Public records in California

What California’s records law is called, how to write a useful request, where different records live, and what to expect from the agency that receives it.

Statute verified 10 August 2026

The law

California Public Records Act

Cal. Gov't Code §§ 7920.000–7930.215

Verified against the Open Government Guide entry for California.

State-specific request guide

Filing in California

Guidance checked 14 August 2026

Who can request: Members of the public may request records maintained by California state and local government agencies. You do not need to be the subject of the record.
How to file: Send the request to the agency that keeps the record. Identify the record, subject, date range, and office as specifically as you can; the Attorney General directs requests for another agency back to that agency.
Initial response: An agency generally has 10 calendar days to determine whether it will disclose responsive records. A limited 14-day extension may apply. That is a determination deadline, not a promise that every record will be delivered in 10 days.
Possible fees: An agency may charge direct duplication costs, and some electronic extraction or programming work can carry additional actual costs. Ask for an estimate before work begins if cost matters.
If access is denied: Ask the agency to identify the exemption it relied on and to release any reasonably segregable, non-exempt portion of the record. California does not provide one central administrative appeal for every agency.

Read the official public guide

What California Public Records Act actually does

It gives you a right to request records held by government bodies in California, and it obliges those bodies to respond. That is a right of access to what an agency holds - not a search engine, and not a database of people.

Two consequences people are regularly surprised by. First, a records law says nothing about information held by private companies: employers, landlords, banks and social platforms are outside it entirely. Second, the right is to records, not to answers - you generally have to identify what you want well enough for someone to find it, and “everything you have about this person” is usually not a valid request.

Every state also exempts categories of record from disclosure, and those exemptions are where most of the complexity lives. Assume the existence of a record is a separate question from whether it is releasable.

A request you can adapt

Start with the official guidance above when it requires a form or a particular submission route. Otherwise, this structure helps an agency identify existing records without turning your request into an open-ended question.

To: [Records custodian or open-records officer] Subject: Public-records request - [short subject] Under the California Public Records Act, I request access to the following existing records: • Record type or subject: [be specific] • Date range: [start date] through [end date] • Office, project, person, or case identifier: [if known] Please provide the records electronically in their existing format where possible. If estimated fees will exceed $[your limit], please send an itemized estimate before beginning chargeable work. If any portion is withheld, please identify the legal basis and release any reasonably separable non-exempt portions. Thank you, [Name and contact details required by the agency]

This is a drafting aid, not an official state form. Save the request, proof of delivery, every cost estimate, and every response in one place.

Where the records actually live

There is no single office. Records are held by whichever body created them, which is why “how do I get X in California” has a different answer for each X:

Court records - held by the court that heard the case. Some states run a statewide portal; others are county by county, and a few are both.
Property records - usually the county recorder, assessor, or registry of deeds, and often searchable online.
Vital records - birth, death, marriage, divorce. Held by a state vital-records office, a county clerk, or split between them, and typically the most restricted category.
Criminal history - held by a state agency, with access rules that differ sharply from state to state.
Business filings- the state’s corporate registry, generally the most open of the categories.

We’ve deliberately not named the specific office for each of these. They differ by record type and by county, they change, and a confident wrong pointer costs you an afternoon. Search for the record type plus California on a .gov domain, and start from the office that would have created the record.

The line that matters more than the statute

Records being public does not make every use of them lawful. In the United States the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs information used to decide someone’s eligibility for employment, credit, housing, insurance, or tenancy.

For those decisions you need a consumer reporting agency operating under the FCRA, with the subject’s consent and their right to see and dispute what was reported. A public-records search - ours included - meets none of those requirements, and DeepSearch states plainly that it is not a consumer reporting agency. That is a real constraint, not boilerplate.

Reading a public record to satisfy yourself that someone is who they say they are is ordinary. Using it to monitor or pressure a person who doesn’t want to hear from you is not, and the information having been public is not a defence.

This is general information, not legal advice. Records laws are amended and interpreted by courts; if a decision matters, take proper advice.

Source

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press - Open Government Guide - California entry - California Attorney General - Public Records. Statute name and citation read at the source on 10 August 2026.