Public Records

From accident reports to budget documents, vital records that include birth and death certificates, and even property records, Pierce County’s website offers a variety of public records for access by the general public.

The county makes an effort to provide citizens with convenient accessibility to information that is organized on their records request page at https://www.piercecountywa.gov/2711/Making-a-Public-Records-Request. Some documents, however, aren’t available to the public. These includes records like mugshots and hospital records.

It’s important to note that records aren’t all available from the same department. Property records, for instance, are available through the County auditor. These include records like deeds, which are records that show the transfer of ownership rights from one person to another. Other property records available online include tax information and maps, and can be found at https://www.piercecountywa.gov/359/Recorded-Documents.

Permits for businesses are held separately from property documents with the office of public works. The office also holds other documents like parcel and property information. They can be found at https://pals.piercecountywa.gov/palsonline/#/permitSearch.

In addition to these documents, many citizens are interested in meeting notes, which are also known as minutes. The most common minutes are council meeting notes and agendas, which are located at https://www.piercecountywa.gov/4516/Council-Meetings.

Yet other highly-requested documents are birth and death certificates. These will only be available through the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. No matter what type of record you need, citizens can always submit an open records request. Open records are those records that are available to the public because they deal with government issues. By submitting an open records request, you can access documents that may not be readily available online or in person.

The cost for photocopies of public records is fifteen cents per page. It costs an additional 10 cents to turn a document into electronic format. For more information, refer to the Pierce County open records request portal.