To find bankruptcy records, start with PACER, the federal judiciary’s online case system, which lets you search every U.S. bankruptcy court by debtor name or case number for $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per document. If you would rather not pay, you can use the public-access terminals inside any federal courthouse, call the court’s toll-free Voice Case Information System, or check the free RECAP Archive. Older files, generally more than 15 years past case closure, are held by the National Archives. Federal law makes every paper filed in a bankruptcy case and every docket a public record, open to examination at reasonable times without charge, with narrow exceptions for trade secrets and identity-theft risks.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 107 – Public Access to Papers
Searching PACER
The Public Access to Court Electronic Records system covers every federal bankruptcy court and pulls up filings in real time.2United States Courts. Find a Case (PACER) Registration is free and requires basic personal information plus a payment method for billing.
Once you are in, you can search by the debtor’s name or by case number. If you know which court handled the case, go straight to that court’s database. If you don’t, use the PACER Case Locator to run a nationwide search across all federal courts and see whether the person has ever been part of a bankruptcy case.2United States Courts. Find a Case (PACER)
What PACER Costs
Documents run $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per document. The cap covers most filings and case-specific reports. It does not apply to search results pages, non-case-specific reports, or court transcripts, which are billed at $0.10 per page with no ceiling.3United States Courts. Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule Billing is quarterly, and if your charges stay at $30 or less in a quarter, the fees are waived.4PACER: Federal Court Records. PACER Pricing – How Fees Work Casual lookups usually cost nothing.
Free Ways to Pull the Same Records
Every federal courthouse has public-access computer terminals where you can view the same electronic case records for free.3United States Courts. Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule The trade-off is showing up in person.
Every bankruptcy court also runs a toll-free Voice Case Information System, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. By phone you can get the case number, filing date, the debtor’s attorney name and phone number, the assigned judge and trustee, case status, the creditors’ meeting date, the claim deadline, and the discharge date.2United States Courts. Find a Case (PACER) You won’t get the actual documents this way, but it’s the quickest way to confirm someone filed and to lock down the key dates without spending anything.
The RECAP Archive is a third free option. It’s a browser extension that saves PACER documents to a public database as users purchase them. Install it, use PACER normally, and any document you buy is contributed to the archive. In exchange, anything someone else has already bought appears for free inside the PACER interface. The archive holds tens of millions of documents and is fully searchable. Not every filing is in there, but for well-known cases, someone has often already paid for what you need.
Ordering Copies from the Court Clerk
When you need paper copies, a certified document, or would rather deal with a person than a website, contact the bankruptcy court clerk directly. Use the Federal Court Finder on uscourts.gov to identify the right court.5United States Courts. Bankruptcy Case Records and Credit Reporting Having the debtor’s full name and case number ready will save you time.
Clerk fees follow a nationwide schedule set by the Judicial Conference:6United States Courts. Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule
- Paper copies: $0.50 per page
- Record search: $34 per name or item searched
- Certification: $12 per document
- Exemplification: $24 per document
- Audio recording reproduction: $34 per recording
- Retrieval from off-site storage: $70 for the first box, $43 for each additional box, or $11 plus facility charges for electronic retrievals
Certification proves the copy is authentic, which matters if you plan to use it in another legal proceeding or a background check. Exemplification is a step beyond that and is sometimes required when a court record has to be presented in another jurisdiction. Most people looking for general information only need standard uncertified copies.
Older Cases at the National Archives
Once a case is old enough, it leaves the court entirely. Under the judiciary’s records disposition schedule, paper bankruptcy case files are transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration 15 years after the case closes. Cases closed within the last 15 to 20 years are more likely still with the originating court or held at a Federal Records Center.7National Archives. Bankruptcy Case Files at the National Archives at Kansas City
Bankruptcy case files are centralized at the NARA facility in Kansas City, though related court records may sit at other regional archives. Requests go in online, by mail, or by fax using NATF Form 90, which is built specifically for bankruptcy case orders.8National Archives and Records Administration. NATF Form 90 – Bankruptcy Cases – Ordering Instructions
NARA offers several copy packages, and each includes shipping and handling:9National Archives and Records Administration. Bankruptcy Case Files
- Pre-selected documents (petition, schedules, and other key filings): $35
- Entire case file: $90 for up to 150 pages, with a $22 labor charge per 15 minutes beyond that
- Docket sheet: $35
- Certified copies: add $15 per 150-page block to any package above
What You’ll Find in the File
A bankruptcy case file usually opens with the voluntary petition, which identifies the debtor, names the chapter filed under, and gives initial estimates of assets and debts. Alongside the petition sit the schedules: an itemized list of everything the debtor owns and everything they owe, sorted by whether the debt is secured by collateral.10United States Courts. Bankruptcy Forms
The statement of financial affairs is often the most revealing document in the file. It covers recent income, property transfers, lawsuits, payments to creditors, and other financial activity in the run-up to filing.10United States Courts. Bankruptcy Forms For anyone running due diligence on a business partner, a tenant, or an acquisition target, that document maps where the money went.
The rest of the file is the motions, objections, and orders entered as the case moved along, plus the discharge order if one was granted. The discharge is the ruling that legally releases the debtor from personal liability on qualifying debts. Not every case ends with one. Cases that are dismissed, converted to another chapter, or abandoned by the debtor may have no discharge on file, and that distinction matters if you are evaluating someone’s financial history.
When a Case Seems to Be Missing
Public access has limits. Filers are required to redact Social Security and taxpayer ID numbers to the last four digits, use the year of birth rather than the full date, refer to minors by initials, and cut financial account numbers to the last four digits.11Legal Information Institute. Rule 9037 – Protecting Privacy for Filings Beyond that, the court can seal a document or an entire case to protect trade secrets, confidential commercial information, or information whose disclosure would create an undue risk of identity theft.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 107 – Public Access to Papers If a search comes up empty for a filing you are sure was made, a sealed case is one possible explanation.