To get a copy of your own mugshot, submit a records request to the law enforcement agency that booked you. That is almost always a city police department, a county sheriff’s office, or a federal agency such as the U.S. Marshals Service, the DEA, or the FBI. The request process, the fees, and the law that governs release all depend on which of those three levels arrested you, so the first job is figuring out where the photo lives.
Which Agency Has Your Mugshot
The agency that arrested and booked you keeps the original booking photo as part of your arrest record. City police booked you? The department’s records division holds it. County jail? The sheriff’s office. If you were arrested by one agency but the case ended up in a different county or court, the booking photo still sits with the original arresting agency, not with the court.
Many states also feed booking data into a central criminal records repository run by the state police or department of public safety. Those state-level databases exist, but access is usually tighter than at the local level, and you may be asked to submit fingerprints or notarized identity verification before the state releases anything.
For federal arrests, the booking photo lives in the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system, which includes an Interstate Photo System containing more than 30 million criminal mugshot images.1Federal Bureau of Investigation. Next Generation Identification (NGI) The public cannot search that database. Getting a federal booking photo requires going to the specific federal agency that arrested you.
If you honestly don’t know which agency made the arrest, call the clerk of the court where your case was handled. They can tell you.
Requesting Your Mugshot From Local or State Police
Once you know which agency to contact, file a public records request. Every state has an open-records or freedom-of-information law, and most agencies publish a standard form or an online portal for these requests.
Include as much identifying information as you can:
- Your full legal name
- Date of birth
- Approximate date of arrest
- Any booking number or case number you have
- The name of the arresting agency and the location of the booking
Missing information is the single most preventable reason requests stall. A booking number in particular lets records staff pull your file in minutes instead of hunting through date ranges.
Response times vary by state. About 39 states set mandatory deadlines, ranging from three business days to 20. The remaining states require only that agencies respond “promptly” or within a “reasonable” time, which in practice can stretch into weeks. If your request goes unanswered past the deadline, follow up in writing and cite the state records law by name.
Some states restrict release when the arrest didn’t result in a conviction. If charges against you were dropped, dismissed, or ended in acquittal, the agency in some jurisdictions can refuse to release the photo on privacy grounds. That restriction cuts both ways: it can block your own request, though it also limits what strangers can pull about you.
Requesting Your Mugshot From a Federal Agency
Federal booking photos take a different route, and the choice of route matters. There are two options, and one is significantly better than the other for getting your own photo.
Use the Privacy Act, Not FOIA
The federal Privacy Act gives you the right to access any record a federal agency maintains about you and to obtain a copy.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 5 – 552a Booking photos are covered. Send a written request to the agency that arrested you, verify your identity (usually a signature, date of birth, and a copy of a government-issued ID), and ask specifically for the booking photograph.3eCFR. 10 CFR 9.54
FOIA is the other federal tool, but for mugshots it usually fails. FOIA applies only to federal executive-branch agencies, not to state or local governments and not to courts or Congress.4FOIA.gov. Freedom of Information Act – How to Make a FOIA Request More importantly, the Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have all recognized a privacy interest in booking photos, meaning federal agencies routinely deny FOIA mugshot requests under the law-enforcement privacy exemption. The Privacy Act sidesteps that problem because you are requesting your own record, not someone else’s. If a FOIA request for your own mugshot comes back denied on privacy grounds, resubmit it as a Privacy Act request.
The FBI Identity History Summary
The FBI runs a separate formal process called an Identity History Summary Check for individuals who want their own criminal record. It requires fingerprints and a fee, and it returns your entire rap sheet rather than just a booking photo. If the mugshot itself is all you need, a targeted Privacy Act request to the specific arresting agency is faster and cheaper.
What It Costs
Local agency fees run from a few dollars for a straightforward printout up to $50 or more when staff have to search older or archived records. Some agencies charge per page, others charge a flat processing fee, and a few provide digital copies at no cost through their online portals.
Federal FOIA requests have no filing fee. The agency can charge for search time and duplication, but individual requesters generally get the first two hours of search time and the first 100 pages free.5FOIA.gov. Freedom of Information Act – Frequently Asked Questions A single booking photo won’t come close to those thresholds, so many individual federal requests cost nothing. You can also cap your request at a specific dollar amount in the request letter, and the agency must notify you before exceeding it.
If the agency requires a notarized signature on your identity verification, add roughly $10 to $15 for a notary. That fee catches people off guard when they mail a request.
When Your Request Gets Denied
A records request isn’t guaranteed to succeed. A few reasons come up repeatedly:
- Active investigation. If your case is still open, most jurisdictions let the agency withhold booking records until the investigation closes. Pushing back rarely works before resolution.
- Non-conviction restrictions. A growing number of states limit public release of mugshots tied to arrests that didn’t produce a conviction. Ask what identity verification will unlock your own copy even under these rules.
- Federal privacy exemption. FOIA denials for mugshots are common. Switch to a Privacy Act request.
- Split jurisdictions. An arrest in one county with prosecution in another, or a case with both state and federal charges, may require separate requests to each agency involved.
- Incomplete requests. Missing a booking number, date of birth, or adequate ID verification will stall the process.
A denial letter must cite the specific legal basis for the refusal. State records laws almost always include an appeal process, and federal FOIA denials can be appealed inside the agency before going to court. Read the denial closely, because the cited exemption usually points to what you’d need to change or provide to succeed on a second try.
Court Records as a Fallback
Court records are sometimes an alternative when the arresting agency won’t release the photo. Federal court records are available through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system or at the clerk’s office where the case was filed.6United States Courts. Court Records State and county courts run their own systems, many searchable online.
The limit: court files don’t always contain the booking photo. Mugshots live in the arrest record, not the court file, and only end up in court documents when they were introduced as evidence or attached to a filing. Call the clerk before you spend time on this route. If the photo isn’t in the file, the clerk can usually direct you to the agency that has it.
Check Online Booking Logs First
Before filing anything, look at the arresting agency’s website. Many police departments and, especially, county sheriff’s offices post booking photos online, searchable by name or booking date. When your photo is already published on an official agency page, that’s the fastest and cheapest copy you’ll get, and it’s an authentic source you can point to later if anyone questions where the image came from.
Third-party mugshot aggregator sites are a separate category. They scrape booking photos from public sources and republish them, often paired with the arrested person’s name. Some are free, some charge download fees, and the reliability of what they host is uneven. If you need the mugshot for a legal proceeding or any official purpose, get it from the original agency. An attorney or a court can question the authenticity of a copy pulled from an aggregator, and the underlying record may have been updated or restricted since the scrape.