Public Records by State — Official Government Sources

California public records are spread across state agencies and 58 counties. The Secretary of State (BizFile), the Department of Public Health, the DOJ, and county recorders and courts each hold different records. The California Public Records Act guarantees broad access, though vital records and compiled criminal histories carry the usual privacy limits.

The California Public Records Act gives any requester the right to inspect agency records without stating a purpose, and a 2023 amendment pushed agencies toward posting frequently requested files proactively. In practice that means assessor parcel data, campaign finance filings, and code-enforcement histories are often already online, while records containing personal identifiers require a written request. Criminal history is the sharpest exception: the DOJ will only release a rap sheet to the subject of the record, so background research has to be reconstructed from individual county court records instead.

Watch for: California is one of a small group of states that does not participate in MissingMoney.com — unclaimed property must be searched directly on the State Controller's site, so a national search will show nothing even when the state is holding your money.

Texas public records are governed by the Texas Public Information Act and held across 254 counties plus state agencies. Business filings run through the Comptroller and SOSDirect, property data through county appraisal districts, and courts through re:SearchTX and county district clerks.

The Texas Public Information Act sets a ten-business-day clock for agencies to respond or ask the Attorney General for a ruling, and the AG publishes those open-records decisions, which makes Texas unusually transparent about what it withholds. Criminal history is available two ways: the DPS Computerized Criminal History site sells statewide conviction searches for a small fee, and county district clerk portals show underlying case documents free. TDCJ's inmate search covers anyone currently in state custody.

Watch for: Texas is a non-disclosure state: real estate sale prices are not recorded, so a deed shows the transfer but not the amount paid. Appraisal district value history is the closest public proxy.

Florida's Sunshine Law makes it one of the most open public-records states. Business filings live on Sunbiz, property data on county property-appraiser sites, court records with county clerks, and unclaimed property on FLTreasureHunt — most searchable free online.

Business filings sit with the Division of Corporations, whose Sunbiz portal publishes officer and director names, registered agent addresses, annual reports, and scanned filing images at no cost — a level of document access most states charge for. Searching by officer name rather than entity name is the trick most people miss: Sunbiz supports an officer/registered-agent index that reveals every company a person is tied to, which is why it is one of the most useful free tools on our business records hub. Fictitious names (DBAs) live in a separate Sunbiz index, so a business trading under a brand may only appear there.

Watch for: Florida's documentary stamp tax is recorded on the face of the deed at $0.70 per $100 of consideration ($0.60 in Miami-Dade), so you can back into a sale price from the recorded instrument itself even when the appraiser's sales history is incomplete.

New York public records combine statewide systems with separate New York City offices. The Department of State handles business entities, NYSCEF and WebCrims cover courts, ACRIS holds NYC property records, and the State Health Department manages vital records (with NYC keeping its own).

Court access is comparatively strong. NYSCEF covers e-filed civil cases in most counties, WebCivil Supreme provides free civil docket search, and WebCrims shows pending criminal cases in participating counties — though it drops cases after disposition, which trips up researchers looking for history rather than status. The Unified Court System also sells statewide criminal history searches through OCA for a flat fee, one of the few genuinely statewide criminal indexes in the Northeast.

Watch for: New York City maintains vital records and property recording (ACRIS) entirely separately from the state — a state-level search will miss any NYC birth, death, marriage, or deed record.

Pennsylvania centralizes many records: the UJS Portal covers courts statewide, the Department of State handles business filings, and PA Treasury runs unclaimed property. Property records remain with county recorders of deeds, and Megan's Law runs the public sex-offender registry.

The state's open-records statute is the Right-to-Know Law, rewritten in 2008 to flip the presumption: Commonwealth and local agency records are presumed public and the agency carries the burden of proving an exemption. Agencies have five business days to grant, deny, or invoke a 30-day extension, and denials are appealed to the independent Office of Open Records, which publishes its final determinations as searchable precedent. The judiciary is deliberately outside the RTKL — court records are governed by the Supreme Court's own public access policy instead, which is why case files and financial records of the courts follow different rules.

Watch for: Pennsylvania has no mandated reassessment cycle, so several counties still tax from base-year values set decades ago; the State Tax Equalization Board's common level ratio is the official multiplier for converting an assessment into current market value.

Illinois records mix statewide and county systems. The Secretary of State handles business entities, the Treasurer runs ICASH for unclaimed property, and courts are searched through county circuit clerks like Cook County. Property data comes from county assessors and recorders.

The Freedom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140, gives any person the right to inspect public records with a five-business-day response deadline, extendable by five more for enumerated reasons. What makes Illinois distinctive is the Public Access Counselor in the Attorney General's office: you can request a binding or advisory opinion on a denial without going to court, and the PAC's opinions are published. Commercial requests are handled on a separate, slower track, so identifying your request as non-commercial matters if you want the standard clock.

Watch for: Cook County abolished its separate Recorder of Deeds office in December 2020 and folded land recording into the County Clerk, so deeds recorded before and after that date are searched through the same Clerk portal but under different office names.

Ohio public records are broadly accessible. The Secretary of State covers business filings, county auditors publish free property data, county clerks of court post dockets, and the Department of Commerce runs unclaimed funds. The Attorney General hosts eSORN, the sex-offender registry.

The Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43, requires records to be made available for inspection promptly and copies delivered within a reasonable time, with no residency or purpose requirement. Ohio's distinctive enforcement route is the Court of Claims: for a $25 filing fee, a requester can bring a public records complaint that goes first to a mediator and then to a special master, which is dramatically cheaper than a mandamus action. The Attorney General also publishes the Ohio Sunshine Laws manual each year and offers certified training for public officials.

Watch for: Ohio law puts counties on a fixed valuation cadence: a full reappraisal every six years with a triennial update at the midpoint, so an Ohio assessed value is never more than three years from a formal revision.

Georgia records run through the Secretary of State (eCorp business search and elections), the GBI sex-offender registry, county tax assessors (often via qPublic), and county Superior Court clerks. The Department of Revenue handles unclaimed property.

The Open Records Act, O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70, requires agencies to respond within three business days — one of the shortest statutory clocks in the country — and to provide a timetable and cost estimate if records cannot be produced in that window. Fees are capped at the hourly rate of the lowest-paid qualified employee with the first quarter hour free, and the Attorney General's office runs a mediation program for disputes. Requests may be made orally, though written requests are what trigger the statutory penalties for non-compliance.

Watch for: The Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority runs statewide indexes of deeds, liens, UCC filings, notaries, and PT-61 transfer tax forms — a single statewide land and lien search across all 159 counties, which almost no other state offers.

North Carolina is modernizing access through NC eCourts, a statewide Odyssey-based case portal. The Secretary of State covers business filings, the Treasurer runs NCCash for unclaimed property, and counties publish GIS and register-of-deeds data.

The Public Records Law, Chapter 132 of the General Statutes, is broad and blunt: records made or received in the transaction of public business are property of the people, and custodians must furnish copies as promptly as possible. There is no statutory deadline and no purpose or residency requirement, and unlike most states there is no administrative appeal — enforcement runs through a superior court action, which in practice makes persistence more useful than procedure. Personnel records are a major carve-out, though the fact of a hiring, promotion, or dismissal is public.

Watch for: North Carolina counties must conduct a general real property revaluation at least every eight years — the octennial cycle — so a value in year seven of a cycle may reflect market conditions from most of a decade ago.

Michigan records are handled by LARA for business entities, the Department of Treasury for unclaimed property, MDOC's OTIS for offenders, and county registers of deeds for property. Court access is largely county-by-county across circuit and district courts.

The Freedom of Information Act, 1976 PA 442, gives any person the right to inspect public records with a five-business-day response deadline and a single ten-business-day extension. Michigan's notable quirk is who is not covered: the Legislature and the Governor's office are statutorily exempt from FOIA, an exclusion shared by very few states and a recurring subject of reform bills. Local governments are fully covered, must publish a written FOIA procedures and guidelines document, and must offer an internal appeal to the head of the public body before litigation.

Watch for: The Michigan Legislature and the Governor's office are exempt from FOIA by statute — records requests reach every state department and local unit but stop at those two, a gap almost unique among large states.

New Jersey centralizes courts through NJ Courts (eCourts/ACMS) and business records through the Division of Revenue. Vital Statistics handles birth, death, and marriage records, and the Unclaimed Property Administration runs the state's missing-money program.

The Open Public Records Act governs access, with a seven-business-day response deadline and the Government Records Council as an administrative alternative to Superior Court. OPRA was significantly amended in 2024: the reforms changed how attorney fees are awarded, added handling rules for requests aimed at commercial use and for voluminous or automated requests, and adjusted deadlines for certain record types. The practical effect for an ordinary requester is that narrow, specific, non-commercial requests still move quickly while broad data-scraping requests now face more friction. Court records sit outside OPRA and are governed by the Judiciary's own rules.

Watch for: New Jersey maintains a statewide assessment database (MOD-IV) covering every parcel in all 564 municipalities, so you can pull owner, block and lot, and assessed value for any property in the state without knowing the county.

Virginia uses the State Corporation Commission for business filings, the Judiciary's Online Case Information for courts, and the Department of Health for vital records. Property and land records sit with circuit courts and local assessors; the State Police run the sex-offender registry.

Business filings go to the State Corporation Commission, not the Secretary of the Commonwealth — the SCC's Clerk's Information System handles corporations, LLCs, registered agents, annual reports, and UCC filings, and searches are free. Virginia charges an annual registration fee rather than requiring a substantive annual report from LLCs, so a current status mostly confirms the fee was paid. Because the SCC also regulates insurance, utilities, and securities, the same body's records can confirm a company's licensing as well as its existence, a shortcut we note on the business records hub.

Watch for: Virginia has 38 independent cities that belong to no county, producing 133 separate local recording and court jurisdictions — a structure that exists nowhere else in the United States at this scale.

Washington offers strong online access: the Secretary of State handles business filings, the Courts site provides statewide case search, VoteWA covers elections, and the Department of Revenue runs unclaimed property. Counties like King publish robust free property records.

Courts are searchable in one place. The Administrative Office of the Courts publishes a free statewide case search covering superior, district, and municipal courts, so a single name query spans every level of trial court — something even large states rarely offer. What the free index gives you is the case number, filing date, court, and parties; full docket detail and documents come through the county clerk or the paid JIS-Link service. That two-tier structure is the pattern we describe on the court records hub.

Watch for: Washington's statewide court case search covers superior, district, and municipal courts in a single free query — most states with a statewide portal exclude their limited-jurisdiction and municipal courts.

Arizona records run through the Corporation Commission (business entities), the Judicial Branch public access portal (courts), Maricopa and other county assessors and recorders (property), and the Department of Revenue (unclaimed property). DPS hosts the sex-offender InfoCenter.

Business entities are filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission rather than a Secretary of State — the eCorp system provides free entity search with officers, statutory agent, annual report history, and scanned documents. The Secretary of State handles trade names, trademarks, and notaries, so a DBA search and an entity search happen at two different agencies, a split that trips up a lot of first-time researchers and one we spell out on the business records hub. Arizona LLCs, unlike corporations, do not file annual reports, so LLC records go quiet by design.

Watch for: Arizona has only 15 counties, and Maricopa and Pima alone account for roughly three-quarters of the state's population — two county portals cover the majority of Arizona property and court research.

Tennessee uses the Secretary of State for business filings, the TBI for the sex-offender registry and criminal history, county assessors and registers of deeds for property, and the Treasury's ClaimItTN for unclaimed property. Court access is generally by county.

The Public Records Act, T.C.A. § 10-7-503, requires records to be open for inspection and sets a seven-business-day window for a response, but it limits the enforceable right to citizens of Tennessee — a residency restriction shared only with a handful of states. The Office of Open Records Counsel, housed in the Comptroller's office, issues advisory opinions, publishes a schedule of reasonable charges that caps what agencies can bill, and mediates disputes, which gives Tennessee requesters a meaningful non-litigation remedy.

Watch for: The Comptroller of the Treasury publishes a single statewide property assessment portal covering all 95 counties, so Tennessee parcel and owner lookups do not require finding the individual county assessor's website first.