California Public Records: Where Every Record Lives and How to Get It

Start Here: Who Holds What in California

Three systems, three sets of rules. Pick the right one first and the rest is quick.

California does not have one public records office. The state runs a handful of statewide databases, each county runs its own recorder, clerk, assessor and sheriff, and each of the 58 Superior Courts keeps its own case files. A birth certificate, a deed, a criminal case and a business filing for the same person will sit in four different buildings run by four different agencies.

The state level covers business entities (Secretary of State), the criminal history repository (Department of Justice), state prison inmates (CDCR), professional licenses (Department of Consumer Affairs and the independent boards), unclaimed property (State Controller), the sex offender registry (Megan's Law) and the master copies of vital records (Department of Public Health).

The county level covers everything tied to land and to life events: deeds, liens and mortgages at the County Recorder, assessed values at the Assessor, marriage licenses and fictitious business names at the County Clerk, and the local copies of birth and death certificates at the county health department or recorder. County jails and booking records belong to the Sheriff.

The court level covers civil, criminal, family, probate, small claims and traffic cases. There is no statewide case search. Each Superior Court publishes its own lookup, and the rules on what you can see online differ from one county to the next.

The California Public Records Act in 2026

Ten days to answer, no reason required, copies at cost. The statute moved in 2023, so old section numbers no longer work.

The California Public Records Act gives anyone the right to inspect and copy records held by state and local agencies. It was recodified effective January 1, 2023 and now lives in Government Code sections 7920.000 and following. Requests and legal letters that still cite the old section 6250 series are referring to the pre-2023 numbering, which was repealed. If an agency asks you for the current cite, use Government Code 7920.000 et seq.

You do not have to explain why you want a record, you do not have to identify yourself, and you can ask by letter, email, phone or in person. The agency has 10 calendar days to tell you whether it has disclosable records, and it can take one 14 day extension in unusual circumstances, for example when the request covers a large volume or needs another agency's input. That deadline is for the determination, not for delivery, so a large request can legitimately take longer to produce.

Copying is charged at the direct cost of duplication. Most agencies land between 10 and 25 cents a page for paper. Electronic records that already exist in electronic form usually come free or at the cost of the media. An agency may charge for programming or data extraction only when it has to build something new to answer you.

The exemptions are specific rather than broad. Personnel files, records of pending litigation, drafts, attorney client material and active law enforcement investigative files are the ones you will run into most often. Arrest information and police calls for service have their own carve out that requires disclosure, covered in the arrest section below. If an agency withholds something it must cite the exemption it is relying on.

Most larger agencies now run a request portal. Los Angeles County departments, Long Beach, San Diego, Sacramento and many others use NextRequest or GovQA, and the portal becomes the record of your request and the agency's response. Smaller cities and special districts still take requests by email to the city clerk.

Court Records: 58 Courts, 58 Lookups

Every Superior Court runs its own case search. Some are free, some charge per search, and since January 2026 you can photograph public files yourself.

California's trial courts are the Superior Courts, one per county, and they hold the case files for civil, criminal, family, probate, juvenile, small claims and traffic matters. The appellate courts and the Supreme Court publish their own dockets separately. Because each Superior Court is administered locally, the online tools differ. Some counties post full registers of actions and document images. Others post only a case index with party names, filing dates and hearing dates.

The biggest court in the state, and in the country, is the Los Angeles Superior Court with 36 courthouses and about 2.7 million new filings a year. Its civil and criminal name indexes charge a fee per search, currently 4.75 dollars for a guest search, while a lookup by case number is free. San Diego, Orange, Sacramento, Alameda, Santa Clara and most mid sized counties offer free name searches through their own portals. The court records page for each county on this site lists what that county's portal covers and what it costs.

What you can see is set by California Rules of Court 2.500 through 2.550. Civil, probate and most criminal case records are public. Juvenile dependency and delinquency files are confidential by statute. Family law files are public in principle, but courts limit remote access to them, which means you may have to visit the courthouse terminal to read a divorce file even when the case index shows it online. Sealed records and records in cases with protective orders are closed regardless of case type.

Copies from the clerk cost 50 cents a page under Government Code 70627, and a certified copy carries a separate 40 dollar certification fee. Effective January 1, 2026, AB 1524 lets you use your own phone or portable scanner to copy publicly available paper and on screen records at the courthouse without paying the clerk's copy fee, as long as you do not damage the record or disrupt the clerk's office. Sealed and confidential material stays off limits.

Federal cases filed in California's four federal districts are not in any Superior Court system. Those live in PACER, the federal court system's paid portal, at 10 cents a page with a quarterly waiver for small users.

Criminal History: What the DOJ Holds and Who Can See It

The state rap sheet is not a public record. You can get your own for 25 dollars plus fingerprinting. Everyone else works from court files.

The California Department of Justice keeps the state criminal history repository, the file people call a rap sheet. It compiles arrests, charges and dispositions reported by every law enforcement agency and court in the state. Under Penal Code 11105 that file goes only to the person it describes, to criminal justice agencies, and to employers and licensing bodies that are specifically authorized by statute to fingerprint applicants, such as schools, care facilities and licensing boards. There is no public name search of the DOJ repository and there never has been.

To see your own record you submit fingerprints through Live Scan using form BCIA 8016RR, marked Record Review, at any Live Scan site in the state. The DOJ processing fee is 25 dollars, the Live Scan operator adds a rolling fee that varies by site, and a fee waiver is available for people who cannot afford the DOJ portion. If you live outside California you mail a manual fingerprint card with form BCIA 8705 instead. Questions go to the Record Review Unit at (916) 227-3849, and the full procedure is on the Attorney General's site at oag.ca.gov/fingerprints/record-review.

If the record is wrong you file a Claim of Alleged Inaccuracy or Incompleteness, form BCIA 8706, with a copy of the record and the court paperwork that proves the error. The DOJ checks with the reporting agency and corrects the entry or tells you why it will not.

Employers and landlords work under different rules. The Fair Chance Act, Government Code 12952, bars employers with five or more employees from asking about criminal history before making a conditional job offer, and Labor Code 432.7 bars asking about arrests that did not end in conviction at any stage. Background screening companies are capped by the seven year reporting limit in Civil Code 1786.18 for most non conviction information.

California also cleans records automatically. Under Penal Code 851.93 the DOJ runs a monthly sweep that grants arrest relief for misdemeanor arrests with no charges filed after one year and felony arrests after three years, six years for the most serious offense classes, and under Penal Code 1203.425 it dismisses eligible older convictions without a petition. Relief marks the entry so it is no longer disclosed to most requesters, while law enforcement and a few statutory exceptions keep access.

For anything a private person can look up, the source is the court, not the DOJ. Criminal case indexes at the Superior Courts are public, and the California criminal records page walks through them county by county.

Arrest Records, Jail Bookings and Inmate Searches

Booking information is public by statute. Each sheriff runs the jail lookup for its county, the state runs one for prisons.

Arrest information is one of the few categories the Public Records Act affirmatively requires agencies to release. Government Code 7923.610 says every state and local law enforcement agency must make public the full name and occupation of every person arrested, their physical description including date of birth, the time and date of arrest and of booking, the location of the arrest, the factual circumstances, the amount of bail, the time and manner of release or the place where the person is being held, and all charges including outstanding warrants and parole or probation holds. An agency can withhold only what would endanger a person or an active investigation.

In practice that information comes from the county sheriff's jail system. Los Angeles County runs the Inmate Information Center, San Diego runs Who's In Jail, Riverside runs JIMS, San Bernardino runs its Inmate Locator, and every other county publishes something similar, usually searchable by name and date of birth or by booking number. A person shows up within a few hours of booking and drops off after release, so a jail lookup is a snapshot of who is in custody today, not a history. City police departments that operate their own jails, such as Long Beach and Los Angeles, book into their own systems first and transfer to the county later.

Once the district attorney files charges the case appears in the Superior Court index, and that is where the arrest becomes a lasting public record. An arrest with no charges filed does not show up in court at all and is later sealed automatically at the DOJ under the relief rules above.

State prison inmates are searchable through the California Incarcerated Records and Information Search, known as CIRIS, at apps.cdcr.ca.gov/ciris. It replaced the old Inmate Locator and returns the person's CDCR number, age, current institution, commitment counties, admission date and parole hearing dates and outcomes. Federal prisoners are in the Bureau of Prisons locator, and immigration detainees in the ICE Online Detainee Locator.

The California arrest records page covers the booking to court timeline, mugshot rules, sealing and what employers may ask, and each county page lists that county's jail lookup.

Birth, Death, Marriage and Divorce Records

Fees rose two dollars on January 1, 2026. The county is faster than the state, and divorce decrees come from the court.

California has two copies of every birth, death and marriage record. The state copy is held by the California Department of Public Health, Vital Records, in Sacramento. The local copy is held by the recorder or health department of the county where the event happened. Both issue certified copies, and for most people the county counter is the better choice because it is faster, often same day for recent years, while CDPH mail orders currently run five to seven weeks and amendments nine to eleven.

Assembly Bill 64 raised the state fee for every certified copy by two dollars effective January 1, 2026. The state fee is now 31 dollars for a birth certificate, 26 dollars for a death certificate and 19 dollars for a marriage certificate. Counties may add a small local surcharge, which is why Los Angeles County charges 34 dollars for a birth certificate. Fetal death and dissolution of marriage certificates and record amendments have their own fees on the CDPH schedule.

California issues two kinds of copies. An authorized certified copy establishes identity and goes only to the person named, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, spouses and domestic partners, legal guardians, attorneys and government agencies on official business. Anyone else can order an informational certified copy, which carries the same information but is stamped as not valid to establish identity. Mail and online orders for an authorized copy must include a sworn statement, and by mail that statement has to be notarized. Counter orders are sworn in person with photo ID.

Divorce works differently. CDPH holds only a Certificate of Record for dissolutions filed between 1962 and June 1984, and that certificate proves a case existed without being the decree. The actual divorce judgment is a court record held by the Superior Court where the case was filed, and you order it from that court's clerk.

State mail orders go to the California Department of Public Health, Vital Records, P.O. Box 997410, Sacramento, CA 95899-7410, and the office answers questions at (916) 445-2684. Forms, the current fee schedule and the online ordering link are at cdph.ca.gov. The California vital records page lists every county vital records office with its address, hours and local fee.

Property, Deeds and Assessor Records

Two county offices, two different questions. The Assessor answers what it is worth, the Recorder answers who owns it and what is filed against it.

Every county in California keeps property records in two places. The County Assessor values land and buildings for tax purposes and maintains parcel maps, assessed values, building characteristics and exemption status. The County Recorder records the documents themselves, deeds, deeds of trust, reconveyances, liens, easements and notices of default, indexed by the names of the parties and the date recorded. Property tax bills and payment status sit with a third office, the Treasurer and Tax Collector.

Assessor portals are online in every county and free to search by address or parcel number. What they show varies. Many counties display the assessed owner's name, while others, Los Angeles among them, have pulled owner names off the public portal and make them available only at the counter. Under Proposition 13 the assessed value resets to market value when property changes hands, so a recent sale date is often visible in the value history even when the sale price is not.

Recorder indexes are the more uneven layer. A large group of counties, including San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Santa Clara and San Francisco, publish a free online grantor and grantee index so you can find a document number from home and then buy the image. Los Angeles County does not put its index online at all and requires an in person visit to Norwalk by appointment. Copy fees are set by each county, typically a few dollars for the first page and one dollar a page after, with a separate certification fee.

Recorded documents are public without restriction. Anyone can look at a deed or a lien. The only limits are on posting home addresses of elected officials and certain protected persons, which is the reason some counties cite for keeping indexes offline. The California property records and recorded documents pages list each county's assessor and recorder with what each portal covers.

Business Filings, Fictitious Names and Professional Licenses

Corporations and LLCs are at the Secretary of State and free to search. DBAs are at the county. Licenses are spread across forty boards.

Every corporation, limited liability company and limited partnership doing business in California is registered with the Secretary of State, and the file is searchable for free at bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov. A search by entity name or number returns the entity type, status, formation date, registered agent, principal address and the filing history, and most filed documents can be viewed as images at no charge. Certified copies are ordered from the same system for a fee. The Secretary of State also holds UCC financing statements, which show who has a secured interest in a business's equipment or receivables, and statements of information that name officers and managers.

Sole proprietors and partnerships operating under a trade name file a fictitious business name statement with the county clerk of the county where the business is located, not with the state. Most counties provide a free online FBN search, and the statement names the real owner behind the trade name.

Professional licenses are checked at the board that issued them. The Department of Consumer Affairs license search at search.dca.ca.gov covers the boards under DCA, including the Medical Board, the Board of Registered Nursing, the Dental Board, the Bureau of Automotive Repair and the Contractors State License Board, and shows license status, expiration and public disciplinary actions. Attorneys are verified through the State Bar of California, real estate agents through the Department of Real Estate, insurance agents through the Department of Insurance and teachers through the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The California licenses page groups every board by profession.

Sex Offender Registry

Megan's Law is free to search by name, address or map, but it does not show every registrant.

California's public registry is the Megan's Law website run by the Department of Justice at meganslaw.ca.gov. You can search by name, by address or ZIP code, by city or county, or by map, and each listing shows a photo, physical description, offense and, for many registrants, a home address. The site is free and does not require registration.

It is not a complete list. Since the tiered registry took effect in 2021, registrants are placed in three tiers by offense, and state law excludes some registrants from public display entirely and shows others by ZIP code only rather than by full address, so a clean search is not proof that nobody is registered nearby. The site also warns that using the information to harass or commit a crime against a registrant is itself a crime with enhanced penalties.

For registrants in other states, the national NSOPW search run by the U.S. Department of Justice queries every state registry at once.

Unclaimed Property Held by the State

The Controller holds more than 11 billion dollars. Searching and claiming is free and there is no deadline.

When a bank account, uncashed check, insurance payout, stock dividend or safe deposit box goes untouched for three years, one year for unpaid wages, the holder must turn it over to the State Controller's Office. The state now holds more than 11 billion dollars in unclaimed property belonging to tens of millions of owners. It never takes ownership, so a claim can be filed years or decades later.

Searching and claiming are free at claimit.ca.gov, the Controller's site that replaced the old search page. Search by name and city, then file online. Simple cash claims with a clear match are often approved within a few weeks, and the state has a statutory 180 days to act on any claim. Heirs can claim property belonging to a deceased relative with a death certificate and proof of relationship. The Controller's unclaimed property line is (800) 992-4647. No one needs to pay a finder to file this claim.

Driving Records and Voter Registration

Both exist, neither is open to the public. Here is who can get them.

Driver license and vehicle records at the Department of Motor Vehicles are protected by the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act and California Vehicle Code 1808.21. You can order your own driving record online for a small fee, and insurers, employers of drivers, attorneys with a case and a few other permitted users can request records through the DMV's requester program. There is no public search of another person's driving record.

Voter registration data is held by the county registrars and the Secretary of State. Under Elections Code 2194 the file, including name, address, party and voting history, is confidential and may be released only for election, scholarly, journalistic, political or governmental purposes, which is why campaigns have it and websites do not. What the public can check is whether a registration is active, through the Secretary of State's voter status tool, and campaign finance filings, which are fully public through Cal-Access at the state level and through each city clerk locally.

How to Write a Records Request That Gets Answered

Short, specific and addressed to the right office. Five habits that cut weeks off the wait.

1. Name the record, not the topic. Ask for the incident report for a date and address, the contract with a named vendor, or the emails between two named people in a date range. A request for everything about a subject is the one that draws the 14 day extension.
2. Send it to the office that holds it. City records go to the city clerk, county records to the department, court files to the court clerk, vital records to the recorder. A request routed to the wrong agency is answered with a referral, not a record.
3. Ask for electronic copies. Records that exist electronically must be provided that way if you ask, and they are usually free.
4. Cite the statute once. One line stating that the request is made under Government Code 7920.000 et seq. and asking for a determination within 10 days is enough. Longer legal preambles do not speed anything up.
5. Keep the portal thread. If the agency uses NextRequest or GovQA, the portal is the record of what you asked, when, and what they said. If a request is denied the written denial with the cited exemption is what you need for any challenge.

California Records by County

Every county page covers that county's recorder, clerk, assessor, sheriff jail lookup and Superior Court, with local fees and hours.

The county is where most California records are actually kept. Each county guide on this site follows the same layout as this page: which office holds what, the addresses, hours and 2026 fees, what each portal shows and what still needs a visit. Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, Contra Costa and Fresno together hold about three quarters of the state's population and the bulk of its records.

What Changed in California Records in 2025 and 2026

Five changes that affect what you pay and what you can see.

Vital record fees went up two dollars across the board on January 1, 2026 under AB 64, taking a state birth certificate to 31 dollars, a death certificate to 26 and a marriage certificate to 19. A separate two dollar birth certificate surcharge that funded the umbilical cord blood collection program is scheduled to end in 2027.

AB 1524 took effect the same day and lets the public copy court records with their own devices at the courthouse instead of paying per page copy fees, for paper files and for records displayed on public terminals.

The DOJ's automatic arrest relief program under Penal Code 851.93 now runs at full scope after the SB 731 expansion, so most arrests that never became charges are sealed at the state repository without anyone filing a petition.

CDCR retired the old Inmate Locator in favor of CIRIS, which adds parole hearing dates and outcomes to each record, and the State Controller moved unclaimed property search and claims to claimit.ca.gov.

Los Angeles County continues to replace vital, property and business records at no charge for residents directly affected by the January 2025 wildfires, by phone at (800) 201-8999 or by email to RRCCFireAssistance@rrcc.lacounty.gov.