Public records in Michigan

What Michigan’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

Freedom of Information Act

Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 15.231–15.246

Verified against the Open Government Guide entry for Michigan.

State-specific request guide

Filing in Michigan

Guidance checked 14 August 2026

Who can request: A person may inspect or receive copies of non-exempt public records. A request must include the requester's complete name, a compliant address, and a valid telephone number or email address.
How to file: Submit a written request to the FOIA coordinator for the public body that holds the record. Describe the record sufficiently for the body to find it; search terms and a date range can reduce time and cost.
Initial response: A public body generally has five business days after legal receipt to grant, deny, partially grant, or issue one written extension for up to 10 additional business days.
Possible fees: Permitted charges can include search, review, redaction, copying, media, and mailing under statutory limits. A detailed itemization is required, and an estimated fee above $50 may trigger a good-faith deposit of up to half.
If access is denied: A requester may submit a written appeal to the head of the public body or file a civil action. Fee appeals and disclosure appeals have specific wording and timing requirements, so keep the request, itemization, and response.

Read the official public guide

What Michigan's Freedom of Information Act actually does

It gives you a right to request records held by government bodies in Michigan, 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 Freedom of Information 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 Michigan” 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 Michigan 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 - Michigan entry - Michigan Attorney General - Freedom of Information Act. Statute name and citation read at the source on 10 August 2026.