North Dakota Court Records: How to Search, What's Public, and Sealing

This article covers how to search North Dakota court records through the state's public portal, what's public versus confidential under North Dakota's court-records rule, and how North Dakota's sealing and expungement remedies work. 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 North Dakota Court Records

North Dakota's public search tool is the North Dakota Courts Records Inquiry, hosted at publicsearch.ndcourts.gov on Tyler Technologies infrastructure. It is free and does not require a login for basic searches. The location picker lets you search a single county, a single municipal court, or all of North Dakota at once by selecting "State of North Dakota," which runs one statewide search rather than making you check each county separately, a structure most states in this cluster do not offer.

The portal is organized into sections: Criminal/Traffic; Civil, Family and Probate case records; a Judgments Search; and a Court Calendar. Coverage extends beyond district courts. It also includes case information from 15 municipal courts, among them Fargo, Bismarck, and Minot, which is an unusual breadth for a statewide tool; in most states, municipal-court records sit entirely outside the statewide system.

One timing detail worth planning around: the portal states that its data is current through the end of the previous business day. A hearing or filing that happened this morning generally will not show up until the next business day's update. For anything time-sensitive, a search of the portal is not a substitute for calling the clerk of the specific court.

District courts also maintain public terminals where you can search and print records in person at no cost, which is useful if you need something the online tool does not show or if you want the assistance of courthouse staff.

What's Public and What's Restricted

North Dakota's governing rule is N.D. Sup. Ct. Admin. R. 41, Access to Court Records. The rule's general position is that judicial system records are presumed open for examination, inspection, and copying during regular office hours. It separates two categories of records the public cannot get through the ordinary process: a confidential record, meaning disclosure is prohibited by federal or state law, court rule, case law, or a specific court order, and an exempt record, meaning access is discretionary rather than legally required. Supporting affidavits for search and arrest warrants are confidential while the warrant is outstanding, and become accessible once the warrant is returned. The rule also sets out a written-request procedure under which a party or the subject of a record can ask the court to restrict access, and the court weighs the risk of injury, privacy interests, and any proprietary business information at stake.

Sealing and Expungement in North Dakota

North Dakota is one of the states where the two words mean genuinely different things, and mixing them up gives a reader the wrong expectation.

Sealing, governed by North Dakota Century Code Chapter 12-60.1, restricts a record from public view, but the record still exists and specific entities can still see it. Two separate access routes matter here. A judge can authorize disclosure by court order, and, independently of any court order, section 12-60.1-04(8) directs that when a court grants a petition to seal it must state the petitioner is sufficiently rehabilitated but remains subject to section 12.1-33-02.1, and "shall release the information when an entity has a statutory obligation to conduct a criminal history background check." That release is mandatory, so a sealed record can still surface in occupational licensing and other legally required screening. Sealing is not the same as invisibility, and that matters if the reason you are petitioning is a license or a job.

Eligibility to petition turns on a crime-free period, not a clock that starts when a sentence ends. Under section 12-60.1-02, a person may petition if they pled guilty to or were found guilty of a misdemeanor and have not been convicted of a new crime for at least three years before filing, or of a felony and have not been convicted of a new crime for at least five years before filing. An unconditional pardon from the governor is a separate ground. Finishing the sentence still matters, but as something the court must find before granting relief rather than as the start of the waiting period: section 12-60.1-04 requires clear and convincing evidence that the petitioner completed all terms of imprisonment and probation and paid all court-ordered restitution, and the court also weighs the nature and severity of the offense, the risk the petitioner poses, rehabilitation since the offense, and the petitioner's record, employment history, and community involvement.

Expungement means permanent destruction. No one, public or private, can access an expunged record afterward, but North Dakota limits expungement to a narrow set of circumstances: juvenile-court matters, marijuana-possession cases, and offenses committed by a victim of human trafficking. It is not a general-purpose remedy for adult convictions the way sealing is.

North Dakota has no automatic Clean Slate law for convictions. A conviction is sealed only if the person petitions and the court grants it, and expungement stays limited to the narrow categories above. Nonconviction records are the exception, and the statute deliberately uses a different word for them: they are closed, not sealed. A closed record is still open to a judge, the clerk of court, the juvenile commission, a criminal justice agency, a state's attorney, the defendant and the defendant's counsel, and anyone with a written order from a judge, whereas a sealed record cannot be disclosed at all unless a court order authorizes it. Under section 12-60.1-05, if a court enters an order of nonconviction, meaning all charges in the case were dismissed or the defendant was acquitted of all of them, on or after August 1, 2025, the court closes the record automatically once sixty-one days pass, with nothing for the defendant to file. For a nonconviction in a case disposed of before August 1, 2025, the defendant does have to petition, but no filing fee may be charged, and the court enters the closing order within ten days of filing if the requirements are met. The section does not apply where the dismissal came out of a plea agreement involving a conviction on another offense, where the case was dismissed on a finding the individual was not fit to proceed, where the verdict was not guilty for lack of criminal responsibility, or where the case was appealed. For the specific eligibility tests and current wait periods for your situation, see North Dakota Expungement Laws, which covers that detail rather than duplicating it here.

Using This Information the Right Way

A North Dakota portal search is meant for looking up your own case or a case you have a legitimate interest in, not for compiling a dossier on someone else. If you are screening a job applicant or prospective tenant, a portal search alone is not a Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant background check, and using a people-search aggregator for that purpose creates real legal exposure; regulators have pursued companies that marketed public-records lookups for exactly that use without following FCRA procedures. A name search can also produce false matches, especially for common names, so treat a hit as a lead to confirm with a case number, not a confirmed identification on its own.

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

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about North Dakota 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 and can change without notice. For advice about a specific case, sealing eligibility, or a specific record, consult a lawyer licensed in North Dakota.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is North Dakota's court records portal free?

Yes. Basic searches through the North Dakota Courts Records Inquiry are free and do not require registration. Public terminals at district courts also offer free search and printing.

Does the portal cover municipal court cases?

Yes, which is unusual for a statewide portal. It includes case records from 15 municipal courts, including Fargo, Bismarck, and Minot, alongside the district-court records.

How current is the information on the portal?

The portal states its data is current through the end of the previous business day, so same-day filings and hearings generally will not appear yet.

What's the difference between sealing and expungement in North Dakota?

Sealing restricts public access to a record but the record still exists. A judge can authorize disclosure by court order, and NDCC 12-60.1-04(8) separately requires the record to be released to an entity that has a statutory obligation to run a criminal history background check, with no court order needed. Expungement means permanent destruction and is available only for limited categories, such as juvenile cases, marijuana possession, and offenses committed by human-trafficking victims.

Does North Dakota have an automatic Clean Slate law?

Not for convictions. Sealing a conviction requires a petition to the court. Nonconviction records are handled differently under NDCC 12-60.1-05: if the court entered an order of nonconviction on or after August 1, 2025, the court closes the record automatically after sixty-one days with no petition. A nonconviction in a case disposed of before that date still needs a petition, but no filing fee may be charged for it.

Will a sealed North Dakota record still show up on a background check?

It can. Under NDCC 12-60.1-04(8), the court order granting a petition to seal states the petitioner is sufficiently rehabilitated but subject to section 12.1-33-02.1, and the information is released when an entity has a statutory obligation to conduct a criminal history background check. Sealing removes the record from ordinary public view; it does not block legally mandated screening.