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.
Florida's Sunshine Law is the most permissive open-records regime in the country, and it shows in how much sits online without a login. Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes — reinforced by Article I, Section 24 of the state constitution — presumes every state, county, and municipal record is public unless a specific statutory exemption applies, and agencies must respond to anyone, including anonymous and out-of-state requesters, without asking why the records are wanted. The practical result is that Florida research usually starts and ends in free portals rather than in formal records requests, and the Attorney General's Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual is published annually so requesters can look up the exemption an agency is claiming.
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.
Property records are run by 67 elected county Property Appraisers, each publishing owner name, homestead exemption status, parcel maps, and full sale history with prices, while the county Clerk of Court holds the recorded deeds and mortgages in an official-records index. Florida is a disclosure state: documentary stamp tax of $0.70 per $100 of consideration is recorded on the deed itself, so a sale price can be reconstructed from the stamp even on an older transfer. Save Our Homes caps annual assessment growth on homesteaded property at 3%, which means assessed value and market value drift apart badly on long-held homes — the same pitfall covered in our guide to finding a property's owner.
Court access is county-by-county rather than statewide. Each of the 67 Clerks of Court publishes its own civil, criminal, probate, family, and traffic dockets, and the statewide Comprehensive Case Information System that ties them together is restricted to registered government and professional users. For a person-level search, FDLE sells an instant statewide criminal-history check for a flat fee, and Florida arrest records and booking photos remain broadly public — unlike California. The privacy exceptions run the other direction: birth records stay sealed for 100 years, death records with cause of death for 50, and a long list of statutory exemptions strips home addresses of officers, judges, and victims from otherwise open files.
Last Updated: September 2026 · Reviewed quarterly by the Searchadex editorial team.
Florida's Sunshine Law makes appraiser and tax-roll data broadly free.
Most county clerks offer free online case search.
Free officer lists, annual reports, and filed documents.
Birth records closed 100 yrs; certified copies restricted.
FDLE charges a per-search fee; DOC inmate search free.
Free status, precinct, and party; bulk file broadly available.
Free name and neighborhood search with mapping.
Free search; many claims processed online.
No. Chapter 119 lets anyone request records anonymously and without stating a purpose, and agencies cannot condition access on your identity, residency, or reason. They may charge the actual cost of duplication and, for unusually extensive requests, a special service charge for staff time.
Generally yes. Booking photos and arrest reports are public records under the Sunshine Law and most sheriff's offices publish recent bookings online. Records tied to sealed or expunged cases are removed, and Florida law restricts websites that charge a fee to take a mugshot down.
Because of Save Our Homes. Assessed value on a homesteaded property can only rise 3% a year regardless of the market, so a home held for a decade may be assessed at a fraction of its resale price. Use the recorded sale price and documentary stamp figures for market research instead.
Use FLTreasureHunt, run by the Department of Financial Services, which holds billions of dollars in unclaimed accounts and lets you file claims online. Search maiden names and former addresses as well, since accounts are indexed exactly as the reporting holder submitted them.
Official portals verify a single record. For compiled multi-source reports, these paid tools go further. Not government sources.
People search, contact info, and background reports.
Reverse phone, email, and people lookup.
Background checks and public-records reports.
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