King County, Washington Public Records

The Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention's Subject Lookup Tool, linked above, gives an adult's custody status, facility and booking number rather than a photograph, and the department warns that state law treats many records about people in custody as confidential; a photograph is asked for from the agency that made the arrest, the King County Sheriff through its Public Disclosure Unit on 206-263-2103 or the Seattle Police Department through its Public Records Request Center, which may withhold it under an exemption. Under RCW 70.48.100 the jail register of names, dates of confinement and release is open, and photographs of people convicted of a sex offense may be released under the community notification laws.

The Washington criminal history record comes from the Washington State Patrol, Identification and Background Check Section and not from the county. Its WATCH service, among the state sources above, searches conviction records, arrests less than a year old with dispositions pending and registered sex offenders by name and date of birth for $11 and answers at once; a mailed Request for Conviction Criminal History form costs $32 and a fingerprint card $58, sent to PO Box 42633, Olympia, WA 98504-2633, and a notarized result letter is $15 more. The King County Sheriff's Office issues no clearance letter of its own and sends anyone who needs a police clearance to that state record, while its Public Disclosure Unit answers for reports about a person's own contacts with the Sheriff's deputies.

Search the Washington Sex Offender Public Registry (Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs) for the state, or every state at once on the National Sex Offender Public Website run by the U.S. Department of Justice. In King County the offenders themselves register with the Sheriff's Office at the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Sheriff's registration page linked above opens the department's own offender search by address; Level 2 and Level 3 offenders appear in it, while Level 1 offenders, judged at low risk to offend again, usually do not. Questions about registration go to the Registered Sex Offender Unit on 206-263-2120.

King County Elections, 919 SW Grady Way, Suite 100, Renton, WA 98057, 206-296-VOTE (8683), is the county elections office. Register online at the Washington Secretary of State or on the state online registration site with a Washington driver license, state ID or the last four digits of a Social Security number, or mail the paper form to the Renton office. Online and mailed registrations must be received eight days before an election; after that you can register in person at the Renton office or at any vote center in the county until 8:00 p.m. on Election Day and vote the same day.

Deeds and other recorded land documents in King County are kept by the King County Recorder's Office at 201 South Jackson Street, whose free online records search covers everything recorded since August 1, 1991, with older documents at King County Archives. Property values are set by the Department of Assessments, whose eReal Property report gives the taxpayer name, legal description, value and sale history of any parcel, and tax bills come from King County Treasury Operations, Suite 710 of the same building. All three are linked among the property sources above, and the Department of Revenue lists the assessor and treasurer of every Washington county.

From Public Health Seattle and King County's Vital Statistics office, 201 South Jackson Street, Suite 220, Seattle, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 206-837-0719, linked among the vital records sources above. It holds every Washington birth registered since 1907 and the deaths that happened in Seattle in any year, in King County since 1944 and in Washington since 2015, at $25 a certificate: $28.50 at the office kiosk with the certificate printed in 10 to 15 minutes, $4 more by mail, or through the office's contracted vendor online or by phone with a $6 agency fee and $11.50 handling. Only a qualified applicant such as a spouse, parent, child, sibling or grandparent may order, with current photo identification. The Washington State Department of Health Vital Records office issues certificates for any event in the state, with order status on 360-236-4300.

Corporations, limited liability companies and other entities are searched free at the Washington Secretary of State, Corporations and Charities Division filing system. The state business license itself, with its city endorsements, is issued by the Department of Revenue's Business Licensing Service, linked among the state sources above. Inside Seattle every business also holds a business license tax certificate from the Office of City Finance, searched in the city's Find a Business database by name, industry or ZIP code with its legal and trade names, address and expiration date. King County issues no general business license, only the licenses for adult entertainment, amusement devices, carnivals and charitable solicitation in its unincorporated areas, through the Permitting Division in Renton.

By the court that heard it. King County Superior Court cases, felonies, civil suits, divorces and probates among them, are searched by name or case number in the Superior Court Clerk's KC Script Portal after a free login, which also sells the documents and hearing recordings. King County District Court misdemeanors, infractions, small claims and civil cases are in the District Court's e-filing and case access portal, searched by number or by name with a filing date range. Seattle Municipal Court cases are in the Seattle Municipal Court Public Portal, which needs no login. All three portals are linked among the court sources above, and the Washington Courts case search covers every court in the state at once.

Use the Subject Lookup Tool of the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, linked above, which searches adults held at a King County jail within the past year by name and shows the facility, whether the person is in custody now and the booking number, or call the jail phone system on 206-296-1234. The two adult jails are the King County Correctional Facility, 500 Fifth Avenue, Seattle, and the Maleng Regional Justice Center, 620 West James Street, Kent. For a youth under 18, who would be at the Children and Family Justice Center, call 206-263-9595 at any hour. Someone not found may be in the Kent City Jail or the South Correctional Entity jail, which the county does not run.

From the agency that wrote it. Reports of the King County Sheriff's Office, which polices the unincorporated county and 13 contract cities from Burien to Woodinville, are requested from its Public Disclosure Unit, 516 Third Avenue, Room W-116, Seattle, 206-263-2103, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., online, by mail or in person. Seattle Police Department reports are requested, paid for and downloaded through its Public Records Request Center. A collision report from any Washington agency is bought from the Washington State Patrol through WRECR for $10.50, searched by the driver's name and the date; the Sheriff's case number will not find it. Bellevue, Kent, Renton and the other cities with their own police release their own reports.

From the King County Recorder's Office. Search the recorded document in the online records search, linked above, by name, parcel number or recording number; documents recorded since August 1, 1991 are indexed there and images go back to 1976. An uncertified copy costs $1 a page and downloads at once, a certified copy $3 for the first page and $1 for each page after it and is mailed within five business days, and the same copies are sold at the counter at 201 South Jackson Street, Suite 204, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or by mail with the copy request form and a check payable to King County Recorder. A deed recorded before August 1991 is ordered from King County Archives, 1215 East Fir Street, 206-263-2480.

Both come from the Recorder's Office at 201 South Jackson Street, Suite 204, Seattle, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The license costs $169, paid in cash, check, money order or card; the application is started online and both applicants finish it in person, a three day waiting period starts when the license is issued and the license is valid for 60 days after that. After the ceremony the officiant returns the certificate within 30 days, and once it is recorded it appears in the online records search as a Marriage Certificate document, copied for $3 certified. Marriages from 1855 to 2017 are also sold as digitally certified copies by the Washington State Digital Archives, linked among the sources above.

Through the county's Public Records Request Center, which divides King County into nine agencies: the executive departments, the Assessor, the Council, the Sheriff, the Prosecuting Attorney, Elections, the Office of the Ombuds, the Superior Court and the District Court. The executive departments share the Public Records Program at 201 South Jackson Street, Suite 320, 206-263-2250, PRA.Requests@kingcounty.gov; the Sheriff's Public Disclosure Unit answers on 206-263-2103 and the Prosecuting Attorney's records officer on 206-477-3296. The agency has five business days to respond under RCW 42.56.520, inspection is free and paper copies cost 15 cents a page. Court case files are reached through the courts' own rules, not the Act.

Superior Court cases from north and east King County are heard at the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, Seattle, and cases from south King County at the Maleng Regional Justice Center, 401 Fourth Avenue North, Kent; juvenile cases go to the Children and Family Justice Center, 1211 East Alder Street, and involuntary treatment petitions to the ITA Court at Harborview. District Court cases are heard in the East Division (Bellevue, Issaquah, Redmond), the South Division (Auburn, Burien, Kent, Vashon) or the West Division (Seattle, Shoreline), with civil filings taken at Redmond, Burien and Seattle. A ticket or misdemeanor charged by the City of Seattle goes to Seattle Municipal Court, 600 Fifth Avenue. All the addresses are listed above.

Only a family member of the deceased may order an autopsy or investigator report, under RCW 68.50.105, by emailing the office's records request form and a copy of photo identification to admin.meo@kingcounty.gov or mailing them to 325 Ninth Avenue, Box 359792, Seattle, WA 98104-2499. A payment link follows by email or text, with a 2.35 percent card fee or $0.95 for an e-check. A report on a current case takes four to six months, a completed case three to five business days, and an archived case from before 1995 seven to ten business days to locate; an attorney or insurer needs a signed release from the next of kin. Questions go to 206-731-3232, extension 4, weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Inside the City of Seattle, in the Seattle Services Portal, linked above, which searches construction, land use and trade permits, complaints and rental housing registrations by address or record number for the Department of Construction and Inspections at 700 Fifth Avenue. In unincorporated King County, in the King County Permitting Portal, which searches building, engineering, fire and planning permits and inspection results without an account; the Permitting Division at 919 SW Grady Way, Suite 300, Renton, 206-296-6600, holds the paper files and reviews them free of charge. Bellevue, Kent, Redmond and the other 35 cities issue their own permits, and the Parcel Viewer shows which jurisdiction a parcel is in.

The Department of Assessments' eReal Property report, linked among the property sources above, gives the taxpayer name on record, the legal description, the parcel's land and building data, its assessed value and its sales history for any address or parcel number, and the Parcel Viewer map leads to the same report from a point on the map. The deed itself, with the grantor and grantee, is in the Recorder's Office online records search for anything recorded since August 1, 1991, searched by name or parcel number with the images open to view, and earlier deeds are at King County Archives.

On My Voter Information, the King County Elections page linked above, which logs you in with three of your first name, last name, date of birth and house number and shows your registration, your districts, what is on your ballot and where your ballot is, from mailing to counting; ballot alerts by text or email can be set up there. The statewide VoteWA site shows the same registration. Changes of address and registrations are taken by King County Elections at 919 SW Grady Way, Renton, 206-296-VOTE (8683), until eight days before an election by mail or online and in person through Election Day.

Federal civil and criminal cases from King County are filed in the Seattle Division of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, whose Clerk's Office is at 700 Stewart Street, Suite 2310, Seattle, (206) 370-8400, with the public terminal room open weekdays 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; dockets are on PACER. Bankruptcy cases are heard by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District in the same building, with its own case locator on PACER. People in federal custody, including those held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac are found with the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator among the federal sources above.

Through King County Treasury Operations, linked among the property sources above. The online payment system takes an e-check for a $0.55 fee or a card for 2.35 percent with a $2 minimum, by account or parcel number; payments by check go to King County Treasury, 201 South Jackson Street, Suite 710, Seattle, WA 98104, or into the drop box inside King Street Center, and the counter on the second floor is open weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The two halves are due April 30 and October 31, and in 2026 the second half falls due on November 2 because October 31 is a Saturday. Property tax customer service answers on 206-263-2890, and property with taxes three years past due goes to the annual online foreclosure auction.

Each city keeps its own. Seattle's city clerk, police department, permits office and public records portal are among the sources above, and Bellevue, Kent, Kirkland, Renton, Federal Way, Auburn and the other cities outside the Sheriff's contracts police themselves and release their own reports and permits through their city halls. Thirteen cities, among them Burien, Covington, Kenmore, Sammamish, SeaTac, Shoreline and Woodinville, contract with the King County Sheriff's Office for police service, so their reports come from the Sheriff's Public Disclosure Unit. Courts, recorded deeds, birth and death certificates, property values and jail custody stay with the county for every city, and about 250,000 people in the unincorporated areas have the county as their local government.