How to search Pennsylvania court records

Pennsylvania 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.

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Open the official Pennsylvania portal →

What's actually there

The UJS Web Portal is free and statewide for appellate, criminal Common Pleas, magisterial district and Philadelphia Municipal Court dockets. Common Pleas civil and family cases are not included; those are with each county prothonotary.

Other official lookups for Pennsylvania

• DOC inmate locator

How Pennsylvania's courts are organized

Pennsylvania's courts form one Unified Judicial System. At the base are the minor courts, which the court system calls the people's courts: magisterial district judges in every county, plus the Philadelphia Municipal Court and the Pittsburgh Municipal Court. Criminal cases usually begin there, and preliminary hearings are ordinarily held in these base-level courts. Major civil and criminal cases are heard in the Courts of Common Pleas, which are organized into 60 judicial districts covering the 67 counties.

Above them are two intermediate appellate courts, the Superior Court (which hears appeals from criminal convictions, among other cases) and the Commonwealth Court. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the court of last resort. Appellate dockets are searched separately in the portal using its Appellate option.

Using the official online search

The UJS Web Portal is free and needs no account for public searches. It covers four systems: the appellate courts, the criminal Courts of Common Pleas, the magisterial district courts and the Philadelphia Municipal Court. You can search by participant name, docket number, Offense Tracking Number (OTN), State ID (SID), citation or complaint number, incident number, attorney, date filed and more, and narrow by county, judicial district or magisterial district court office. Docket types include criminal, civil, landlord-tenant, non-traffic, traffic and summary appeals at the magisterial district level.

Results are docket sheets you can view and print, plus public calendars and, for criminal Common Pleas and Philadelphia Municipal Court cases, a Court Summary report that lists a person's cases. A separate secure login gives lawyers and agencies extra detail. The court system warns that docket sheets are not a substitute for a criminal background check, which only the Pennsylvania State Police can provide.

• Common Pleas civil, family and orphans' court cases are not in the portal; those are kept by each county's prothonotary or other filing office.
• Under the statewide public access policy, juror and most witness identifying information in criminal cases is not available online.
• Records under limited access or sealed by court order are withheld from the public.
• Recent entries in local filing offices may not appear right away.

Getting copies and certified copies

Copies come from the office that keeps the file. In the Courts of Common Pleas, criminal files are kept by the county Clerk of Courts and civil files by the Prothonotary; wills and estates are with the Register of Wills and Orphans' Court Clerk. Magisterial district court files are kept at that judge's office. The court system's Individual County Courts page links to each county's offices.

The Unified Judicial System's Case Records Public Access Policy, in effect since January 1, 2022, caps fees for photocopying or printing at 25 cents per page unless another law sets a different fee. Each filing office must post its own fee schedule in the courthouse and on its website, and magisterial district court fees are set by the county's president judge by local rule. Certification fees vary by county and are on those posted schedules.

Records that are not public

Pennsylvania has both expungement and limited access. Under 18 Pa.C.S. 9122, records are expunged when a person is acquitted of all charges (the court gives notice and the expungement happens automatically within 12 months unless the prosecutor shows a partial acquittal), when a person receives an unconditional pardon, and in a few other cases; a person may also petition to expunge a summary offense after five years free of arrest or prosecution, and records may be expunged for someone over 70 who has been arrest-free for ten years since release.

The Clean Slate law, 18 Pa.C.S. 9122.2, automatically puts some records under limited access, meaning they are visible only to criminal justice agencies and certain employers required by law: non-conviction charges, summary convictions after five years, second- and third-degree misdemeanors after seven years without a conviction punishable by a year or more, and some qualifying offenses after ten years, as long as restitution is paid. Under 18 Pa.C.S. 9122.1 a person can also petition for limited access for other misdemeanors and certain lower-grade felonies after seven or ten years. This is a summary of the statutes, not legal advice; talk to a lawyer or contact the court in the county of the case.

Pennsylvania tip: search both levels

Because criminal cases usually start before a magisterial district judge and the serious ones then move to the Court of Common Pleas, the same arrest can show up as two dockets. Search the UJS Portal by participant name across all courts, or by the Offense Tracking Number (OTN) printed on the docket sheet, to see every stage together. The Court Summary report is the quickest one-page view of a person's criminal Common Pleas and Philadelphia Municipal Court cases. For civil lawsuits in Common Pleas, go to the county prothonotary, since those cases are not in the portal.

Sources

• UJS Web Portal — Case Search
• UJS Web Portal — Case Information
• Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania — Public Records
• UJS — Public Records Policies (Case Records Public Access Policy)
• Case Records Public Access Policy, effective January 1, 2022
• UJS — Courts of Common Pleas
• UJS — Common Pleas docket sheets
• UJS — Minor Courts
• UJS — How the Courts Operate
• 18 Pa.C.S. 9122, expungement
• 18 Pa.C.S. 9122.1, petition for limited access
• 18 Pa.C.S. 9122.2, Clean Slate limited access

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 Pennsylvania

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 Pennsylvania court records online?

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

Does this include criminal records?

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

Does one search cover the whole state?

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

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