North Carolina Police Reports: How to Get a Crash or Incident Report

North Carolina splits a police report request into three separate channels depending on what you need. A crash report from a car accident is a Department of Motor Vehicles record, requested through myNCDMV or by mail with form TR-67A, not from the police department that responded to the scene. A general incident report, covering things like a break-in, an assault, or a theft, is a records-unit request to the department or sheriff's office that investigated, governed by North Carolina's public records law. Body-worn camera and dashboard camera footage runs on a third track entirely, with its own disclosure and release rules.

This guide covers all three channels: how to request each one, what it costs, how long it takes, and where North Carolina genuinely limits what the public can obtain.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How to Get a North Carolina Crash Report

North Carolina General Statutes section 20-166.1 states:

The reports made by persons who are not law enforcement officers or medical examiners are not public records. The reports made by law enforcement officers and medical examiners are public records and are open to inspection by the general public at all reasonable times.

That distinction matters. A driver's own written statement about the crash stays confidential, but the responding officer's crash report is a public record, and the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles is the office that furnishes certified copies. That does not make DMV the only source. G.S. 20-166.1(e) closes by providing that nothing in the section prohibits a law enforcement agency from giving the public accident reports, or portions of them, that are public records, and the same subsection lets the officer who wrote the report forward an uncertified copy to the driver's insurer once the certified-copy fee has been paid to the Division. Many North Carolina agencies do release their own crash reports directly, so it is worth asking the investigating department as well.

North Carolina's main crash-report request channel is myNCDMV (payments.ncdot.gov), a portal restricted to North Carolina-based or licensed businesses, such as insurers, attorneys, and private investigators, that meet DMV's permissible-use requirements. That channel returns an unredacted report.

Individual requesters have two paths. In person, DMV provides immediate service for five or fewer records at a License Plate Agency, including the Raleigh Central Services location at 4121 New Bern Ave. and the Huntersville License Plate Agency at 12101 Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road. Larger requests, or requests from out of state, go by mail on form TR-67A. The current form, revised July 1, 2024, directs requesters to make checks payable to NCDMV and to mail the request to the Traffic Records Branch, Crash Reports Unit, 3106 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27697-3106. NCDOT asks requesters to allow 10 business days from receipt for processing. The form lists the Crash Reports Unit at 919-861-3068; DMV's general records line is (919) 715-7000.

Some sources point requesters to a form called DMV-349. The DMV-349 is a real and current North Carolina document, but it is not a request form. It is the crash report itself, the form the investigating officer fills out. NCDOT publishes the DMV-349 Crash Report Form for law enforcement use alongside its code sheets, additional narrative and multi-occupancy pages, a driver exchange form, a crash fatality notification form, and a full instruction manual. TR-67A is the form you use to request a copy of that report.

A certified copy of an accident report costs $6.50, set directly by G.S. 20-42(b). The fee for other certified DMV documents is $16.75 under the same subsection; NCDOT's public crash-reports page does not display these figures itself, but they are fixed by statute rather than left to agency discretion.

How to Get a North Carolina Incident Report

For anything other than a crash, the request goes to the records division of the police department or sheriff's office that investigated, under Chapter 132 of the General Statutes. G.S. 132-1.4(a) withholds the underlying investigative file:

Records of criminal investigations conducted by public law enforcement agencies, records of criminal intelligence information compiled by public law enforcement agencies... are not public records as defined by G.S. 132-1.

That withholding is not absolute. G.S. 132-1.4(c) carves out a specific list of facts that stay public no matter what: the time, date, location, and nature of a reported violation; the name, sex, age, address, employment, and alleged violation of an arrested or charged person; the circumstances of the arrest itself, including whether it involved resistance, weapons, or a pursuit; the name, sex, age, and address of a complaining witness; and the contents of 911 and other emergency calls, with limited exceptions for calls that would identify a caller, victim, or witness, or that came from someone under 18.

North Carolina law allows two narrow, separate ways to withhold pieces of that public list, and they are easy to mix up. Under G.S. 132-1.4(d), an agency must temporarily withhold only the complaining witness's name or address, not the full baseline-facts list above, if releasing it is reasonably likely to threaten the complaining witness's safety or compromise an ongoing investigation. A requester denied on that ground can ask a court to compel disclosure, and the court balances the public's interest in disclosure against the agency's and the alleged victim's interest in withholding it, with no burden assigned to either side. Separately, under G.S. 132-1.4(e), if an agency believes release of the broader (c)(1) through (c)(5) facts, meaning the violation's time, date, and nature, an arrested person's identity, the arrest circumstances, or the emergency-call contents, would jeopardize the state's ability to prosecute, a defendant's right to a fair trial, or an ongoing investigation, the agency can go to court to prevent disclosure, and in that action the agency carries the burden of proving its case by a preponderance of the evidence. There is no statewide online portal for incident reports; requests go directly to the investigating agency's records unit, and North Carolina does not appear to publish a public correction procedure separate from contacting that agency directly.

Body Camera and Dashboard Camera Footage in North Carolina

North Carolina built one of the more detailed body camera access statutes in the country, and it turns on a distinction most other states don't make. G.S. 132-1.4A(b) removes recordings from the public-records and personnel-records categories entirely:

Recordings are not public records as defined by G.S. 132-1. Recordings are not personnel records... Recordings in the custody of a law enforcement agency shall be disclosed only as provided by this section.

From there, the statute splits into disclosure and release.

Disclosure means viewing the footage, at a time and place the agency chooses, without getting a copy. Under subsection (c), only a short list of people can request disclosure: someone whose image or voice is in the recording, a consenting adult's personal representative, the personal representative of a minor or an incapacitated adult, or the personal representative of someone who has died. The agency weighs six factors in deciding whether to disclose: whether the requester is on that eligible list, whether the footage contains other confidential or exempt information, whether disclosure would expose highly sensitive personal information, whether it could harm someone's reputation or safety, whether it would threaten a fair trial or the administration of justice, and whether confidentiality is still needed to protect an investigation. A denial can be appealed to superior court, but the court will only overturn the agency's decision for an abuse of discretion.

Release means getting an actual copy, and North Carolina requires a superior court order for that in every case. The court applies its own set of standards under subsection (g), including whether release is necessary to advance a compelling public interest and whether the requester is seeking evidence to determine legal issues in a current or potential court proceeding, on top of the same privacy and safety considerations the disclosure decision uses. That second standard reaches people gathering evidence before any case is filed, not only parties to a case already underway.

Footage showing a death or serious bodily injury moves on a faster, separate track. A person in that category, or their representative, submits a notarized form to the agency, the agency must petition superior court within three business days, and the court must enter an order within seven business days of that filing, with no filing fee. Recording or redistributing footage obtained this way is a crime, ranging from a misdemeanor for an unauthorized copy up to a felony for knowingly disseminating one.

For more on requesting footage in other states, see our guide to requesting body camera footage and North Carolina's body camera laws page. The UNC School of Government's Coates' Canons blog has additional practitioner-level commentary on how agencies apply this test.

Related Resources

• Police Reports by State covers the full 50-state picture.
• How to file a police report
• How to read a police report
• How to request body camera footage
• Are police reports public records?
• North Carolina body camera laws
• North Carolina car accident laws
• North Carolina public records laws
• North Carolina court records

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about North Carolina's police report and body camera access laws. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Fees, portals, and forms change; confirm current details with the relevant state agency or law enforcement agency before relying on them. Consult a licensed North Carolina attorney about your specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.