Alabama Court Records: How to Search Alacourt, What It Costs, and How Expungement Works

Alabama's court records live in a single, paid, statewide system. There is no free public portal for looking up a case by name the way many other states offer. Alacourt, the electronic access system built for the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts, is the state's one real option, and it charges for nearly every meaningful search.

That paid-only model shapes the rest of the Alabama picture: what Alacourt actually covers, what a search costs, and where the state's own expungement process fits in once a case is over.

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

This guide is part of a broader look at court records by state. For the general mechanics of federal versus state versus county searches, see how to look up court records and are court records public.

Alacourt: Alabama's Only Statewide Search, and It Is Not Free

Alacourt is the electronic case-access system built for the Alabama court system, and it comes in two public-facing versions. Pa.alacourt.com, marketed as Just One Look, lets someone pay for a single search without committing to an ongoing subscription. V2.alacourt.com is the full subscription product aimed at frequent users such as attorneys, employers, and background-screening firms. Neither offers a free tier.

According to Alacourt's own published pricing on the pa.alacourt.com portal, a name search costs $9.99, which includes one case detail, with each additional case detail from that search also billed at $9.99. A case number search follows the same $9.99 structure. Document images cost $5.00 for the first 20 pages of a case, then $0.50 per page after that. A separate case-monitoring subscription, which tracks a case for its full lifetime, costs $19.99 for a district-level case and $29.99 for a circuit-level case.

Alacourt covers Alabama's trial courts statewide: criminal, civil, small claims, state traffic, domestic relations, and child support cases from all 67 counties. Search is available by party name or case number, and subscription tiers add attorney-name and business-name search.

Alabama's Public-Records Framework

Alabama starts from the presumption most states use: court records are open unless a specific law, rule, or order says otherwise. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press summarizes Alabama's framing this way: the public has a right to inspect and take copies of any court record unless expressly prohibited by law, rule, or a court order. That presumption traces to Alabama's public writings statute, Code of Alabama § 36-12-40.

Alabama has also adopted its own statewide Rules of Court-Record Privacy and Confidentiality, which identify categories of information that stay confidential even inside an otherwise public case file. This guide does not reproduce that rule's specific category list, since the rule's full text could not be independently verified in this session. If a document's public status is in question for a specific case, the clerk of the court that handled it is the right point of contact.

Certified Copies

For a certified copy of an Alabama court document, contact the clerk of the circuit or district court where the case was filed. Fees are set at the county level; this guide does not publish a single statewide fee figure because none was confirmed from a primary source.

Sealing Your Record: Alabama Calls It Expungement

Alabama does not use the word sealing in its statute. Relief from a criminal record in Alabama is called expungement, and it runs through a petition to the court rather than an automatic process. Alabama is not one of the states currently running a Clean Slate-style automatic record-clearing program. For the eligibility rules, waiting periods, and filing steps under Title 15, Chapter 27 of the Code of Alabama, see Alabama expungement laws, which this guide does not duplicate.

Using Alabama Court Records the Right Way

Alacourt is built for checking a specific case, whether it is your own or one you have a legitimate reason to look into, not for compiling a background file on someone else. If an Alabama court record is used to screen a job applicant or a tenant, that use is governed separately by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c, a criminal conviction is exempt from the standard seven-year reporting window that applies to most arrests and civil judgments, meaning it can be reported indefinitely unless Alabama has expunged it. The FTC's 2023 settlement with TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate, over marketing public-records reports for tenant and employee screening without following federal background-check law, is a reminder that a paid case-lookup tool like Alacourt is not itself an FCRA-compliant screening product.

Related Resources

Court Records by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to Look Up Court Records, Are Court Records Public?, Alabama Expungement Laws, Alabama Background Check Laws, Alabama Warrant Search, and Alabama Public Records Laws.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Alabama's Alacourt system and expungement law. It is not legal advice. Portal pricing and coverage change; verify current details with Alacourt or a licensed Alabama attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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