How to search Hawaii court records

Hawaii runs a single statewide case-lookup system, so one search — with the name spelled correctly — reaches courts across the entire state. There's no charge and no account required — results are visible to anyone who searches.

statewide free criminal data

Open the official Hawaii portal →

What's actually there

eCourt Kokua: free search by name, case number, citation, license plate or VIN across traffic, criminal, civil, family (not juvenile), land/tax and appellate cases. Dockets are free; document copies are $3 each or by subscription.

Other official lookups for Hawaii

Hawaii criminal justice data (fee)

How Hawaii's courts are organized

Hawaii runs a single, state-funded court system with no county or city courts. Trial courts are split into four judicial circuits by island: the First Circuit is O'ahu, the Second covers Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i, the Third is Hawai'i Island, and the Fifth is Kaua'i. There is no Fourth Circuit listed today.

Circuit Courts are the general-jurisdiction trial courts. They alone hear felony cases, probate and guardianship, and civil cases where more than $40,000 is at stake, and they hold jury trials. District Courts handle traffic infractions, offenses punishable by up to one year in jail, felony probable-cause hearings, civil claims up to $40,000, landlord-tenant summary possession cases of any amount, and small claims up to $5,000. Family Courts handle divorce, custody, juvenile and domestic matters. The Land Court and Tax Appeal Court are specialized courts. Appeals go to the Intermediate Court of Appeals and then the Hawaii Supreme Court.

The Judiciary's online search, eCourt Kokua, reaches all of these levels: traffic, District, Circuit and Family Court criminal and civil cases, Land Court, Tax Appeal Court, the Intermediate Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Searching eCourt Kokua

eCourt Kokua was relaunched with a new interface in May 2026. Searching is free and needs no account; you accept a disclaimer, and the site may show a Google reCAPTCHA check if your activity looks unusual. Results load 200 at a time.

Viewing the docket is free. Buying a copy of a public document online costs $3 for 1 to 30 pages plus $0.10 for each page over 30, or you can buy a subscription ($125 a quarter or $500 a year) for unlimited downloads of documents that show a PDF icon. Payments are non-refundable. Public terminals at the courthouses let you view records on screen for free.

Party search: by last and first name (with optional phonetic and partial-match options), company or government agency name, or Party ID. Picking a Party ID lists every public case tied to that person or business.
Vehicle search: traffic cases by license plate (with state) or VIN.
Case search: by case ID or citation number, or by filing date.
Upcoming hearings: by case ID or by court location.
Not included: confidential, juvenile and sealed cases. Some older documents were never imaged; the Judiciary lists cutoffs such as District Court civil filings before 10/07/2019, Circuit Court civil before 10/28/2019, Land and Tax Appeal before 11/18/2019, and Family Court civil before 04/25/2022.
Parties to a case can register for JEFS, the Judiciary's electronic filing system, which gives them free access to documents in their own cases.

Getting copies or certified copies

eCourt Kokua lets you buy certified copies online without visiting a courthouse. For paper or older records, contact the records office of the court that handled the case. On O'ahu, Circuit Court records come from the Legal Documents Branch at Ka'ahumanu Hale, 777 Punchbowl Street (808-539-4300); Family Court records from the Legal Documents Branch at the Kapolei courthouse (808-954-8310); District Court paper and audio records from Legal Documents Branch 2 at Kauikeaouli Hale, 1111 Alakea Street (808-538-5149); and traffic records from the Traffic Violations Bureau (808-538-5100).

The Judiciary's fee schedule (form 1C-P-856, under HRS 607-5) lists: $1.00 for the first page and $0.50 for each additional page, $1.00 a page for microfilmed records, $2.00 per document for certification, $5.00 per name for a clerk search, $10.00 for an audio copy or electronic copy of a document, and $10.00 extra for a rush request. Written requests are billed with certification unless you write that you do not need it. Clerk name searches cover 1984 to the present unless you ask otherwise and match exact names only, so list any other spellings.

Records that are not public

Sealed, confidential and juvenile cases are kept out of eCourt Kokua. Hawaii's main record-clearing law, HRS 831-3.2, lets the Department of the Attorney General expunge arrest records that did not end in a conviction. You apply to the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. Some cases must wait, for example one year after discharge from a deferred acceptance of a guilty or no-contest plea under chapter 853, and some are barred, such as felony or misdemeanor arrests where bail was forfeited. The Data Center lists a $35 fee for a first expungement and $50 after that, and says processing takes about 120 days.

Since July 1, 2025, the Judiciary says the Attorney General's process also removes the related court records in one step; people who got an expungement certificate earlier had to ask the court separately. A small set of convictions can be expunged only by court order, including first-time drug offender sentences under HRS 706-622.5. This is a summary, not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer or one of the Judiciary's Access to Justice Rooms and Self-Help Centers, where volunteer attorneys and Legal Aid staff help people without lawyers in civil cases.

Tip: reading a Hawaii case number

The first digit of a Hawaii case number is the circuit (1 for O'ahu, 2 for Maui County, 3 for Hawai'i Island, 5 for Kaua'i). Criminal cases filed since January 23, 2017 and civil cases filed since October 7, 2019 use a short hyphenated form such as 1CCV-19-1. Older migrated cases need the full 12-character ID with leading zeros, so case 8 becomes 1CU000000008. If you only know a name, start with Party search; if you have a traffic ticket, the citation number or license plate is usually faster.

Sources

Checked against the official sources above in October 2026. Court rules and fees change; the court's own site is the final word. This is general information, not legal advice.

Federal cases filed in Hawaii

State portals don't cover federal court. If the case you're looking for might be a federal criminal prosecution, civil suit, or bankruptcy, use CourtRecordsFree's live federal search — it queries CourtListener/RECAP directly and isn't limited to any one state.

Search tips

Try both "Last, First" and "First Last" — courts index names inconsistently.
Middle initials and suffixes (Jr., III) often matter for common names.
A date of birth or case number is the only reliable way to confirm you found the right person.
An arrest or charge shown in a docket is not a conviction — read the disposition.

Frequently asked questions

Is it free to search Hawaii court records online?

Yes. Hawaii's statewide search is free to use, with no account or subscription required.

Does this include criminal records?

Yes. Hawaii's portal includes criminal case records alongside civil cases, though sealed and expunged cases are not shown.

Does one search cover the whole state?

Hawaii runs one statewide system, so a single search covers the whole state.

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