Long Beach Public Records: City, County and Court Records in One Guide

Start Here: City Record or County Record?

Long Beach keeps more of its own records than almost any other California city. This is the split.

City records are the council and legislative record, contracts, ordinances, campaign finance and lobbyist filings at the City Clerk; building permits, plans and code enforcement at the Community Development Department; business licenses at Financial Management; police reports, crime statistics and the city jail at the Long Beach Police Department; and, unusually, birth and death certificates for recent events inside the city at the Department of Health and Human Services.

County records for Long Beach are everything recorded against land, deeds, deeds of trust, liens, held by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder in Norwalk; assessed values at the County Assessor; marriage licenses and marriage certificates, fictitious business names and every birth or death that happened before the city's own office started keeping them; and jail bookings once a person is transferred from the city jail to the Sheriff.

Court records for Long Beach are at the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, 275 Magnolia Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90802, which is a district of the Los Angeles Superior Court and hears civil, criminal, family and traffic matters arising in Long Beach and the neighboring cities. Its case index is the countywide one on lacourt.ca.gov.

City Clerk: Council Records, Contracts and Filings

Lobby level of city hall, open weekdays. Agendas and minutes are online back years, contracts and campaign filings on request or through the portals.

The City Clerk's office is on the lobby level of Long Beach City Hall at 411 W. Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90802, reachable at (562) 570-6101 and cityclerk@longbeach.gov. The City Clerk is Monique De La Garza, CMC. The office is the custodian of the city's official record, meaning City Council agendas, minutes and video, ordinances and the Municipal Code, resolutions, council policies, executed city contracts, Fair Political Practices Commission filings including campaign statements and Form 700 statements of economic interests, and lobbyist registrations.

Council agendas, staff reports and minutes are searchable online through the city's Legistar system at longbeach.legistar.com, which goes back years and links each agenda item to its staff report and attachments. Meeting video is on the city's Meetings Live page. Campaign finance documents are in the Clerk's Campaign Documents Retrieval Portal, and lobbyist registrations are published on the Clerk's site.

The Clerk also runs city elections, issues passports by appointment, performs civil marriage ceremonies for couples who already hold a county license, and accepts claims for damages against the city. A marriage license itself is not issued here, it comes from the County Clerk in Norwalk or a county branch office.

Public Records Act Requests to the City of Long Beach

One portal for most of the city, a separate one for police, a third for the City Prosecutor. Ten days to answer.

Long Beach centralizes requests through the Office of Ethics and Transparency in the City Manager's office, which runs the request portal at longbeach.gov/PRA. The office is in the Civic Chambers building at 411 W. Ocean Boulevard, answers at (562) 570-6680 and PublicRecordsRequest@longbeach.gov, and the portal tracks every request from submission to release so you can see the status and the documents in one place.

Two departments handle their own requests. Police Department records are requested at longbeach.gov/PRA-LBPD, and City Prosecutor records through the prosecutor's own site. Sending a police request to the general portal adds a transfer step.

The deadline is the state one under Government Code 7920.000 and following: 10 calendar days for the city to say whether it has disclosable records, with one 14 day extension in unusual circumstances. Electronic records are released electronically at no charge in most cases, and paper copies are at direct cost. Three categories are never released through the request process because they have their own statutes: police reports, criminal history, and traffic collision reports, each of which is obtained from the Police Department directly as described below.

Everything you submit through the portal, including your name and the text of the request, becomes a public record itself and is visible to other portal users, so keep personal details out of the request.

Birth and Death Certificates from the Long Beach Health Department

Births in Long Beach since January 2019 and deaths since 2005 are issued at 2525 Grand Avenue. 34 dollars a birth, 26 a death, same day for 27 dollars more.

The Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services runs its own Vital Records Office at 2525 Grand Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90815, open Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and closed from noon to 1:00 PM, at (562) 570-4305 and vitalrecords@longbeach.gov. It issues certified copies of birth certificates for births that occurred in the City of Long Beach since January 2019 and death certificates for deaths in the city since 2005. Births and deaths before those dates, and any event outside the city limits, are at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder in Norwalk at (800) 201-8999.

A certified birth certificate costs 34 dollars and a certified death certificate 26 dollars, the same as the county after the January 1, 2026 statewide increase. Expedited same day service adds 27 dollars. Orders can be placed online through the city's vendor at longbeachcavitals.permitium.com, which adds a five dollar service fee, a card processing fee and a 75 cent verification fee per order, and the charge appears on statements under the vendor's name.

Authorized copies require photo ID and a sworn statement from an eligible person, the person named, a parent or guardian, a child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, spouse or domestic partner, an attorney for one of those, or a government agency. Anyone can order a certified informational copy, marked not valid to establish identity, without a sworn statement. Same day rush processing is also available for newborn registrations still at the state office, up to 30 days after the birth.

Marriage certificates are not issued in Long Beach. A marriage that took place in Long Beach is recorded with the county, and certified copies come from Norwalk or a county branch office at 19 dollars each.

Long Beach Police Department: Reports, Clearance Letters and the City Jail

29 dollars per report application, free to victims, up to six months. The city jail holds arrestees before transfer to the county.

Crime, arrest and traffic collision reports are released by the Police Department's Information Management Division at 400 W. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802, not through the Public Records Act portal. You submit the Application for Release of Traffic Collision and/or Crime Report by mail or in person, or through the department's own online request system linked from longbeach.gov/police, with a non refundable 29 dollar processing fee per application. Crime victims are exempt from the fee. Law offices must include a signed authorization from the party they represent and insurers must include the policy or claim number. The department says processing can take up to about six months.

The department issues a Letter of Good Conduct, a local records clearance, in person only to current or past Long Beach residents, for 38 dollars, plus 15 dollars in cash for a notarized version, with government issued ID. That letter covers Long Beach police contacts only. A statewide criminal history check is a state Department of Justice Live Scan, not a police department service. For people who find a Long Beach arrest wrongly attributed to them on a background report, the department issues a declaration letter of misidentification.

Long Beach operates its own city jail at the Broadway headquarters. A person arrested by Long Beach police is booked and held there first, and questions about someone in city custody go to (562) 570-7260. People held on felonies and anyone not released from the city jail are transferred to the Los Angeles County Sheriff and then appear in the county's Inmate Information Center at app5.lasd.org/iic. Warrant questions are answered at (562) 570-5717 Monday through Thursday from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM, and the outcome of an arrest, meaning what the court did with it, is a court record at the Deukmejian Courthouse, (562) 256-6314.

Booking information for Long Beach arrests, name, description, date and place of arrest, charges, bail and custody status, is public under Government Code 7923.610 and is released on request even though the full report is not.

The Deukmejian Courthouse and Long Beach Court Cases

Long Beach cases are Los Angeles Superior Court cases. Same countywide index, same fees, local file room.

The Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse at 275 Magnolia Avenue opened in 2013 and is the Long Beach district of the Los Angeles Superior Court. It hears civil, criminal, family law and traffic matters for Long Beach, Signal Hill, Lakewood and neighboring communities, and its clerk's office holds the physical case files for those matters. Probate and juvenile cases are heard elsewhere in the county.

Case lookups run through the countywide system at lacourt.ca.gov. A case summary by case number is free. A search by name in the Civil Index or the Criminal Defendant Index costs 4.75 dollars per search as a guest or one dollar each for the first ten searches in a month after registering, and the fee applies whether or not the search finds anything. The Criminal Defendant Index covers felonies from 1980 and misdemeanors from 1988 and excludes traffic infractions.

Copies from the Long Beach clerk's office cost 50 cents a page plus 40 dollars for certification. Since January 1, 2026, under AB 1524, you may photograph or scan a public file with your own device at no charge. Family law files and anything sealed are read at the courthouse only.

Business Licenses, Building Permits and Property Records

Both city lookups are free and online. Deeds and values are county records.

Every business operating in Long Beach needs a city business license from the Financial Management Department's Business License Division at 411 W. Ocean Boulevard, (562) 570-6211, LBBIZ@longbeach.gov, with counter hours Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and Wednesday from 9:00 AM, closed noon to 1:00 PM. Any license can be verified for free through the Look Up a Business License tool at clbinforweb.longbeach.gov, which returns the business name, address, license type and status, and through the city's map based Bizmaps lookup.

Building permits, plan check status and inspection history are at the Community Development Permit Center on the second floor of city hall, (562) 570-7648, open weekdays 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM except Wednesday from 9:00 AM, closed noon to 1:00 PM. Permit status and history for any address is online through the Permit Status inquiry on longbeach.gov, and scanned historical permit records are searchable in the city's document archive at citydocs.longbeach.gov. Archived plans are requested with a Plan Duplication Application, and anything not in the archive goes through a Public Records Act request.

Ownership, deeds, liens and assessed values for Long Beach parcels are county records. Assessed values and parcel details are free on the County Assessor's portal, which does not show owner names online. The Recorder's deed index is not online anywhere and is searched in person at Norwalk by appointment. The Los Angeles County guide covers both routes.

Step by Step: Common Long Beach Requests

Where to go and what to bring for the requests that come up most.

1. A police report for an accident or crime in Long Beach. Complete the release application, attach ID and authorization if you are not the victim, and submit it to 400 W. Broadway with the 29 dollar fee, waived for victims. Expect months, not days.
2. A birth certificate for a child born in Long Beach since 2019. Go to 2525 Grand Avenue with photo ID and 34 dollars, or order online through the city's vendor. Older Long Beach births are at Norwalk.
3. A death certificate for a death in Long Beach since 2005. Same office, 26 dollars a copy, 27 dollars extra for same day. Funeral homes usually order the first copies for you.
4. A council vote, staff report or contract. Search Legistar by keyword or date. If the contract or attachment is not posted, file through longbeach.gov/PRA and the Clerk's office releases it.
5. Whether a contractor or shop is licensed in Long Beach. Use the business license lookup, then check the state license at the Contractors State License Board or the relevant board for the trade.
6. A court case heard in Long Beach. Search lacourt.ca.gov by case number for free, or by name for a per search fee, and read the file at 275 Magnolia Avenue.

What Changed for Long Beach Records in 2025 and 2026

Certificate fees, court copying and the city's online ordering.

Birth and death certificate fees at the city's Vital Records Office rose two dollars on January 1, 2026 with the statewide AB 64 increase, to 34 and 26 dollars.

The Health Department now takes birth and death certificate orders online through its vendor portal, with expedited service and delivery options, in addition to the Grand Avenue counter.

AB 1524 took effect January 1, 2026, so public case files at the Deukmejian Courthouse can be copied with your own phone or scanner instead of paying the clerk's per page fee.

Police report requests remain outside the Public Records Act portal and continue to run through the Information Management Division with the per application fee.