How Public Records Work in the United States: A Complete Guide

Public records are one of those concepts that most Americans take for granted without really understanding how they work. We vaguely know that government documents are "public," but the specifics -- what qualifies, who controls access, how records move from dusty courthouse filing cabinets to searchable online databases -- remain murky for most people. I've spent years working with public data systems, and this guide covers what I wish more people understood about how public records actually function in the United States.

What Qualifies as a Public Record?

At its core, a public record is any document or piece of information created, maintained, or held by a government agency that is legally accessible to members of the public. The definition sounds simple, but in practice it covers an enormous range of documents.

Government-generated records include things like court filings, property deeds, business registrations, birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, arrest records, building permits, campaign finance disclosures, environmental reports, and minutes from public meetings. Government-held records also include documents submitted to agencies by private parties when required by law -- tax liens filed against property, corporate annual reports filed with the Secretary of State, or safety inspection reports filed by businesses.

The key principle is that government transparency is the default. The burden is on the government to justify withholding a record, not on the citizen to justify wanting to see it. That said, the specifics of what's accessible, what's restricted, and what's entirely exempt vary dramatically depending on whether you're dealing with a federal, state, or local agency.

Federal Records and the Freedom of Information Act

At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in 1966 and amended several times since, is the primary mechanism for accessing government records. FOIA applies to executive branch agencies -- the Department of Justice, the EPA, the FDA, the IRS (with significant limitations), the Department of Defense, and dozens of others.

FOIA establishes a presumption of openness: any person can request any record from a federal agency, and the agency must provide it unless the record falls into one of nine specific exemptions. Those exemptions cover:

• Exemption 1 -- Classified national security information
• Exemption 2 -- Internal agency personnel rules and practices
• Exemption 3 -- Information specifically exempted by other federal statutes
• Exemption 4 -- Trade secrets and confidential business information
• Exemption 5 -- Inter-agency or intra-agency privileged communications
• Exemption 6 -- Personal privacy (personnel, medical, and similar files)
• Exemption 7 -- Law enforcement records that could interfere with proceedings, reveal sources, or endanger individuals
• Exemption 8 -- Financial institution examination records
• Exemption 9 -- Geological information about wells

In practice, Exemptions 5, 6, and 7 account for the vast majority of FOIA denials. Agencies regularly cite "deliberative process privilege" under Exemption 5 to withhold internal policy discussions, and they use Exemption 6 to redact personally identifiable information from released documents.

One thing people don't realize: FOIA doesn't apply to Congress, the federal courts, or the President's personal staff. Those branches have their own transparency mechanisms -- or lack thereof.

State-Level Public Records Laws

Every state has its own public records law, sometimes called a "sunshine law," "open records act," or "freedom of information law." These laws vary enormously in scope, exemptions, response timelines, and fees.

Some states are genuinely open. Florida's Sunshine Law is famously broad, which is why "Florida Man" stories exist -- journalists can access arrest records, police reports, and mugshots with minimal friction. Texas has a strong Public Information Act. Other states make access harder. New York's FOIL process is often slow. Some states allow agencies to charge substantial fees for search and copying, which effectively prices out ordinary citizens.

State records cover a huge range of documents that federal FOIA doesn't touch:

• Vital records -- birth certificates, death certificates, marriage and divorce records (access varies; many states restrict birth certificates to family members)
• Court records -- civil lawsuits, criminal cases, family law proceedings, probate filings
• Property records -- deeds, mortgages, tax assessments, liens (maintained at the county level in most states)
• Voter registration data -- name, address, party affiliation, voting history (not how you voted, just whether you did)
• Professional licensing -- doctors, lawyers, contractors, real estate agents
• Corporate filings -- articles of incorporation, annual reports, registered agent information
• Campaign finance disclosures -- who donated how much to which political candidates

If you're trying to research someone or something, the state level is usually where you'll find the most actionable information. Services like OpenDataUSA aggregate many of these state and local records into a single searchable interface, which saves you from having to navigate 50 different state systems.

Local Records: Counties, Cities, and Special Districts

The most granular public records live at the local level. County recorders maintain property deed and mortgage records. County clerks handle court filings. City planning departments issue building permits. Health departments conduct restaurant inspections. Code enforcement offices document violations.

Local records tend to be the most inconsistently digitized. Large urban counties like Los Angeles, Cook (Chicago), or Harris (Houston) often have robust online portals where you can search records going back decades. Small rural counties might still require you to physically visit the courthouse, or they might have digitized records only back to a certain year. I've encountered counties where the online system covers records from 2005 to the present, but anything before that requires an in-person records request.

This inconsistency is one of the biggest practical challenges in working with public records in the U.S. There is no single national database. The system is decentralized by design, reflecting the American tradition of local governance.

How Records Are Digitized and Aggregated

The transition from paper records to digital databases has been happening for about three decades, but it's still far from complete. Here's how the process generally works.

Government Digitization

When a government office digitizes its records, it typically involves scanning paper documents, entering structured data into a database, and publishing that database through a public-facing web portal. The quality varies wildly. Some counties have invested heavily in modern GIS mapping systems and searchable document repositories. Others have the digital equivalent of a card catalog from 1987.

Federal courts use the PACER system (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), which charges per-page fees and has been criticized for decades as a barrier to access. Many state courts use systems like Tyler Technologies' Odyssey or Journal Technologies' eCourt, which standardize case management but don't always make records easily searchable by the public.

Third-Party Aggregation

This is where services like OpenDataUSA come in. Aggregators collect public records from thousands of individual government sources -- county recorders, state courts, voter registration databases, business filing systems -- and combine them into unified, searchable databases. This process involves acquiring raw data (through bulk data purchases, data-sharing agreements, web scraping where permitted, and FOIA requests), normalizing it (standardizing name formats, addresses, dates across different source systems), linking records across sources (connecting a property deed to a voter registration to a business filing for the same individual), and making it searchable through a user-friendly interface.

The aggregation process is what makes a people search or public records search actually useful. Without it, finding information about someone would require you to check dozens or hundreds of individual government databases -- most of which have different search interfaces, different data formats, and different access procedures.

Records That Are Not Public

Not everything the government touches is accessible to the public. Important categories of non-public records include:

Sealed and Expunged Records

Courts can seal records in certain cases -- juvenile proceedings, certain criminal matters where charges were dropped, cases involving trade secrets, and family law cases involving minors. Expungement goes further: the record is legally treated as though it never existed. A person whose criminal record has been expunged can generally say they have no criminal record. These sealed and expunged records should not appear in public records searches, though the reality is that records that were public before being sealed sometimes persist in third-party databases, which is a real problem the industry continues to grapple with.

Grand Jury Proceedings

Grand jury proceedings are secret by law. Jurors, prosecutors, and witnesses are generally prohibited from disclosing what happens during grand jury sessions. The resulting indictments become public, but the process that led to them does not.

Tax Returns

Individual and corporate tax returns filed with the IRS are confidential under federal law (26 U.S.C. Section 6103). There are very limited exceptions for Congressional committees and certain law enforcement activities. This is why a politician's tax returns don't automatically become public when they take office -- they have to voluntarily release them.

Medical Records

Protected health information is governed by HIPAA at the federal level and additional state privacy laws. Medical records held by healthcare providers are emphatically not public records, even though some health-related information (like licensing actions against physicians) is publicly available.

Education Records

Student education records are protected under FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Schools cannot release student records without consent, with narrow exceptions.

How FOIA Requests Actually Work

Filing a FOIA request is straightforward in theory. You write a letter (or increasingly, fill out an online form) to the relevant agency's FOIA office describing the records you want. You don't need to explain why you want them -- FOIA is purpose-blind. The agency has 20 business days to respond, though in practice, delays of months or even years are common at heavily-requested agencies.

A few practical tips if you're filing FOIA requests:

• Be specific -- "All records related to Topic X" will get you a slow, expensive response. "Emails between Person A and Person B between January and March 2025 regarding Project Z" is much more likely to produce results quickly.
• Ask for a fee waiver -- if you're a journalist or researcher, many agencies will waive search and copying fees.
• Check the reading room first -- many frequently-requested records are already posted on agency websites in their "FOIA Reading Room" or "Electronic Reading Room."
• Appeal denials -- agencies deny FOIA requests all the time, sometimes improperly. The administrative appeal process is free and often successful.
• Use state laws when appropriate -- if the records you want are held by a state or local agency, use the relevant state open records law, not federal FOIA.

The Role of Technology in Public Records Access

Technology has fundamentally changed how public records work in practice, even though the underlying laws haven't changed much. Twenty years ago, checking someone's property records meant driving to a county courthouse. Researching campaign contributions meant requesting paper filings from an election commission. Verifying a professional license meant calling a state licensing board during business hours.

Today, most of these searches can be done in seconds through online portals or aggregation services. The data itself was always public -- what changed is the accessibility. And that increased accessibility has sparked ongoing debates about privacy, the right to be forgotten, and the balance between transparency and personal autonomy.

Common Misconceptions

A few things I see people get wrong regularly:

"All government records are public." Not true. As discussed above, many categories of records are explicitly exempt from disclosure. The default is openness, but the exceptions are substantial.

"Public records are always accurate." Government databases contain errors. Names are misspelled, addresses are outdated, records are misattributed. Just because something appears in a public record doesn't make it gospel truth. Always cross-reference important information across multiple sources.

"If a record is public, anyone can do anything with it." Public access and permissible use are different things. Voter registration data, for example, is public in most states but often restricted to non-commercial use. The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates how certain types of records can be used in employment and credit decisions. The DPPA restricts access to motor vehicle records. Public access doesn't mean unrestricted use.

"Removing my information from one site removes it everywhere." Because public records originate from government sources, removing your data from one aggregator doesn't affect the underlying government record or any other aggregator that independently obtained the same data. Check our opt-out page for information about managing your data on OpenDataUSA specifically.

Why Public Records Matter

The American public records system, for all its fragmentation and inconsistency, serves a critical democratic function. It allows citizens to verify what their government is doing, to check the backgrounds of people they do business with, to research property before buying it, and to hold public officials accountable. Journalists use public records to break stories about corruption, waste, and abuse. Researchers use them to study social trends. Individuals use them to find lost family members, verify the credentials of professionals, and make informed decisions.

The system is imperfect. Access is uneven. Some records are harder to get than they should be. Others are too easy to misuse. But the underlying principle -- that government information belongs to the governed -- remains one of the most important features of American democracy.

For a deeper look at specific types of public data and where to find them, check out our guide to public data sources in the U.S., or start a free search on OpenDataUSA to see what public records are available.