Which Georgia office holds the document you need

What the Open Records Act and the Open Meetings Act actually require, what a request costs, and which office holds birth certificates and county filings.

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  OMA-01 · Public records

  What the Open Meetings Act requires of a Georgia public body

  A written notice posted twenty-four hours ahead, a majority vote of a quorum to close a meeting, a misdemeanour and a $500 fine for doing it knowingly, and ninety days to sue.

  • Open Meetings Act
  • 24-hour notice
  • 90-day window

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  ORA-01 · Public records

  How a Georgia open records request works

  Three business days, oral or written, and a statute number when a record is withheld: what the Attorney General’s open government guidance says a Georgia agency must do.

  • Open Records Act
  • 3 business days
  • O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72

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  CLK-01 · Public records

  Searching filings held by Georgia superior court clerks

  The Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority runs the shared public search, a filing alert service called FANS, a Map Search app and a paid Premium Search tier.

  • GSCCCA
  • FANS alerts
  • Premium Search

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  VIT-01 · Public records

  Where Georgia birth and death certificates come from

  Vital Records at the Georgia Department of Public Health registers, preserves, amends and certifies Georgia vital events, and takes orders online through listed vendors or by mail.

  • Vital events
  • Order online or by mail
  • Fees not published here

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  ORA-02 · Public records

  What a Georgia open records request costs

  Twenty-five cents a page, the first fifteen minutes free, an hourly rate capped at the lowest paid qualified employee, and prepayment only above a $500 estimate.

  • 25 cents a page
  • First 15 minutes free
  • $500 threshold

Salaries, payments, audits, budget instructions and school system finances all sit on separate official sites. This section says which file lives where.

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  FIN-02 · Money on the record

  The budget documents the Office of Planning and Budget publishes

  Budget instructions, a Budget in Brief, a performance measures report, a tax expenditure report and fiscal notes, all labelled with Georgia’s AFY and FY notation.

  • Budget in Brief
  • Fiscal notes
  • AFY and FY

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  FIN-03 · Money on the record

  What the Department of Audits and Accounts publishes

  An audit office that states its purpose as independent, unbiased information, publishes named oversight reports, and runs two public dashboards plus the Open Georgia gateway.

  • DOAA
  • Compliance dashboards
  • Transparency in Government Act

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  REV-01 · Money on the record

  What the Georgia Department of Revenue handles

  Tax administration, motor vehicle tags and titles, alcohol and tobacco enforcement, local government property tax work and unclaimed property, behind two named online systems.

  • Georgia Tax Center
  • DRIVES e-Services
  • Unclaimed property

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  FIN-01 · Money on the record

  What Open Georgia publishes about state spending

  Salaries and travel, expenditures, financial reports, performance reviews and tax information, gathered on one annually updated gateway run by the Department of Audits and Accounts.

  • Salaries & Travel
  • Expenditures
  • SPLOST reports

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  FIN-04 · Money on the record

  Where Georgia school system finances are published

  School money surfaces in three places at once: a dedicated dashboard, the audit office’s oversight reports, and the salaries file on Open Georgia that covers boards of education.

  • School System Financial Dashboard
  • School Finance Oversight
  • Salaries & Travel

The Archives, the Governor’s executive acts and the statewide services portal: three very different front doors to state paperwork.

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  EXE-01 · Offices and portals

  The documents the Governor’s office publishes

  Executive orders, signed legislation, appointments and proclamations sit together under one Executive Action heading, next to constituent services and a press archive.

  • Executive orders
  • Signed legislation
  • Proclamations

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  ARC-01 · Offices and portals

  What the Georgia Archives holds and how to consult it

  Collecting since 1918, attached to the University System of Georgia, open Tuesday to Saturday in Morrow, with Virtual Vault, Finding Aids, the GIL catalog and an Ask an Archivist form.

  • Virtual Vault
  • Finding Aids
  • Ask an Archivist

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  POR-01 · Offices and portals

  Using georgia.gov to find a state service

  One flat index, a short list of most-used services and a rotating front page: the statewide portal is a routing layer, not a records system, and knowing that saves a detour.

  • Services A-Z
  • Register a Business