Tennessee Police Report: How to Get a Crash Report, Incident Report, or Body Camera Video

Most Tennessee crash reports come from one place: the state's online purchase system, purchasetncrash.gov, run by the Department of Safety and Homeland Security. The department says crashes investigated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, as well as by local police and sheriff departments, should appear there within seven business days, and city agencies such as Metro Nashville Police route their own crash requests to the same portal. If the responding agency does not send its reports to the portal, the request goes to that agency's records unit instead.

Tennessee's body camera law also carries a currency trap worth knowing about directly. The statute that makes certain bodycam video confidential, TCA 10-7-504(u), was written with a built-in sunset date, and a shallow read of the text alone will show it as expired. It is not. The Tennessee General Assembly extended that sunset before it took effect, and the provision remains live law through July 1, 2027.

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

Getting a Copy of a Tennessee Crash Report

A Tennessee crash report is purchased online through purchasetncrash.gov, run by the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security. The online price is $10, paid by credit card. Requesters who prefer to pay by cashier's check, money order, or personal check can request a copy in person or by mail instead, for $4, by writing to the Financial Responsibility Division, PO Box 945, Nashville, TN 37202-0945. TCA 55-10-108(d) sets that $4 figure for a written request to the commissioner of safety and for copies pulled at a Tennessee Highway Patrol district office.

Eligibility is broad: any driver, owner, or passenger involved in the crash, or their agent or legal representative, can request the report. The Department of Safety says reports should be available online within seven business days of the crash, and district office copies generally follow a similar timeline.

The $4 in-person and mail channel is the one restricted to crashes the Tennessee Highway Patrol investigated. The $10 online portal is broader. The department's own announcement of the system says crashes investigated by THP as well as by local police and sheriff departments should be available online, and Metro Nashville Police tells Nashville drivers to get their crash reports there. Where an agency does not send its reports to the portal, the state's instructions present contacting that agency as an additional route rather than a substitute, so it is worth searching the portal first and calling the responding department only if nothing comes back.

Two different statutes get mixed together when people talk about what a Tennessee crash report is good for, and the difference matters before a car accident claim leans on one. TCA 55-10-114(a) covers accident reports "made by any person or by garages," meaning the self-filed driver and garage reports, and makes those confidential to the department and other state agencies for accident-prevention purposes. TCA 55-10-114(b) then bars "reports or information mentioned in this section" from being used as evidence in a trial arising out of an accident. Both provisions are limited to that category of report.

The investigating officer's report, which is the document sold through purchasetncrash.gov, is a different record governed by TCA 55-10-108. Subsection (d) says the officer's report "shall not be considered confidential within the meaning of § 55-10-114(a)," and subsection (f)(1) says it "is open to public inspection as a public record under the public records laws compiled in title 10, chapter 7," apart from the personally identifying information carved out by TCA 10-7-504(a)(31). Section 55-10-108 contains no parallel bar on using that report as evidence, so whether a particular crash report is admissible is an evidentiary question for the court under the ordinary rules, not something TCA 55-10-114 decides.

Section 55-10-108 does restrict what the report can be used for. Under subsection (f)(2), knowingly using the report or the information in it for solicitation prohibited by the standards of a state-licensed profession is a Class B misdemeanor carrying a $2,500 fine per occurrence, and the same penalty applies to misrepresenting your identity on a request for personally identifying information.

Getting a Copy of a Tennessee Police Incident Report

A general incident report, meaning a record of an arrest, a theft, or any other police response that is not a traffic crash, is requested from the records unit of the department that responded. Tennessee's baseline public-records framework is the Tennessee Public Records Act. The right of access itself comes from TCA 10-7-503; the separate catalogue of confidentiality exceptions sits at TCA 10-7-504.

That access right is narrower than most states' in one way that regularly catches out-of-state requesters. TCA 10-7-503(a)(2)(A) opens state, county, and municipal records "for personal inspection by any citizen of this state," and says those in charge of the records "shall not refuse such right of inspection to any citizen." TCA 10-7-505(a) then gives the court petition over a denial to "any citizen of Tennessee" only. A Tennessee agency can lawfully decline a records request from someone who is not a Tennessee citizen, and a non-citizen who is refused has no enforcement action under the Act. Practice varies widely, and plenty of departments fill out-of-state requests without asking, but anyone outside Tennessee should plan for the question and consider requesting through a Tennessee attorney or representative.

TCA 10-7-504 is also easy to over-read. Its subsection (a)(2)(A) makes certain investigative records confidential, but the scope is narrower than it looks: it covers the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and a short list of named state agencies and divisions, not a blanket shield for every city or county police department's investigative file. A local department's incident reports are generally treated as public records under the Act's default rule unless a specific exception applies, though an active investigation can still support withholding parts of a file case by case.

Tennessee Body Camera Video: The 2027 Sunset, Explained

Tennessee's bodycam confidentiality rule sits inside the same omnibus statute as the general records exemptions, at TCA 10-7-504(u). Read the raw statutory text and it looks expired: the original language enacted in 2017 (Public Chapter 255) said the provision was "deleted on July 1, 2022, and shall no longer be effective on and after such date." That sunset clause is exactly what it says on paper, but it never actually took effect.

Before July 1, 2022 arrived, the Tennessee General Assembly passed Public Chapter 916 of 2022 (HB1957), signed into law and effective April 27, 2022. It extended the repeal date from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2027, and at the same time expanded the categories of confidential video to add footage depicting a minor in a child care agency, preschool, or nursery school, alongside the K-12 school setting already covered. TCA 10-7-504(u) is current law through that 2027 date, not an expired pilot provision.

Under the current text, bodycam video is treated as confidential and not subject to public inspection where it depicts a minor in a K-12 school or a licensed child care agency, preschool, or nursery school; the interior of a licensed health, mental health, or rehabilitation facility; or the interior of a private residence not under criminal investigation. Do not confuse this with the separate, unrelated sunset on TCA 10-7-504(a)(4)(H), a different provision covering a minor student's school-resource-officer record with its own 2026 date. They are different subsections governing different records.

For the broader access framework and a state-by-state comparison, see How to Request Body Cam Footage and Tennessee Body Camera Laws.

Related Resources

Police Reports by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to File a Police Report, How to Read a Police Report, Are Police Reports Public?, Tennessee Body Camera Laws, Tennessee Car Accident Laws, Tennessee Public Records Laws, and Tennessee Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request police crash reports, incident reports, and body camera video in Tennessee. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and statutes change; confirm current details with purchasetncrash.gov, the responding agency, or a Tennessee attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.