant high risk sex offender carries further reporting duties.
The questions page adds that a registrant still being supervised by the department notifies the probation officer immediately of any change, while one no longer supervised for a sex offense notifies the registry inside the three days. Every registrant verifies once a year: within ten days of the birthday the center sends an annual letter, and the registrant completes the form, updates the yearly photograph and returns it within ten days after the birthdate.
The two notification levels, and what the police may do
The community notification page divides the public releases in two. Under normal notification the information the statute allows is released to a member of the public who can articulate a public safety concern about themselves or another person. For registrants the law designates as having a heightened notification level that condition falls away: the caller need not have a safety concern, and additional information about the registrant is released.
Beyond answering calls, community notification by local law enforcement is not required by law, but an agency may notify members of the public who are likely to encounter a sex offender who poses a danger to their safety, which the center illustrates with the examples of telling neighbors, a neighborhood day care centre or a local school when a pedophile moves into the area, or telling the management at a workplace when the offender has a history of violent sexual crimes against adults; an agency may go further than the people likely to encounter the offender only where the circumstances constitute a compelling risk to public safety and only after consulting the center and the Department of Corrections.
The center has also built a Sex Offender Awareness Guide presentation for law enforcement and communities, available through the public website, with community training events arranged through the local agency.
What the public website shows
The website carries the name and any known aliases, the date of birth, a general physical description, a digital photograph, the town of residence rather than a street address, the date and nature of the conviction, the name and telephone number of the local Department of Corrections office supervising the registrant, whether the registrant has completed treatment, whether there is an outstanding warrant for the registrant's arrest, the reason the registrant's information is accessible on the site, whether the Department of Corrections has designated the offender high risk, and, where no risk assessment has been done, a statement that the offender is unrated and presumed to be high risk.
Not treatment compliant, the center explains, means the offender has not completed mandated sex offender treatment. The registry cannot say what a conviction actually involved, whether the victims were children for instance, and points those questions to local law enforcement and to the court of conviction. It also maintains only its own site: a registrant appearing on a third party website is a matter for that site, not for the center.
Restrictions, or the lack of them
Once an offender has finished supervision with the Department of Corrections, the registry law places no restrictions on the registrant at all. Inclusion on the registry does not by itself bar a registrant from living near a school or a day care, from living with a minor, from living in an apartment building with children or from using social media and the internet, and does not by itself require a registrant to disclose the registration to the public, a landlord or an employer, though a question of that kind on a housing or employment application is referred to the agency with oversight.
An offender still under supervision is a different matter, and the probation officer, whose contact details appear on the public website, holds any conditions that apply. Violations and worrying behaviour are reported to the local law enforcement agency rather than to the registry.
Penalties, and the appeal
Failing to comply with any of the requirements is grounds for a warrant for the registrant's arrest, and a conviction for failing to comply brings imprisonment of not more than two years, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, with a second or later offense bringing not more than three years, a fine of not more than $5,000, or both. A person who believes they are improperly on the registry or the public website, or that the information held is wrong, submits a written appeal to the Director of the Vermont Crime Information Center, who investigates the discrepancy but may only correct clerical errors, review orders from the court and confirm the identity of registrants, and may not weigh questions such as rehabilitation; whether a conviction qualifies at all is a question for the court of record.
Reading a Vermont result
A name found on the public website comes with the town rather than the street, the treatment status, any warrant, the supervising corrections office and either a high risk designation or a note that the person is unrated and presumed high risk, and a name obtained by calling the center or the local police comes only to a caller who named the person and stated a safety concern, unless the registrant carries the heightened notification level.
A person missing from the site may have finished the registry requirement, moved out of state or never had a qualifying conviction. The center at (802) 241-5400 holds the record and the annual verification, the probation officer holds the conditions of anyone still supervised, and the court of record answers what the conviction involved.
Questions about the Vermont sex offender registry
Related Vermont records
Vermont's other public records guides on this site are the Vermont arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, the Vermont inmate search guide for the Department of Corrections, the Vermont background check guide for the Crime Information Center record checks, and the Vermont county pages for every police department and sheriff.