State Resources
Delaware
More than a million entities are registered here and the state will tell you almost nothing about who owns any of them. No officers, no directors, no members. That isn’t an oversight — it’s the product. Here is what you can get instead.
At a glance
| Record | Held by | Cost | Online |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business and entity search | Division of Corporations | Free name search; documents cost | Yes |
| UCC filings | Division of Corporations — UCC | Fee for searches | Yes |
| Professional licenses | Division of Professional Regulation | Free | Yes |
| Property and land records | County recorder of deeds (three counties) | Free to search in most | By county |
| Court records | Delaware Judiciary — CourtConnect | Free | Yes |
| Criminal records | State Bureau of Identification, Delaware State Police | Fee, fingerprint-based | Fingerprints required |
| Vital records | Division of Public Health, Office of Vital Statistics | Certified copies carry a fee | Yes |
| Unclaimed property | Department of Finance | Free | Yes |
| Voter and resident records | Department of Elections | Free | Yes |
Worth knowing about Delaware
The Delaware business search is deliberately empty
If you have come here to find out who is behind a Delaware LLC, start by adjusting your expectations. The Division of Corporations entity search returns the entity name, a file number, the incorporation date, the entity type and the registered agent. That’s essentially the whole record.
No officers. No directors. No members or managers. Delaware doesn’t collect that information for LLCs at all, and doesn’t publish it for corporations. There’s no annual report naming humans the way there is in North Carolina or Washington.
This is why the entity is registered here. Anonymity is the service being sold, and roughly two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies plus an enormous population of shell entities have bought it.
So the registered agent is what you get, and a registered agent is a company that handles thousands of entities from one address. It isn’t a lead about a person.
What actually works on a Delaware entity
You get behind a Delaware company from everywhere except Delaware.
Foreign registrations. A Delaware entity that actually does business somewhere has to register as a foreign entity in that state — and that state usually demands officers, members or a manager by name. Run the exact entity name through the states where it operates. That’s the single highest-yield move.
UCC filings. Delaware UCC searches are open and they name the debtor entity and the secured party. A lender that financed the company knows who signed.
Litigation. Delaware Court of Chancery is where corporate disputes go, and pleadings name the people. If the entity has ever been in a fight, the fight is a public document naming individuals.
Property and licensing. If the entity owns real estate or holds a license anywhere, those filings frequently name a human being as signatory.
See tracing an LLC to a human being for the full sequence.
Record by record
Business and entity search
Open entity search →- Held by
- Division of Corporations
- Cost
- Free name search; documents cost
Confirms an entity exists, its file number, formation date, status and registered agent. See above for what it won’t tell you.
The file number is still worth having. It’s the key for ordering certified documents, and it’s what other states reference when the entity registers there as a foreign entity.
UCC filings
Open UCC filing search →- Held by
- Division of Corporations — UCC
- Cost
- Fee for searches
Delaware is the filing state for an enormous number of UCC financing statements because so many debtors are registered here — under the UCC you file where the debtor is organized, not where the collateral is.
That makes Delaware UCC searching disproportionately valuable. A UCC-1 names the debtor, the secured party and the collateral, and it’s often the only public record connecting a Delaware shell to a real lender.
Professional licenses
Open professional regulation →- Held by
- Division of Professional Regulation
- Cost
- Free
A single division covering most Delaware professional and occupational boards, with free license verification returning name, status and disciplinary history.
Property and land records
- Held by
- County recorder of deeds (three counties)
- Cost
- Free to search in most
Delaware has only three counties — New Castle, Kent and Sussex — which makes a complete statewide property sweep genuinely practical here. Three searches covers the state.
Each county recorder holds deeds and mortgages; assessment is handled at county level too. New Castle is the deepest online.
Court records
Open CourtConnect →- Held by
- Delaware Judiciary — CourtConnect
- Cost
- Free
Free case search covering Superior Court, Court of Common Pleas, Family Court and Justice of the Peace courts. Search by name or case number.
The Court of Chancery is the one to know about. It handles corporate and trust disputes without a jury, and its opinions and filings are where Delaware entities stop being anonymous.
Criminal records
Open State Police →- Held by
- State Bureau of Identification, Delaware State Police
- Cost
- Fee, fingerprint-based
Delaware criminal history is fingerprint-based through the State Bureau of Identification and isn’t sold to the public as a name search.
Use CourtConnect instead — it’s free and it covers the criminal courts directly.
Vital records
Open vital statistics →- Held by
- Division of Public Health, Office of Vital Statistics
- Cost
- Certified copies carry a fee
Births and deaths from the state office. Delaware restricts certified copies to the subject and immediate family.
Unclaimed property
Open unclaimed property →- Held by
- Department of Finance
- Cost
- Free
Free name search. Delaware collects an unusually large amount of unclaimed property because so many companies are incorporated here — under the priority rules, property with no known owner address escheats to the state of incorporation.
That means Delaware holds funds belonging to people who have never been to Delaware. Worth running even when your subject has no obvious connection.
Voter and resident records
Open voter lookup →- Held by
- Department of Elections
- Cost
- Free
Individual registration lookup confirming status, district and polling place.
Public records requests in Delaware
- Statute
- Del. Code tit. 29, ch. 100 (Freedom of Information Act)
- Response deadline
- 15 business days to respond
- Appeal to
- Attorney General, or Superior Court
- Appeal window
- 60 days for an Attorney General petition
Fifteen business days for a response, which can be a good-faith estimate rather than the records themselves.
Delaware routes complaints through the Attorney General, who issues written determinations that are published. Those opinions are useful reading before you file — the same arguments come up repeatedly, and citing a prior determination that went against an agency is an efficient way to skip the argument.
The Act covers Delaware citizens, and there’s a body of Attorney General opinion on how far that reaches. Corporate records held by the Division of Corporations are governed by the corporation statutes rather than by FOIA, so a records request will not get you around the anonymity described above.
What Delaware will not give you
- Officers, directors, members and managers. Not collected for LLCs and not published for corporations. This is the point of Delaware, not a gap in it.
- Name-based criminal history. Fingerprint-based only. Not sold to the public.
- Driver and vehicle records. Closed under the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.
- Family Court records. Substantially restricted.
- Vital records. Subject and immediate family only.
Course
How to Find Out Where Someone Banks
UCC filings, business registrations and lien records all point at the same thing: who holds the money. The course walks the full sequence, including the free sources on this page and the ones that cost.
See the bank locate courseRelated
- Tracing an LLC to a human being
- New Jersey — next door, and much more forthcoming
- UCC filings name the lender
- Reading a civil docket
- Finding bankruptcy filings
Fees and procedures verified August 2026. Clerks change their counter rules more often than the statutes change — call before you drive.