The Georgia Department of Revenue holds the state's unclaimed property, and its programme page describes the trigger in one sentence: people who have lived in Georgia may have property being protected by the state, including uncashed checks, security deposits, overpayments and more, and if the owner does not take action within a set amount of time the holder of the property is required to turn it over to the state. The search page fills out the list of what that covers, naming wages, savings accounts, customer refunds, insurance payments, shares of stock, United States savings bonds, escrow funds and even the contents of safe deposit boxes, and states the two things a searcher most wants to hear, that it is completely free to search the database and to claim the property, and that all anyone needs to begin is a name.
Three searches run off that database. An individual searches by name, adding a city to narrow the results. A person acting for an estate searches with the decedent's name together with the Social Security number or the estate's federal employer identification number. Someone searching for a Georgia business needs the company name and its federal employer identification number. The programme answers on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. at (855) 329-9863, keeps separate email addresses for claims, for holders and for voluntary compliance, and takes post at 4125 Welcome All Road, Atlanta, GA 30349. For Georgia records held locally, see the Georgia county pages.
- Search: free at the Department of Revenue database with just a name, narrowed by city; estate and business searches need the Social Security number or federal employer identification number as well.
- Claim: register a free account to file and to watch the status online, as an individual, a business, an heir or an executor; estate and business claims also need a printed claim form and may need more documents.
- Timing and payment: most claims are paid within 30 days of receipt and the process may take up to 90; payment is a paper check posted to the address registered with the claim, never an electronic transfer.
- Holders: electronic reports through the online portal, due November 1 for all holders except insurance companies, which report by May 1.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Georgia's own systems: the Georgia Department of Revenue unclaimed property page, the department's search for unclaimed property page, the department's holder reporting page, the department's securities holder forms and instructions, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Filing a claim, and what it costs
Submitting a claim starts with registering an account, which costs nothing and lets the claimant watch the claim status online afterwards; a claim can be filed for the claimant personally, for their business, or as an heir or an executor. Estate and business claims carry one extra step, since they require a printed claim form that may need additional documentation behind it. After filing, the department's published expectation is that most claims are paid within 30 days of the claim being received, while the process may take up to 90 days, and the status page is there to answer the question in the meantime.
Payment is deliberately old fashioned: a paper check is mailed to the address the claimant registered when filing, and the department states that claims cannot be paid electronically, which makes the address entered at registration the single most important field on the form.
Keeping property from getting lost
The same page carries the department's advice on prevention, which starts from how property goes missing in the first place: property becomes lost when a company has no communication with the owner, and for security reasons most financial institutions do not forward mail. The department suggests contacting the institutions that hold money or property every year, and particularly after an address change or a change in marital status; keeping accurate records of insurance policies, bank account numbers with bank names and addresses, types of accounts, stock certificates and rent and utility deposits; cashing checks for dividends, wages and insurance settlements without delay; recording a safe deposit box number with the bank name and address and giving a spare key to someone trusted; and preparing and filing a will setting out the disposition of assets.
Georgia also recognises paid searchers, noting that from July 1, 2024 a claimant designated representative location service became legal in the state, so a registered location service may act for an owner.
The holder calendar, and who counts as a holder
The holder reporting page defines a holder as any entity in possession of property subject to the state's unclaimed property laws and belonging to another person, naming corporations, financial institutions, government entities, insurance companies and transfer agents. Holders are required to submit electronic reports through the department's online portal, and the dates are fixed: reports are due on November 1 for all holders except insurance companies, which must report by May 1.
A holder or consultant worried about a compliance problem is asked to email the programme's reporting address. The forms behind the reports run to a family of their own, with separate instructions for financial entities, corporate entities, securities, safe deposit boxes, government entities, insurance companies and motor vehicle sales, plus a negative report for holders with nothing to send, a reimbursement form for holders who paid an owner after reporting, and the annual filing report information that ties them together.
Two rules holders and owners both need to know
The department's securities reporting instructions carry two changes with consequences on both sides of the programme. The first concerns due diligence: an account worth $50 or more still requires the holder to communicate with the owner before remitting the property, but from July 1, 2026 the form of that communication is prescribed, a first class letter to the owner's last known address where the property is worth $50 or more but not more than $10,000, certified mail to that address where it is worth over $10,000, and an additional notice by email where the holder has a valid email address and the owner has agreed to receive communications electronically; the cost of complying may not be deducted from the property remitted.
The second concerns securities, and it matters to owners: from July 1, 2025 all securities delivered to the department are sold upon receipt with no further notice, so a lost owner can no longer reclaim the shares themselves once they have escheated to the programme and instead receives the proceeds of the sale. The same instructions set out the mechanics of reporting, with online reporting through Georgia's holder reporting portal, a requirement that any holder reporting more than 25 accounts file through that portal, strong encouragement for everyone else to do the same, submissions in the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators format, and a verification certified by a chief financial officer, partner or company officer.
Reading a Georgia result
A record in the Georgia database is property a holder gave up after the owner stopped responding, filed under the name the holder had, so a search is worth running on former names and business names as well. Finding it is free, claiming it is free, and the practical work is the account registration and, for an estate or a business, the printed claim form and its supporting documents. The timing to expect is 30 days in the ordinary case and up to 90 in a complicated one, and the money comes as a check in the post.
Where the property was stock, what arrives is cash, because securities delivered to the department since July 2025 are sold on receipt.
Questions about unclaimed property in Georgia
Related Georgia records
Georgia's other public records guides on this site are the Georgia background check guide for the state criminal history service, the Georgia court records guide for the superior court clerks, the Georgia arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Georgia county pages for every county office.