Ohio Court Records: How to Search by County, What's Public, and Sealing

This article covers how to search Ohio court records, which is a county-by-county process rather than a single statewide search, what's public under Ohio's court rules, and how Ohio's sealing and expungement remedies work after a 2023 overhaul. It does not cover other states; for those, see the Court Records by State hub.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How to Search Ohio Court Records

Ohio is a genuinely fragmented state for court-record search. There is no site where you type a name once and see every Ohio case; instead, each of the state's 88 counties runs its own Clerk of Courts system, and interfaces, search fields, and cost vary by county.

Fragmentation is not the whole picture, though. Ohio Revised Code 2303.12 sets a statutory floor beneath the county systems. Division (B) requires the clerk of the court of common pleas to keep the appearance docket, trial docket, journal, execution docket, and the case files themselves. Division (D)(1)(a), added effective April 6, 2023, goes further: within eighteen months of that date, each clerk had to make the court's general docket available online for remote access and printing by the public, including all individual documents in each case file, for civil cases filed on or after April 6, 2023. A later amendment extends the same requirement to criminal cases, on its own eighteen-month clock running from that amendment's effective date.

Two carve-outs matter to a searcher. Division (D)(2) does not require a clerk to post the general docket of a domestic relations division or a juvenile court, or, where a court has no domestic relations division, the general docket in civil domestic relations cases. Division (E) keeps internal judicial work product, meaning notes, emails, drafts, recommendations, advice, and research of judicial officers and court staff, along with anything the court has ordered access-restricted under the Rules of Superintendence, off the online docket. So what varies from county to county is the interface, the fields, and the fees, not whether a recent civil docket has to be online at all.

Two of the state's largest counties illustrate the pattern. Franklin County (Columbus) runs Case Information Online, known as CIO, through the Clerk of Courts. CIO covers criminal and civil cases filed in the General Division of the Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations cases filed in the Domestic Relations Division, and appellate cases filed in the 10th District Court of Appeals. The Clerk's own policy states plainly that the information in CIO does not constitute the official record and is only considered a copy, so a discrepancy gets resolved by checking the official court file at the courthouse, not by trusting the online result.

Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) runs its own Case Records Search System through its Clerk of Courts, described on its own site as select public records maintained by the Clerk of Courts, offered as a convenience to the public. As with Franklin County, the Clerk's terms note that documents in the system are not the official public records, and recommend verifying anything important against the office's own records at 1200 Ontario Street in Cleveland.

For any other Ohio county, including Hamilton County (Cincinnati), the starting point is that county's own Clerk of Courts website; search the county name plus "clerk of courts" rather than assuming a single statewide tool exists. Cost, search fields, and how far back records go are set by each county individually, so do not assume one county's rules apply to another.

What's Public and What's Restricted

Ohio's Rules of Superintendence, specifically Sup.R. 45, set the baseline: court records are presumed open to public access, covering both case documents and administrative documents filed in a judicial proceeding. A clerk must acknowledge an access request promptly and respond within a reasonable time.

To restrict access, someone has to file a written motion, and a court can only grant it on clear-and-convincing evidence that the presumption of access is outweighed by a higher interest. Judges weigh factors including whether public policy supports restriction, whether a state, federal, or common-law exemption applies, and whether privacy, safety, or fair-trial concerns justify closure. Ohio's rule also pushes courts toward the least restrictive option before sealing an entire document, such as redacting sensitive lines, limiting remote access while still allowing in-person viewing at the courthouse, or replacing names with initials.

Certain categories sit outside the general presumption of openness by default: personal identifiers like Social Security and bank-account numbers, judicial officers' own notes and drafts, juvenile dependency and abuse records, health-care documents filed in a case, and financial disclosure statements filed in domestic relations matters.

Sealing and Expungement After SB 288

Ohio Senate Bill 288, effective April 4, 2023, is the biggest change to this area of Ohio law in years, and it created a real terminology split that did not exist before. Ohio now recognizes both sealing, where the record is hidden from public view but retained by the court, and expungement, where the record is destroyed, as distinct remedies for adult conviction records under Ohio Revised Code 2953.32.

Before SB 288, a person could only petition to seal a limited number of convictions under a category called "eligible offender," capped by prior-conviction count. SB 288 widened that definition considerably, but it did not take counting out of the analysis. Revised Code 2953.32(A)(1)(h) still bars relief for a third-degree felony if the offender has more than one other conviction of any felony, or, where the person has exactly two third-degree felony convictions, has more convictions in total than those two plus two misdemeanor convictions. Division (A)(3) then supplies the counting rules, treating convictions that arose from the same act, or from the same indictment, plea, or proceeding for related acts committed within a three-month window, as a single conviction.

The permanently excluded categories in Revised Code 2953.32(A)(1) are also broader than most people expect, and several of them catch ordinary cases. The sealing and expungement provisions do not apply to convictions under Revised Code Chapters 4506, 4507, 4510, 4511, or 4549, which sweep in traffic, OVI, and driver-licence offenses, or to substantially similar municipal ordinance violations. They do not apply to felony offenses of violence that are not sexually oriented offenses, to any felony of the first or second degree, to violations of Revised Code 2921.41, or to domestic violence convictions under Revised Code 2919.25 that are misdemeanors of the first or second degree. The sexually-oriented-offense exclusion is narrower than a flat ban: it applies where the offender is subject to the registration requirements of Chapter 2950. A separate exclusion covers offenses where the victim was less than thirteen years of age, except for convictions under Revised Code 2919.21. Where relief is available, the waiting period runs from the offender's final discharge and varies by offense level.

One thing SB 288 did not do is make any of this automatic. Nothing in Revised Code Chapter 2953 seals or expunges an adult conviction record on its own. Revised Code 2953.32(B)(1) provides that an eligible offender may apply to the sentencing court, and the parallel routes work the same way: Revised Code 2953.33, covering records after a not-guilty finding, a dismissal, a no bill, or a pardon, is likewise an application to the court. The closest thing to relief a person does not file themselves is Revised Code 2953.39, under which a prosecutor may move to seal or expunge certain low-level controlled-substance convictions, and that is still a motion somebody files and a judge rules on. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation acts only afterward: it updates or destroys its own copy once it receives notice of the court's order. If you want an Ohio conviction sealed or expunged, someone has to file an application.

This article covers the shape of the law, not your specific eligibility. For current waiting periods and the excluded-offense list as they apply to your situation, see Ohio Expungement Laws.

Certified Copies and Practical Search Tips

Certified copies come from the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in the county where the case was filed, which follows the same county-by-county pattern as the search itself. Search fields also vary by county; some support name and case-number search on the same page, others split them. Because there is no single Ohio-wide answer, check the specific county's Clerk of Courts site for its own instructions before assuming a search method that worked in one county will work in another.

Using This Information the Right Way

Ohio's county-by-county structure makes false negatives especially easy: a clean result from one county's clerk system tells you nothing about a case filed in a different county. If you are screening a job applicant or tenant, a single county's online search is not a complete, Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant background check, and a people-search aggregator that claims to search "Ohio" in one query should be treated with real skepticism given how fragmented the underlying data actually is.

Related reading: Court Records by State, How to Look Up Court Records, Are Court Records Public?, Ohio Background Check Laws, Ohio Warrant Search, and Ohio Public Records Laws for records held by executive-branch agencies rather than the courts.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about Ohio court records, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Portal names, coverage, and fee information reflect their published status as of the verification date above, can vary further by county, and can change without notice. For advice about a specific case, sealing eligibility, or a specific record, consult a lawyer licensed in Ohio.

Last updated: 2026-08-10. Portal facts and fees reflect their published status as of August 2026.