The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation keeps the state's sex offender registry and publishes it on its registry website, which it redesigned, in its words, to be clearer and easier to understand, with a video on the home page, a search, email alerts, an offender map, registry information and a safety and education section, and a list of the registered offenders the bureau wants found because they are in violation of the registry laws. The TBI's own page places the registry among the public registries it runs beside the animal abuse, drug offender and persistent domestic violence offender registries, with the bureau's headquarters at 901 R.S. Gass Boulevard in Nashville, reached at (615) 744-4000, and the registry itself answering at 1-888-837-4170 and tbisormgr@tbi.tn.gov.
The site's disclaimer says what the TBI vouches for and what it does not: the registry exists as a public information resource so that people can take proactive measures for the safety of their communities, the information on it was provided to the TBI by each offender's registering agency, the bureau does not guarantee its accuracy, anyone with reasonable proof that a profile is wrong contacts that registering agency, and because the database is updated daily, anything viewed or printed is assured only on the day it was viewed or printed; misuse of the information to commit a crime, threats, intimidation, stalking and harassment included, may bring prosecution or civil liability. The sheriff's office that registers offenders in each county is on the Tennessee county pages.
- Search: the TBI registry search by name, alias, address, city, county, ZIP Code, offender ID, registry status or offense, up to eight terms at once, with incarcerated offenders included and full details behind each photograph.
- Registration: in person at the sheriff's office within 48 hours of establishing a residence or a physical presence, taking a job or starting school in Tennessee, with a jail or prison inmate registering within 48 hours before release and every change reported within 48 hours.
- Reporting dates: violent sexual offenders report in person every March, June, September and December, sexual offenders once a year within seven days before or after the birthday, with administrative costs of up to $150 a year, $100 of which the sheriff keeps.
- Duration and distance: life for a violent sexual offender, a repeat offender or an offense against a child of 12 or under, otherwise a written request to the TBI ten years after supervision ends; no home or job within 1,000 feet of a school, day care, park, playground, recreation center or athletic field.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Tennessee's own systems: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation sex offender registry page, the TBI registry forms page, the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry home page, the registry search page with its disclaimer and instructions, the registry information page with the TBI questions, termination questions and the registry law, Tennessee Code section 40-39-203 on registration, as published by the TBI, Tennessee Code section 40-39-204 on reporting, verification and administrative costs, Tennessee Code section 40-39-207 on termination of registration and lifetime registration, Tennessee Code section 40-39-211 on residence, employment and presence restrictions, effective July 1, 2026, Tennessee Code section 40-39-218 on the classification of offenders, 2026 Public Chapter 972 on notice to campgrounds, 2026 Public Chapter 1021, the Tennessee Anti-Grooming Act, the University of Tennessee County Technical Assistance Service guide to the registration of sexual offenders and violent sexual offenders, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Searching the TBI registry
The search page opens with its own disclaimer: everything on the site rests on what the offender told the registering agency, and it changes whenever the offender's circumstances change or the police discover that what they were told was wrong. A search takes any combination of up to eight terms, a name or part of one, an alias, an address, a city, a county, a ZIP Code, an offender ID, a registry status or an offense, with every field optional, and the results include offenders in prison; adding terms narrows the search, removing one broadens it, and an arrow reveals further filters.
Clicking an offender's photograph opens the full details, where an envelope icon signs the visitor up for an email alert whenever that offender's information is updated, a print icon produces a PDF of the page and an information icon sends a tip or updated information to the bureau. Each profile carries the classification the bureau assigns under section 40-39-218, a 2025 section that has the TBI decide from investigative reports, prosecutors' files and court records whether a registrant is a sexual offender, a violent sexual offender or a violent juvenile sexual offender and whether the person is an offender against children, so the site's own labels read sexual, sexual against children, violent, violent against children and violent juvenile against children.
The home page lists the wanted violators with their last known whereabouts, aliases and offenses, from Memphis and Nashville to Bristol and Lawrenceburg when read, and asks anyone with information about them to come forward; a missing or exploited child is reported to 1-800-THE-LOST, which is 1-800-843-5678, and the site itself was built with a grant from the federal Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking.
Who registers, and the 48 hour rules
The bureau's questions on the information page put the duty on anyone convicted of an offense listed in section 40-39-202, on anyone who had a duty to register in another jurisdiction before arriving in Tennessee, and on anyone convicted elsewhere of an offense that would require registration if committed here, regardless of the date of conviction or of discharge from supervision apart from certain statutory rape and juvenile offenses; a person has enough contact with the state to be caught by the act on establishing a physical presence at a particular location, accepting employment, attending school or spending 14 or more days in the state in any year.
Section 40-39-203 runs almost everything on a 48 hour clock: within 48 hours of establishing or changing a primary or secondary residence, establishing a physical presence somewhere, becoming employed or becoming a student the offender registers or reports in person, within 48 hours of release on probation or any alternative to incarceration other than parole the same, within 48 hours of becoming reasonably certain of a move to another state the offender reports the address in the new state, within 48 hours of any other change to the registration form the offender reports it, within 48 hours of release from probation or parole the offender reports to the local agency that takes over from the Department of Correction, and within 48 hours of a material change in employment, meaning a loss of a job, a new job or location, a change of shifts or hours or additional work lasting five consecutive days or more, the offender reports that too, while a new email address, instant message, chat or other internet identity is reported within three days excluding holidays.
An offender held in a local, state, federal or private jail or prison registers in person with the warden or the sheriff within the 48 hours before release, and an offender reincarcerated for another offense or a supervision violation reports the registrant status to the facility at once, has the duties tolled while inside and registers again within 48 hours of getting out, the same tolling applying to a deportation. Nothing in state or federal law bars a registrant from a computer, the internet, an email account or a social networking account because of the registration alone, the bureau adds, though supervision conditions set by the Department of Correction may, and every identifier must be listed.
The bureau's law page records two changes of 2026: Public Chapter 1021, the Tennessee Anti-Grooming Act, which makes grooming a minor under section 39-13-536 a registrable offense for convictions on or after July 1, 2026, and Public Chapter 972, which from the same date requires a sexual offender or violent sexual offender to tell the owner or operator of any campground of the offender status before staying overnight.
Registering with the sheriff
The County Technical Assistance Service, the University of Tennessee office that advises county governments, sets out the sheriff's side of the Tennessee Sexual Offender and Violent Sexual Offender Registration, Verification and Tracking Act of 2004, enacted as Public Chapter 921 and amended by Public Chapter 316 of 2005. Offenders who live, work or attend college in the county register in person at the sheriff's office, and homeless offenders register as well; an offender held in the county jail registers in person with the sheriff or the sheriff's designee within 48 hours before release; offenders committed to mental health institutions or continuously confined to a home or health care facility by a mental or physical disability are exempt.
The information collected is the list in section 40-39-203(i) of the Tennessee Code, every item of which the sheriff enters into the state's TIES system within 12 hours of receiving it, and within three days of an initial registration the sheriff mails the original signed TBI registration form to the bureau's Nashville headquarters and keeps a duplicate as a business record of the office. The bureau's quick reference adds that every registrant must obtain a valid driver license or photo identification card within 60 days of the initial registration under section 40-39-213, and that section 40-39-216 lets a public library director reasonably restrict a registrant's access to the library.
Quarterly for violent sexual offenders, yearly for the rest
Under section 40-39-204 every violent sexual offender reports in person to the designated law enforcement agency during March, June, September and December of each year, on a date the agency sets, and every violent juvenile sexual offender reports to the registering agency at least once in each of those four months, while every sexual offender reports once a year, no earlier than seven calendar days before and no later than seven calendar days after the date of birth, each visit updating fingerprints, palm prints and the photograph as the agency deems necessary and verifying that the information on the TBI registration form is still accurate.
At the first reporting date of the calendar year, or at the initial registration when it falls after the annual window, the offender pays the specified administrative costs of not more than $150, of which the designated agency keeps $100 to buy equipment, defray personnel and maintenance costs and meet any other expense of running the act and remits $50 to the state treasury for the general fund; offenders living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, those committed to mental health institutions and those continuously confined by disability are exempt from the in person reporting, the fingerprinting and the costs, but must register in person within 48 hours of being released or discharged from the facility.
After each quarterly or annual visit the agency sends the original signed form to the TBI within three days, by post or electronically, and keeps a copy; the TBI's forms page holds the registry forms the sheriffs use.
Life, or ten years and a written request
Section 40-39-207 keeps three groups on the registry for life: an offender with one or more prior convictions for a sexual offense, whenever they occurred and wherever the elements match, a prior conviction meaning a separate period of incarceration or supervision served or being served when the next sexual offense was committed; an offender convicted of a violent sexual offense; and an offender whose victim was a child of 12 or under.
Everyone else may file a written request for termination with TBI headquarters in Nashville no sooner than ten years after active supervision on probation, parole or another alternative ended, or ten years after discharge from incarceration without supervision, and the bureau's termination questions add that a sexual offender registered for an offense from another jurisdiction waits ten years from the end of the sentence or five years from going on the Tennessee registry, whichever is later.
The bureau reviews the file and the registry, runs fingerprint based state and federal criminal history checks, and removes the name only when no additional sexual offense or violent sexual offense was committed during the ten years and the offender substantially complied with the act; a denial for substantial noncompliance can be followed by a new request after five years, a denied offender may petition the chancery court of Davidson County or of the county of residence for review on the bureau's record, and the ten year period is tolled from the moment a registrant fails to register or otherwise substantially comply, warrant or no warrant.
Shorter roads exist for a few convictions: an offender convicted under section 39-16-408 may ask after three years, an offender convicted of statutory rape committed before July 1, 2006 may ask if the offense would not require registration today, aggravated prostitution committed before July 1, 2024 and criminal exposure to HIV committed before July 1, 2023 may be terminated on request, and a person placed on judicial diversion for a sexual offense under sections 39-13-505 or 39-13-506(a) or (b) registers during the diversion but may request termination on successfully completing it and having the charge dismissed, a route that never opens to a violent sexual offense or an offense against a victim under 13.
A violent juvenile sexual offender may request termination after turning 25 with no later registrable adjudication or conviction and, for offenses on or after July 1, 2014, no victim under 13, on a sworn juvenile termination affidavit; an expungement order under section 40-32-101 removes an offender from the registry at once; and the request itself need only ask to be considered for termination, with the date, the full name, the date of birth, the TOMIS or SO number if known, the current address and a signature, mailed to 901 R.S. Gass Boulevard or emailed to tbisormgr@tbi.tn.gov.
The 1,000 foot rule, the household rule and three to a house
Section 40-39-211 bars a sexual offender or violent sexual offender from knowingly establishing a primary or secondary residence or any other living accommodation, or knowingly accepting employment, within 1,000 feet of the property line of any public, private or parochial school, licensed day care center, other child care facility, public park, playground, recreation center or public athletic field open to the general public, a playground being any indoor or outdoor facility meant for children's recreation and owned by the state, a local government or a nonprofit, parking lot included; a change in the ownership or use of nearby property after the offender moved in or took the job creates no violation.
The same section bars every registrant, violent juvenile sexual offenders included, from residing within 1,000 feet of a former victim or the victim's immediate family, from coming within 100 feet of a former victim and from contacting the victim or the family by telephone, in writing or electronically without consent. An offender whose victim was a minor may not reside or stay overnight at a residence where a minor lives or is present, unless the offender is the minor's parent, and even a parent loses that exception when parental rights are being terminated, when any child of the offender was a victim, or when the victim was 12 or younger and a circuit court has found by clear and convincing evidence, on the district attorney's petition, that the offender presents a danger of substantial harm to the child, a finding the offender may ask the court to reconsider after two years.
An offender may not be on the premises of those schools, day cares, parks, playgrounds, recreation centers or athletic fields when children under 18 are likely to be present, may not stand, sit or wait within 1,000 feet of their buildings while children are present without a legitimate reason, and may not ride a school, day care or recreation center bus carrying children, with exceptions for a student in attendance, a parent attending a conference with written permission, a resident of a licensed care or correctional facility, and a parent dropping off or picking up a child after giving the principal written notice of the offender status at enrollment, the conference exception falling away when the offender's minor victim attends the school.
No three or more sexual or violent sexual offenders may set up or share a primary or secondary residence on residential or mixed use zoned property, and no owner may knowingly let them, apart from court ordered residential treatment facilities, and a violent juvenile sexual offender is exempt from the residence, employment and presence rules unless a court orders otherwise. A violation of the part is a Class E felony with no suspension, diversion or probation until the minimum sentence is served in full: a fine of at least $350 and 90 days for a first violation, $600 and 180 days for a second, $1,100 and a year for a third, and a fine only where the violation was solely a missing written permission.
Reading a Tennessee result
A profile on the TBI site is the sheriff's record as last reported by the offender, with the bureau's classification deciding what the reader sees next: a violent sexual offender or a violent juvenile sexual offender reports every March, June, September and December and the first can never come off, a sexual offender reports in the birthday window and can ask the bureau in writing after ten clean years, and the household rule reaches any offender whose victim was a minor.
A name missing from the site may belong to an offender whose conviction was overturned, whose request for termination succeeded, whose offense never required registration, who is a violent juvenile sexual offender kept off the public site, or who is out of compliance, which goes to the local police as a possible unregistered offender; the registering agency named on the profile holds the file, takes corrections on reasonable proof and knows the next reporting date, and the bureau at 1-888-837-4170 and tbisormgr@tbi.tn.gov holds the termination requests.
Questions about the Tennessee sex offender registry
Related Tennessee records
Tennessee's other public records have guides on this site: Tennessee arrest records for what a booking makes public, Tennessee inmate search for the Department of Correction felony offender lookup and the county jails, Tennessee court records for the clerks of court, and the Tennessee county pages for all 95 sheriffs.