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.
Tennessee's public records system is centralized where valuation is concerned and decentralized almost everywhere else. The Comptroller of the Treasury operates a statewide property assessment data portal covering all 95 counties, so parcel, owner, and assessment lookups can be run from one site instead of hunting for an individual assessor's page — a rarity in the Southeast and the main reason Tennessee research is easier than its county count suggests. Deeds themselves are recorded with the county Register of Deeds, and the assessor and register are separate elected offices.
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.
Business filings sit with the Secretary of State, whose business information search is free and includes filing history, registered agent, annual report status, and images of filed documents. Tennessee is one of the states where the annual report is due on the first day of the fourth month after the fiscal year close rather than a formation anniversary, and LLC report fees scale with the number of members, so a large LLC's failure to file is a meaningfully expensive lapse. The Secretary of State also runs the state UCC index, so lien searching stays in the same system as the entity record — see the UCC lien search pages.
Property price disclosure is straightforward: Tennessee charges a realty transfer tax of $0.37 per $100 of consideration, and an oath of consideration accompanies the deed, so sale prices are recorded and public. Court records are the weak link — there is no free statewide public case portal, so access depends on the county, with Davidson, Shelby, Knox, and Hamilton counties publishing usable online dockets and rural counties often requiring a clerk's office visit. Statewide criminal information comes from the TBI, which runs the sex offender registry search and a fee-based background check service, an arrangement covered on the criminal records hub.
Last Updated: September 2026 · Reviewed quarterly by the Searchadex editorial team.
State Comptroller hosts a free statewide assessment data viewer.
No unified statewide portal; access by county.
Free entity status and filing history search.
Order online; historical records via State Library & Archives.
Free felony offender lookup; compiled TBI history fee-based.
Free status and polling-place lookup.
Free name, ZIP, and proximity search.
Free search and online claims.
For assessment data, yes. The Comptroller's statewide property assessment portal covers all 95 counties with owner, parcel, appraisal, and sales information. Recorded deeds and mortgages still come from the county Register of Deeds where the property sits.
No more than the Office of Open Records Counsel's schedule of reasonable charges allows, which sets per-page copy rates and an hourly labor rate that only applies after a free time allotment. If a quote looks inflated, cite the schedule and ask for an itemized estimate.
No free public one. Access is county-by-county through the circuit, chancery, criminal, and general sessions court clerks, with the large metro counties offering online dockets. For statewide criminal information, the TBI's registry search and fee-based background check service are the practical substitutes.
For enforceable rights under the Public Records Act, yes — it grants access to citizens of Tennessee. Agencies may still fill out-of-state requests at their discretion, and anything already posted online is open to everyone regardless of residency.
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.
Affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Not FCRA-compliant for employment, housing, or credit decisions.
Occasional updates when we add new record types, states, or official portals. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.