First Judicial District of Pennsylvania (consolidated city-county). Court of Common Pleas + Municipal Court of Philadelphia. UJS Web Portal covers both. FJD also runs its own docket portal at fjdefile.phila.gov with a separate Family Domestic Relations search.
Guided record check
Run this in order.
Start with the systems most likely to change your read of a person. Then cross-check custody, registries, and paper-trail sources before you go wider.
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01 · The docket layer
Start with courts
2 sources
Run county and statewide court portals first. Civil, criminal, family, and lower-court systems are often separate, so this is where most missed records happen.
Single name search across every court in Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System: Common Pleas (felony, civil, family, probate), Magisterial District Courts (misdemeanors, landlord-tenant, small claims), and the Commonwealth Court. Free public docket sheets returned for all 67 counties.
This is the strongest state-level court tool in the country for our purposes. One search returns felony cases from any PA county AND eviction filings from any Magisterial District Court — the eviction signal is the one people actually try to hide. Always start here before going to a single county.
Local docket search for the First Judicial District: Court of Common Pleas (felony, civil, family, probate) and Municipal Court (misdemeanors, landlord-tenant, small claims, traffic). Searchable by name or docket number. Family Division Domestic Relations is a separate search interface on the same site.
Two layers of court live here. Common Pleas catches felonies and major civil cases. Municipal Court catches the eviction filings and misdemeanor cases that often tell you more about day-to-day behavior than the felony record. The state UJS Portal covers both, but FJD direct returns Family Domestic Relations dockets that the state portal does not always surface.
02 · Current risk signals
Check custody and registries
3 sources
Use jail, corrections, and registry systems to catch records that do not show up in a normal court search.
Statewide locator for state-sentenced inmates and parolees under PADOC supervision. Searchable by name or DOC number. Updated daily. Covers state prisons only — county jails and federal BOP facilities are separate searches.
If someone served state-prison time anywhere in Pennsylvania, this finds them. It will not find someone held in a county jail awaiting trial — for that, you go to the county sheriff. State-DOC custody is the marker of a felony conviction that actually stuck.
Statewide registry of persons convicted of qualifying sexual offenses in Pennsylvania who reside, work, or attend school in the Commonwealth. Searchable by name, address, or zip code. Maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police.
Search this by zip code to see who is registered nearby — useful for vetting a neighborhood, a date's home address, or a shared-custody pickup location. Not every offender is here (the registry has eligibility cutoffs) but everyone here is verified.
Locator for people currently held at any of the four Philadelphia Department of Prisons facilities: Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF), Detention Center, Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC), and Riverside Correctional Facility. Search requires full legal name plus DOB or a Police Identification Number (PID). Pre-trial detainees and people serving short county sentences are here; state prison custody is the separate PADOC locator.
Philadelphia does not have a county sheriff who runs a jail — the Department of Prisons does. This is the right place to find someone awaiting trial in Philadelphia, which is the most common form of custody. The DOB requirement makes it harder to use without identifying information, so have that ready before searching.
03 · Context and corroboration
Pull the paper trail
4 sources
Recorder, assessor, prosecutor, records-request, and licensing sources help verify addresses, liens, ownership, agency records, and local context.
Searchable database of all 580,000+ Philadelphia properties: address, owner name, mailing address, assessed value, market value, latest sale date and price, parcel ID, lot dimensions, and recent valuation history. Search by address, OPA/BRT account number, or city block.
Owner name search works in Philadelphia (unlike California). Use this when you need to confirm someone owns a specific property, or to find what they own across the city by name. The mailing address field is often more current than the property address — useful for finding where a non-resident owner actually lives.
Online index of Philadelphia recorded land documents from 1974 forward: deeds, sheriff deeds, mortgages, satisfaction pieces, and other recorded instruments. Searchable by property address or grantor/grantee name. Free public search returns watermarked unofficial copies; paid subscription required for clean copies. Pre-1974 records are mail or in-person request only at City Hall Room 154.
Free for unofficial watermarked copies; paid subscription for clean copies; $2/page in-person
PhilaDox is the name-searchable layer for Philadelphia property history. If you want to know what someone bought, sold, or borrowed against in Philadelphia, this is the source. The watermarked free search is enough to confirm a transaction happened and read the basic details — only pay for clean copies if you need them for legal use.
Searchable database of every corporation, LLC, partnership, fictitious name, and limited partnership registered in Pennsylvania. Returns entity number, filing date, status, registered office, and (when filed) officers, partners, or fictitious-name owners. Maintained by the Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations.
If a partner or vendor claims to own a Pennsylvania business, search here first. The state's database is the only authoritative answer to "is this entity real and in good standing." Officer names are often listed, which is how you cross-check who actually controls the company.
Pennsylvania's public records law presumes all state and local government records are public. Each agency must designate an Open Records Officer who must respond within 5 business days. The Office of Open Records (OOR) handles appeals when an agency denies a request. Standard RTK Request Form is available on the OOR site.
Free to request and to appeal; agencies may charge duplication fees
Use this when a record exists but is not in any online portal — older case files, internal agency documents, anything from a small jurisdiction. Free to file, free to appeal. Address the request to the agency's Open Records Officer, not OOR (OOR only hears appeals).
04 · Outside the county
Run the federal backstop
3 sources
Federal court and incarceration systems sit outside local portals. Run them before you decide the search is clean.
Federal District, Appeals, and Bankruptcy courts. Over 1 billion documents filed. $0.10/page (capped at $3.00/document); free if quarterly charges under $30. Account required for search. Confirmed live 2026-05-03.
PACER catches federal cases the state DOC and state courts will not. Account required, small per-search fees. Worth using for white-collar, federal drug, immigration, and bankruptcy.
All federal prison inmates, current and historical from 1982. Search by name (with race/sex/age filters) or inmate number. Note: search backend showed intermittent error during 2026-05-03 verification — likely temporary. If main tool is down, try https://www.bop.gov/mobile/find_inmate/byname.jsp as fallback.
All 50 states aggregated, plus DC, US territories, and tribal nations. Search by name or location. DOJ-operated. Named after Dru Sjodin. Also links to abuse reporting resources. Confirmed live 2026-05-03.