Quebec Court Records: How to Search Court Files, Plumitifs, and Decisions

Quebec splits court-record access into three tiers: checking whether a case exists and reading its plumitif (docket) entries is free and self-serve at any courthouse, ordering copies of the documents in a court file costs $3.85 per page for the first 10 pages and $0.60 per page after that under the tariff current as of January 1, 2026, and searching or pulling dockets remotely without visiting a courthouse requires a paid SOQUIJ Portail subscription, while a separate free tool, citoyens.soquij.qc.ca, searches published court and tribunal decisions at no cost.

Information last verified on 2026-08-15. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Quebec's Three Levels of Court

Quebec's court system has three main levels. The Cour d'appel du Québec is the province's highest court and hears appeals from the Cour supérieure and the Cour du Québec. The Cour supérieure (Superior Court) has jurisdiction throughout the province and sits in every judicial district; it handles civil claims of $100,000 or more (and, at the applicant's election, claims between $75,000 and $99,999.99), class actions, probate, injunctions, judicial review of decisions from other Quebec courts, divorce, custody and support matters, and criminal cases tried by judge and jury. The Cour du Québec (Court of Quebec) handles civil, criminal, and penal matters below the Superior Court's threshold, along with adoption and emancipation applications.

Its structure includes a Youth Chamber, a Criminal and Penal Chamber (including the Division on Accusations in a Conjugal and Sexual Context), and a Civil Chamber that is itself split into a Regular Division, a Small Claims Division, and an Administrative and Appeal Division. That breakdown is corroborated independently by the court-filter list built into Quebec's own citizen decision-search tool, citoyens.soquij.qc.ca, which offers the same chamber names as filter options.

Free: Looking Up a Case and Its Plumitif

In Quebec, court records in civil, criminal, and penal matters are generally public, and no authorization is required to consult one, according to the government's own court-record page. The plumitif, the court's docket or ledger showing the steps taken in a file, can be checked for free at self-serve consultation workstations in every Quebec courthouse. Info Justice Centers also offer plumitif access along with help interpreting what an entry means, and older court archives can be consulted through BAnQ (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec).

Access can be denied where a record is confidential or restricted, and the criminal ledger specifically excludes records involving pardons, acquittals, dismissed charges, stays of proceedings, and discharges.

Fee-Bearing: Getting a Copy of the Actual Court File

Looking up whether a case exists is free. Getting an actual copy of a document inside that file, a pleading, a judgment, an exhibit, is a separate request that costs money. The process is to complete the Request for Copies form (SJ-1079), file it at the registry of the courthouse where the file is physically open, and pay the required fee. Some courthouses offer alternative procedures for this, so it is worth checking that courthouse's own services page first.

As of January 1, 2026, the government's tariff sets the fee at $3.85 per page for the first 10 pages of a document and $0.60 per page for every page after that. An older figure that still circulates, $3.20 per page, is out of date; the January 2026 tariff page is the current authoritative rate.

Paid Remote Access: The SOQUIJ Portail

For someone who does not want to drive to a courthouse for every search, SOQUIJ offers a paid professional Portail. It costs $15 per access code per month, capped at $290 per month, with additional fees charged when documents are actually consulted. The subscription bundles four products: legal research (case law, legislation, and doctrine), Plumitifs (remote docket search), notices of forced execution, and an annotated edition of the Youth Protection Act. Free training, technical support, and a newsletter are included.

The Plumitifs product specifically covers more than 24 million civil, criminal, and penal court records and aggregates judicial information from Quebec's municipal courts in one place. That remote, instant, cross-courthouse search is exactly what the free public option does not offer. Quebec's free tier is walk-in only; the one thing SOQUIJ charges for is the convenience of not walking in. Contrast this with a portal-based system like court records in Ontario, where free online search is the default and the fee applies only to copies, not to the search itself.

Free: Searching Published Decisions

A fourth, separate tool exists for a different question: not what happened procedurally in a case, but what a court or tribunal actually decided. citoyens.soquij.qc.ca is a free, no-login search engine for published decisions, covering the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal and Federal Court, the Cour d'appel du Québec, the Cour supérieure, every chamber of the Cour du Québec, the Tax Court of Canada, Quebec's municipal courts, and a long list of provincial administrative tribunals. Search runs by keyword, using ET/OU/SAUF (and/or/except) boolean operators, or by browsing decisions month by month.

This is not the plumitif and it is not a substitute for it. citoyens.soquij.qc.ca returns published judgments, not the day-to-day docket of a still-open file. Coverage runs from decisions rendered since January 1, 2000; the site's own navigation references a separate help topic for decisions issued before that date, though the exact steps for reaching an older decision were not confirmed here.

Who Runs SOQUIJ

SOQUIJ (the Société québécoise d'information juridique) is not a private legal publisher and not a court registry. It is a government-mandated body created under an act of Quebec's National Assembly, reporting to the province's Minister of Justice, with a statutory mission to promote the quality and accessibility of legal information for the public's benefit. Founded in 1976, SOQUIJ is self-financing: revenue from its paid professional products, including the Portail, funds the organization and, with it, the free public tools it also runs, including citoyens.soquij.qc.ca. The free and paid tiers are not competing offerings; they fund each other under the same statutory design.

Youth Protection Records Are Closed by Default

Youth protection matters follow a different rule than the general open-court presumption. Article 82 of Quebec's Youth Protection Act overrides section 23 of the province's Charter of human rights and freedoms and requires youth protection hearings to be held in camera (huis clos) by default, not by discretionary order. A journalist has a standing right to be admitted unless the court finds their presence would prejudice the child; any other member of the public may be admitted only exceptionally, for serious reasons the court accepts. Audio recording of the hearing or the decision is banned unless the court specifically authorizes it on conditions it sets, and recording images, along with broadcasting any audio or image recording, is banned outright, with no exception written into the text for that specific prohibition.

Whether Quebec's general family-law matters, outside youth protection, follow that same automatic closed-door rule or only a discretionary one ordered case by case was not independently confirmed against the Code of Civil Procedure's own text. Treat that distinction as unconfirmed rather than assume it mirrors the youth protection rule.

Records created while someone was a young person are governed separately by the federal Youth Criminal Justice Act, which layers its own closed-access rules on top of Quebec's court-record system; see the Canada court records hub for how that federal layer works. Neither a plumitif search nor a SOQUIJ product overrides those federal restrictions.

Publication Bans Still Apply

Being able to find a Quebec court record, whether through the free plumitif, a paid copy, or a SOQUIJ product, does not make it lawful to publish everything in it. Quebec courts, like courts across Canada, can impose publication bans and sealing orders that restrict what may be reported even from an otherwise accessible file. Breaching a publication ban is an offence. Finding a record is not the same as having the right to publish it.

Court Records Are Not a Criminal Record Check

Searching a Quebec plumitif, ordering a document copy, or running a SOQUIJ decision search all look at the court system, not a person's criminal record. If the goal is a criminal record check, for employment, immigration, or another purpose, that is a different process through police services rather than the courts. See how a criminal record check works in Canada and background checks and employment in Canada for that separate process. None of the tools on this page are meant for tenant or employment screening.

For a Quebec small claims matter specifically, see small claims court in Quebec. For Quebec birth, death, and marriage certificates, a different record system entirely, see vital records in Quebec. For the national overview and every other province's guide, see the Canada court records hub.

Fees at a Glance

Disclaimer

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Court access policies, forms, and fees change; confirm current requirements with the courthouse registry or SOQUIJ before relying on any figure here. A few points could not be independently confirmed from a primary Quebec government source this session: the Cour du Québec's exact judge and justice-of-the-peace headcount, the specific process for reaching a citoyens.soquij.qc.ca decision issued before January 1, 2000, and whether Quebec's general, non-youth-protection family matters are automatically closed to the public or closed only by discretionary court order. Quebec's justice.gouv.qc.ca site and the Cour d'appel and Cour du Québec's own websites could not be reached directly during this research, so sourcing here relies on the quebec.ca government portal instead. Breaching a publication ban is an offence; finding a record through any tool described here does not make it lawful to publish everything in it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it free to search Quebec court records?

It depends on what you're doing. Checking whether a case exists and reading its plumitif (docket) is free and self-serve at any Quebec courthouse. Getting a copy of an actual document in the file costs $3.85 per page for the first 10 pages and $0.60 per page after that. Searching or pulling plumitifs remotely, without visiting a courthouse, requires a paid SOQUIJ Portail subscription.

What is a plumitif?

A plumitif is the docket or ledger for a Quebec court file, showing the procedural steps taken in a case. It is different from the full case file: the plumitif can be checked for free, while copies of the actual documents in the file cost a per-page fee.

How much does it cost to get a copy of a Quebec court document?

As of January 1, 2026, the official tariff is $3.85 per page for the first 10 pages and $0.60 per page after that, paid at the courthouse registry where the file is open, using the Request for Copies form (SJ-1079). An older $3.20-per-page figure that still circulates is out of date.

What is the SOQUIJ Portail, and do I need it to search a court file?

The Portail is a paid professional subscription, $15 per access code per month capped at $290 per month, plus per-document fees, that lets a user search plumitifs remotely across Quebec's courthouses and municipal courts instead of visiting in person. Someone checking a single case does not need it; the free courthouse plumitif and the free citoyens.soquij.qc.ca decision search cover most personal, one-off needs.

Is citoyens.soquij.qc.ca the same as searching a plumitif?

No. citoyens.soquij.qc.ca is a free search engine for published court and tribunal decisions, not a docket tool. It covers decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada, Quebec's courts, and many administrative tribunals rendered since January 1, 2000, but it does not show the day-to-day status of an open file the way a plumitif does.

Are youth protection court records public in Quebec?

No. Youth protection hearings are closed to the public by default under article 82 of Quebec's Youth Protection Act. Journalists have a standing right to attend unless a judge finds their presence would harm the child, and image recording or broadcasting any recording of the proceeding is banned outright.

Where do I get a criminal record check in Quebec instead of searching court files?

A criminal record check is a separate process through police services, not a court-record search. See how a criminal record check works in Canada and background checks and employment in Canada for that process.