Montana's access right is constitutional. Article II, section 9 provides that no person shall be deprived of the right to examine documents or to observe the deliberations of all public bodies or agencies of state government and its subdivisions, except in cases in which the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure. That single sentence does two things a statute could not. It puts the right beyond ordinary legislative trimming, and it fixes the test for withholding as a comparison, in which privacy must clearly exceed the public interest rather than merely compete with it.
The machinery sits in Title 2, chapter 6 of the Montana Code Annotated, rewritten in 2015. Section 2-6-1003 gives every person a right to examine and obtain a copy of any public information of the state, subject to the exceptions in subsections (2) through (4), and section 2-6-1006 says that a person may request public information from a public agency and that the agency must make the means of requesting public information accessible to all persons. There is no residency test, no required form and no obligation to explain why the records are wanted. For Montana records held locally, see the Montana county pages.
- A constitutional right: access is guaranteed by Article II, section 9, not merely granted by statute.
- Privacy must clearly exceed: the main ground for withholding is that individual privacy clearly outweighs the merits of public disclosure, alongside the safety and security grounds in 2-6-1003 and other confidentiality laws.
- Five days, then ninety: a state agency acknowledges within five business days and produces within ninety days, or six months on written notice; a local government must respond in a timely manner.
- Documented actual cost: the fee is capped at the documented actual costs, with personnel time no more than twenty five dollars an hour under 2-6-1006(5).
Written by SearchSystems.net from Montana's own systems: Article II, section 9 of the Montana Constitution, Title 2, chapter 6 of the Montana Code Annotated, public records, the Montana Constitution Article II at the University of Montana, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What the agency must do when a request arrives
Section 2-6-1006 now splits agencies in two, after the 2025 Legislature rewrote it. A local government, under subsection (2), must respond in a timely manner either by making the public information it maintains available for inspection and copying, or, where the information cannot be readily identified and gathered, by providing the requester with an estimate of the time it will take to fulfill the request and of any fees that may be charged; no day count applies to it.
A state agency, meaning any public agency that is not a local government, runs on subsection (3): it must acknowledge receipt within five business days of its designated contact person receiving the request, must provide a single, specific, clearly identifiable and readily available record within five working days of that acknowledgment, and otherwise must give an estimate of time and fees and produce the information within ninety days of the acknowledgment, or within six months where it gives written notice explaining why ninety days is not feasible.
The five day record rule does not apply to requests about a specified person or property, such as applications, vital records, licenses, permits or registrations. Two things stop the clock: sending a fee estimate suspends the agency's obligation until the estimate is paid, and a request for clarification suspends it until the requester answers or declines, with the agency free to close the request after notice if nothing comes back within thirty days.
Every state agency must post a designated contact for requests on its website, and by November 1, 2026 must publish its request process on a state website, report the number of requests and its response times, and publish the requests it receives and its responses for two years, with exceptions for requests about a specific person or property and for information already published. The same section places a duty on all agencies before any request is made: the means of requesting public information must be accessible to all persons.
The fee rule, and the word documented
A public agency may charge for fulfilling a request, but except where another law sets a fee, the charge may not exceed the actual costs directly incident to fulfilling the request in the most cost efficient and timely manner possible. Under 2-6-1006(5) a personnel fee may not exceed twenty five dollars an hour, and for anything other than a single specific, clearly identifiable and readily available record the agency may charge a filing fee of up to five dollars, after which the first hour of service is free.
The secretary of state charges under a separate provision. Two qualifications matter. The fee may include the time required to gather public information, so staff time is chargeable in Montana. And the fee must be documented, which gives a requester a plain basis for asking how a figure was reached and for testing it against the cost efficiency standard. The agency may require the estimated fee to be paid before it starts identifying and gathering the records.
Customization is treated separately: an agency is not required to alter or customize public information to provide it in a form that meets the requester's needs, but where it agrees to do so the cost of that work may be included in the fee. Particular offices have their own regimes, with the secretary of state collecting fees in advance under the general state fee statute, while being forbidden to charge a legislator or public officer for a search relating to the duties of their office, and the department of revenue and the Montana historical society allowed additional database and copying charges under section 2-6-1007.
The exceptions in the statute
Section 2-6-1003 carries three express exceptions to the right to examine and copy, and one rule that cuts the other way. The first is safety and security: a public officer may withhold information relating to individual or public safety, or to the security of public facilities including public schools, jails, correctional facilities, private correctional facilities and prisons, where release would jeopardize the safety of facility personnel, the public, students in a public school or inmates.
The statute immediately limits it, providing that no more information may be withheld than is required to protect that safety, which makes partial redaction the expected response rather than a blanket refusal. The second concerns the Montana historical society, which may honor restrictions imposed by private record donors so long as those restrictions do not apply to public information and expire no later than fifty years from the date the private record was received, after which the material must be made accessible.
The third, added by House Bill 264 of 2025, chapter 433, keeps wildlife location data and the telemetry frequencies of hunted or trapped animals out of reach, except as section 87-1-213 allows, and binds anyone the department of fish, wildlife and parks has shared that data with. The rule that cuts the other way, in subsection (5), says an agency may not refuse to disclose public information because it is or may become part of litigation unless another law protects it.
Privacy, the test that decides most disputes
Because the constitutional exception is the main ground for withholding, Montana practice turns on the balance it describes. Confidential information in the chapter includes material constitutionally protected from disclosure because an individual privacy interest clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure, along with material designated confidential by statute or by judicial decisions, findings or orders. The chapter repeats the test when it allows restricted access to records containing personal information, providing that restricted access may not be imposed unless the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure.
For a requester, the practical consequence is that an agency asserting privacy has to identify whose privacy, in what, and why it clearly outweighs the public interest in the particular record, rather than citing privacy in the abstract.
Refusals, and going to district court
Section 2-6-1009 requires a public agency that denies an information request to provide a written explanation for the denial, so a Montana refusal must be in writing and must explain itself. A requester who believes the denial violates the chapter may file a complaint in district court under the Montana Rules of Civil Procedure, and since 2025 subsection (3) lets a requester who gets no response from a state agency within the periods in section 2-6-1006(3) file a complaint on that ground alone; there is no administrative appeal body between the agency and the court.
The fee provision reaches further than the chapter: a person alleging a deprivation of rights who prevails in a district court action to enforce their rights under Article II, section 9 of the constitution, or under Title 2, chapter 6, parts 10 through 12, may be awarded costs and reasonable attorney fees. An award is discretionary rather than automatic, but it covers constitutional claims as well as statutory ones, which matters in a state where the right itself is constitutional.
Making a Montana request work
Three things follow from the way the chapter is drafted. First, ask the agency that holds the material, since there is no central office and the duty to respond falls on the agency receiving the request. Second, ask for the estimate if one does not arrive, because the statute requires an estimate of time and fees whenever the information cannot be readily identified and gathered, and for a local government that estimate is the only schedule a requester has, while a state agency can be held to the five day acknowledgment and the ninety day or six month limit.
Third, ask for the documentation behind any fee, since the statute requires the fee to be documented and limits it to actual costs directly incident to the request handled in the most cost efficient and timely manner. Where a refusal arrives, the written explanation is the thing to test against the constitutional standard, because privacy must clearly exceed the merits of disclosure, and safety withholding must be no broader than necessary.
Questions about public records requests in Montana
Related Montana records
Montana's other public records guides on this site are the Montana background check guide for the Department of Justice criminal record service, the Montana court records guide for the courts' record search, the Montana arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Montana county pages for every county office.