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About This Page
Government databases come and go, get redesigned, get renamed, get folded into bigger portals. We update this page whenever a major federal or state record source launches, gets a substantial redesign, or moves to a new URL. That is usually monthly, sometimes more often when something important happens (PACER's multifactor log in, the beneficial ownership rule changes).
Everything listed below is a government source. We do not list paid lookup services, data brokers, or "people search" sites that repackage public data and charge for it. If you see a new portal worth adding, the submission link at the bottom of the page goes straight to us.
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Federal Court & Legal Records
PACER now asks for multifactor authentication at log in, and the PACER Case Locator searches every federal court at once for a party name, at the regular PACER fee of $0.10 per page. Beneficial ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act no longer covers U.S. companies: FinCEN's final rule of August 2026 made the March 2025 exemption permanent, and reports already filed sit in a non-public FinCEN database, so they are not a source for asset searches.
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Property & Land Records
FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer holds the current federal flood map data, the source of the flood zone on official flood maps. The Bureau of Land Management's land records portal handles federal surface and mineral ownership records, useful if you are researching federal lease history, mining claims, or grazing rights on federal land.
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Background Check & Identity Resources
The FTC publishes a Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book each year, a national count of fraud and identity theft reports by type, state and dollar loss. IdentityTheft.gov is the FTC's site for reporting identity theft and getting a recovery plan.
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Voter & Election Records
Vote.gov is the official federal voter-registration portal and sends you to your state's registration page for the state you pick. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission publishes nonpartisan data on voter turnout, election administration, and certified election equipment.
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State-Level Additions
State-level changes happen too often to list individually, but every month we update the state directory pages with new portal URLs, redesigned interfaces, and any agencies that have been merged or split. The state directory link below is the live, updated index.
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What we don't add
We get requests every week to add commercial people search sites, paid background check services, premium public records databases and data brokers. We do not link to any of them. A source belongs on this page only if it is a government office, a court or a public library. If a site charges for basic public records or resells free government data, it is not listed.
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Submit a New Source
Know of a government database or official public record portal we haven't listed? We review all submissions and add qualifying sources within 30 days.