How to search PACER by party name
Editorial review: . Official sources cited. Text updated: .
Juricio is not an official court website and is not affiliated with the U.S. Courts or PACER. This guide is general information, not legal advice: for a decision about a case, talk to a licensed attorney, and confirm each detail in the official sources cited below.
To search PACER by party name, use the PACER Case Locator, the federal judiciary's nationwide index of district, bankruptcy and appellate cases. A name search returns the cases where that name is a party, with the court, the case number and the dates the case was filed and closed. It needs a PACER account, and each page of results costs $0.10.
Where do you search by name?
In the PACER Case Locator, when you do not know the court: it searches every federal court at once, or only those of a region. When you know the court, you can also search that court's own PACER site. Every registered PACER user has access to the Case Locator with the same username and password.
What does a name search cost?
$0.10 per page of results ($0.12 from January 1, 2027), charged even when the search displays no matches. The 30-page cap that applies to documents does not apply to search results, so a common name can cost several pages. No fee is owed for a quarter in which your charges are $30 or less ($40 from January 1, 2027).
How do you narrow a name search?
- Use the advanced search to limit it to a region or a date range.
- Search by case number when you have it. It is PACER's own advice: a fairly common name can return many pages of results.
- Save it. The Case Locator keeps saved searches and saved cases; each new run of a search is billed again.
What will a name search find, and what will it miss?
The Case Locator is updated once a day, and newly filed cases typically appear in it within 24 hours. It covers federal courts only: state courts keep their own records. Sealed documents are not available on PACER. And a name in a case does not confirm who a person or company is: different people can share a name.
Can you search by name on Juricio?
Yes, for free: Juricio searches the federal civil, criminal and bankruptcy cases that have had an entry in their court's RSS feed since Juricio began reading it. Companies appear by name and people by initials until you sign in. It is not the whole PACER index: older cases appear once they get a new entry, and courts with no feed are not covered. To read a document you still use PACER.
Search federal cases Courts with RSS feeds
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Questions
Is searching PACER by name free?
No. A name search in the PACER Case Locator costs $0.10 per page of results ($0.12 from January 1, 2027), even when it finds no match, and the 30-page cap does not apply to search results. No fee is owed for a quarter in which your charges are $30 or less ($40 from January 1, 2027).
Does the PACER Case Locator include state courts?
No. It indexes the federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts. State courts keep their own records.
How up to date is the PACER Case Locator?
It is updated once a day, and newly filed cases typically appear in it within 24 hours.
Does a name match tell me who the person is?
No. A name in a case caption does not confirm who a person or company is: check the case itself before drawing any conclusion.
Sources
- PACER: Search by National Index (PACER Case Locator): what the PACER Case Locator searches, its daily update, saved searches and the advanced search by region and date range (consulted October 22, 2026).
- PACER: Find a Case FAQs: what a Case Locator search returns and when newly filed cases appear in it (consulted October 22, 2026).
- PACER Pricing: How fees work: the fee for search results, charged even with no matches, and the tip to search by case number (consulted October 22, 2026).
- PACER: Pricing FAQs: the cap does not apply to name search results (consulted October 22, 2026).
- United States Courts: Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule: in force since January 1, 2020: the fee per page and the quarterly exemption (consulted October 22, 2026).
- United States Courts: Judiciary Approves Funding for Case Management and Public Access Modernization: news release of June 26, 2026: the fee per page and the quarterly exemption from January 1, 2027 (consulted October 22, 2026).
- United States Courts: Comparing Federal & State Courts: state courts have their own court systems (consulted October 22, 2026).
- PACER: How can I receive case alerts using an RSS feed?: on the same page: sealed documents are not available on PACER (consulted October 22, 2026).