District of Columbia People Search

The District has no counties, so one District agency holds each record type: the courts, property and deeds, business filings, the jail and the sex offender registry. People serving long felony sentences are in federal custody, listed under Corrections below.

• DC Courts eAccessSuperior Court dockets across all divisions
• OTR real property tax databaseOwner, assessed value and tax status for every DC property
• DLCP Corporations DivisionDC corporations, LLCs, partnerships and nonprofits
• DC Department of Corrections inmate locatorPeople held at the DC Jail and Correctional Treatment Facility
• MPD Sex Offender RegistryDistrict registry kept by the Metropolitan Police Department

Summary: Washington, DC is neither a state nor a county but a federal district, run under DC law with federal oversight. Its records are kept by District agencies, and many people serving long felony sentences are in federal custody, not in DC facilities.

The District has no counties, so courts, deeds, business filings and inmate records are all handled by District agencies. The DC Superior Court hears civil, criminal, family, landlord tenant, probate, tax and small claims cases, and the DC Court of Appeals is the highest local court.

DC residents convicted of serious felonies usually serve their sentences in federal Bureau of Prisons facilities, not in a DC facility, so a full DC custody search includes the BOP inmate locator.

• DC Department of Licensing and Consumer ProtectionBusiness licenses, professional licenses and consumer protection

DC operates a fully unified court system. The DC Superior Court handles virtually all trial-level matters, civil, criminal, family, probate, tax, and landlord-tenant. The DC Court of Appeals is the highest local court. Because there are no subordinate jurisdictional courts like state district courts, all case research flows through a single eAccess portal.

• DC CourtsSuperior Court and Court of Appeals directories, forms and rules

Uniquely, DC consolidates both property assessment and deed recording functions within the Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR). This is different from most states, where the recorder of deeds is a separate constitutional office. For researchers, this consolidation is convenient: a single agency provides both valuation data and deed records.

• Recorder of Deeds, Office of Tax and RevenueDeeds, mortgages and liens, with an online index

• DC Bar member directoryLicensed DC lawyers and their bar status

The 1997 National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act fundamentally restructured DC's correctional system. Prior to this law, DC operated its own prison system. Today, DC felons serving sentences longer than a year are typically housed in federal Bureau of Prisons facilities across the country, while the DC DOC primarily handles pretrial detainees at the DC Jail and those serving short misdemeanor sentences.

• Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locatorDC felons serving more than a year in federal prisons

• DC Health Vital Records DivisionBirth, death, marriage and domestic partnership records

• DC Board of Elections voter registration checkCheck your own registration status

• District of Columbia ArchivesHistoric District government records, including pre-Home Rule records
• DC Public Library, The People's ArchiveWashingtoniana collections: newspapers, city directories and photographs

DC is divided into 8 wards of about 80,000 to 90,000 residents each. Wards set Council representation, polling places and some government services. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, the District's most local elected bodies, publish meeting minutes that can name residents who speak on zoning, liquor licenses or civic matters.

Many people who work, vote or own property in DC live in Montgomery or Prince George's County in Maryland or in Arlington or Fairfax County in Virginia, so a DC area search often needs the Maryland and Virginia pages too.

One District agency handles each record type, so the work is knowing which agency that is.

Research Tip: Always run both the DC DOC locator AND the federal BOP locator when researching incarceration status for a DC resident. Because most long-sentence DC felons are in BOP custody due to the 1997 Revitalization Act, a DC DOC-only search will miss them entirely.

Common Mistake: Treating DC like a state and searching for "counties." DC has no counties. Property, court, and business records are all handled at the District level. Conversely, don't treat DC like a city either, it has its own court system, corrections system, vital records office, and business registry, none of which are part of federal infrastructure.

DC operates under the DC Freedom of Information Act (DC Code § 2-531 et seq.), which governs access to DC government records. This is entirely separate from the federal FOIA that governs federal agencies. Requests must be directed to the correct jurisdiction, a DC FOIA request to a federal agency will be rejected, and vice versa.

Privacy Tip: DC's high concentration of federal employees (many with security clearances or sensitive positions) creates elevated privacy considerations. Federal employees have specific statutory protections regarding certain personal data, and some federal records may be redacted or withheld even where DC counterparts would be public.

DC has a data breach law, the Security Breach Protection Amendment Act, but no general consumer data privacy law like California's CCPA. Consumer data privacy in DC rests mostly on federal and industry specific laws.