A guide for Pennsylvania Commonwealth and local agencies

Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law: five business days, deemed denials, and the Office of Open Records

What Act 3 of 2008 requires of an open-records officer — the five-business-day response, the section 902 extension notice, the section 903 denial, the OOR appeal that binds both sides in thirty days, and the fee and penalty rules around them.

By Steve Goodyear, founder of Realizer Services Published September 4, 2026

Pennsylvania rewrote its open-records law from scratch in 2008. Act 3 of 2008 — the Right-to-Know Law, 65 P.S. §§ 67.101–67.3104, signed February 14, 2008 and in force for most purposes since January 1, 2009 — reversed the old presumption, put the burden of proof on the agency, fixed a five-business-day response, and created something most states still lack: an Office of Open Records whose appeals officers issue binding final determinations within thirty days. For an open-records officer, the Act is a chain of short clocks that hand off to one another, and each hand-off is a point where silence becomes a “deemed denial.”

This guide covers who is bound and what a request needs, the open-records officer's statutory job, the five-day clock and how the OOR counts it, the section 902 extension and its traps, the section 903 denial, fees and the OOR schedule, the OOR appeal and court review, penalties, and the OOR's own training and reporting duties. Section numbers are the Act's own (section 901 is 65 P.S. § 67.901), quoted from the official copy the OOR publishes. This is general information, not legal advice.

Who is bound, and what a request needs

The Act sorts government into four kinds of agency with different scopes of duty: Commonwealth agencies and local agencies provide public records (sections 301 and 302); legislative agencies provide legislative records (303); judicial agencies provide financial records (304). “Local agency” is broad — every political subdivision, intermediate unit, charter and cyber charter school, public trade or vocational school, and every local, intergovernmental, regional, or municipal agency, authority, council, board, or commission. Under section 305 a record in a Commonwealth or local agency's possession “shall be presumed to be a public record” unless exempt under section 708, privileged, or exempt under other law or court order, and section 708(a) puts the burden of proving an exemption on the agency “by a preponderance of the evidence.” An agency “may not deny a requester access to a public record due to the intended use of the public record” (301(b), 302(b)).

Agencies may fulfil verbal, written, or anonymous requests (section 702), but the Act's remedies attach only to a written one. Under section 703 a written request may arrive in person, by mail, e-mail, fax or, where agency rules allow, other electronic means; it must be addressed to the open-records officer, should describe the records “with sufficient specificity,” must include a name and address for the response, and “need not include any explanation of the requester's reason for requesting or intended use of the records.” A requester is a legal resident of the United States, and includes an agency. Every Commonwealth and local agency must accept the OOR's uniform request form alongside its own (505). An agency need not create or reorganize a record (705), may deny repeated requests for the same record that impose an unreasonable burden (506(a)), and answers for public records held by a contractor performing a governmental function (506(d)).

The open-records officer

Every agency designates an open-records officer (502(a)) who receives requests, directs them to the right people inside or outside the agency, tracks the agency's progress, and issues interim and final responses (502(b)(1)). Section 502(b)(2) is the procedure to build around. On receipt the officer shall note the date of receipt on the written request; “compute the day on which the five-day period under section 901 will expire and make a notation of that date on the written request”; keep a copy of the request and everything submitted with it until fulfilled — and, if denied, for 30 days or until a final determination issues or the appeal is deemed denied; and, for Commonwealth agencies, keep a file with the original request, the response, and all written and other communications. The officer's contact information, the appeals officer's, a request form, and the agency's policies must be posted at the agency and on its website (504(b)).

The five-business-day clock (section 901)

Section 901 does three things in one paragraph. On receipt of a written request the agency must make a good-faith effort to determine whether the record is a public record and whether it has possession, custody, or control of it, and respond “as promptly as possible under the circumstances existing at the time of the request.” The time for response “shall not exceed five business days from the date the written request is received by the open-records officer for an agency.” And “if the agency fails to send the response within five business days of receipt of the written request for access, the written request for access shall be deemed denied.”

Counting the days

The clock runs from receipt by the open-records officer, which is why section 703's rule that employees be directed to forward requests to the officer matters: a request sitting in a program manager's inbox has not started the count, but the requester does not know that, and the OOR will ask when it actually arrived. The Act does not define “business day”; the OOR's Citizens' Guide explains that the clock starts the day after the request is received during regular business hours, so a request received on a Monday is due the following Monday. A response is access, or a written notice granting, denying, or partially granting access. Silence is a deemed denial, which opens the requester's fifteen-business-day appeal window without the agency doing anything at all. Two small clocks follow a grant: a certified copy on request once section 1307 fees are paid (904), and the right to discard copies left uncollected at the office for 60 days, keeping any fees paid (905).

Extensions (section 902)

An extension is available only on one of seven grounds in section 902(a), and the open-records officer must determine which applies: the request requires redaction under section 706; it requires retrieval of a record stored in a remote location; a timely response cannot be accomplished “due to bona fide and specified staffing limitations”; a legal review is necessary to determine whether the record is subject to access; the requester has not complied with the agency's access policies; the requester refuses to pay applicable fees; or “the extent or nature of the request precludes a response within the required time period.”

The notice under section 902(b) must go out within the five business days and must say that the request is being reviewed, the reason, “a reasonable date that a response is expected to be provided,” and an estimate of the fees. Then the trap: if the expected date is more than 30 days after the five business days, the request is deemed denied unless the requester has agreed in writing to the date in the notice — and if the requester agrees, it is deemed denied on the day after that date if no response has been sent (902(b)(3)). The extension is not “thirty more days”; it is a specific promised date inside a thirty-calendar-day envelope, with automatic denial on the far side. A notice without a date, or a date allowed to pass, is an appealable denial nobody decided.

One clock runs in parallel. Under section 707(b), where a third party supplied a record with a signed statement that it contains a trade secret or confidential proprietary information, the agency must notify it within five business days, the third party has five business days to respond, and the agency must decide within ten business days of giving notice — a sequence that only fits inside a section 902 extension.

Exceptions and the denial letter (sections 708 and 903)

Section 708(b) lists thirty enumerated exceptions, paragraphs (1) through (30) — loss of federal or state funds, personal security, criminal and non-criminal investigative records, personnel and medical information, predecisional deliberations, and the rest — each of which the agency must prove by a preponderance. Section 706 governs mixed records: the agency must grant access to what is public and deny the rest, “may not deny access to the record if the information which is not subject to access is able to be redacted,” and every redaction “shall be deemed a denial under Chapter 9.”

That pulls every redaction into section 903, which requires a written denial containing: a description of the record requested; “the specific reasons for the denial, including a citation of supporting legal authority”; the typed or printed name, title, business address, business telephone number, and signature of the open-records officer on whose authority the denial is issued; the date; and the procedure to appeal. The citation is what decides appeals. “Exempt under section 708” does not name one of thirty paragraphs, and an appeals officer will hold the agency to the specific paragraph and to evidence — usually an affidavit — that the record falls within it.

Fees (section 1307 and the OOR schedule)

Section 1307 caps what can be charged: postage at actual cost; duplication at rates set by the OOR for Commonwealth and local agencies, reasonable and based on prevailing local commercial rates; reasonable certification fees at the requester's behest; and for records held only electronically, the lesser of the paper and electronic rates unless the requester asks for the dearer one. Section 1307(g) closes the list: no other fees unless the agency necessarily incurs costs in complying, and “no fee may be imposed for an agency's review of a record to determine whether the record is a public record.” Where fees are expected to exceed $100 the agency may require prepayment of an estimate (1307(h)); it may waive fees where the requester makes the copies or the public interest favours it (1307(f)).

The OOR's fee schedule, adopted December 30, 2024, supplies the numbers: up to $0.25 per page for black-and-white copies, up to $0.20 per page beyond 1,000 pages, up to $0.50 per page for colour, up to $5.00 per record for certification, specialty documents and first-class postage at actual cost, and up to $0.25 per page to convert an electronic record to paper. No fee may be imposed for redaction or for electronic delivery. Pennsylvania fees price paper, not effort; the prepayment threshold is a cash-flow rule, not a deterrent.

Appeals: the Office of Open Records (sections 1101, 1102, and 503)

Under section 1101(a)(1), a requester whose request is denied or deemed denied may appeal “within 15 business days of the mailing date of the agency's response or within 15 business days of a deemed denial,” stating the grounds on which the record is claimed to be public and addressing every reason the agency gave. For Commonwealth and local agencies the OOR assigns an appeals officer (503(a), 1101(a)(2)); judicial and legislative agencies, the Attorney General, State Treasurer, and Auditor General designate their own, and the county district attorney's designee hears appeals over criminal investigative records held by that county's local agencies (503(d)). The appeals officer sets a schedule for submissions, reviews everything filed, may hold a hearing, and issues a final determination (1102). Unless the requester agrees otherwise, that determination must be mailed to both parties within 30 days of receipt of the appeal, failing which the appeal is deemed denied; it “shall be a final order” with written reasons (1101(b)). A third party with a direct interest may ask to participate within 15 days of learning of the appeal (1101(c)). The OOR dockets appeals through its e-file portal and describes its final determinations as binding, issued “in most cases … within 30 calendar days.”

Court review keeps the split: within 30 days of the mailing date of the final determination, a Commonwealth, legislative, or judicial agency matter goes to the Commonwealth Court (1301) and a local agency matter to the court of common pleas where the agency sits (1302); a petition stays release. Section 1303(b) defines the record before the court as “the request, the agency's response, the appeal filed under section 1101, the hearing transcript, if any, and the final written determination of the appeals officer.” The file built at the request stage is the file the court reads.

Costs, attorney fees, and civil penalties (sections 1304 and 1305)

Under section 1304(a), if a court reverses the appeals officer or grants access after a deemed denial, it may award the requester reasonable attorney fees and costs where the agency “willfully or with wanton disregard deprived the requester of access to a public record … or otherwise acted in bad faith,” or where its asserted exemptions “were not based on a reasonable interpretation of law”; fees may also go against either side for a frivolous challenge (1304(b)). Under section 1305, a court may impose a civil penalty of not more than $1,500 for a bad-faith denial, and an agency or official who does not promptly comply with a court order is subject to not more than $500 per day until the records are provided.

The OOR's own duties: training, mediation, reporting (section 1310)

The Act places the training and reporting duties on the OOR rather than on agencies. Under section 1310(a) the office must provide information on the Act, issue advisory opinions, “provide annual training courses to agencies, public officials and public employees,” provide annual regional training for local agencies, assign appeals officers who have completed its training, run an informal mediation program, maintain a website listing fees, opinions, decisions, and every open-records officer in the Commonwealth, review fees biannually, and report annually to the Governor and General Assembly. Section 1310 took effect immediately on enactment, ahead of the rest of the Act. There is no statutory training certificate for open-records officers and no annual statistical return from agencies; what an agency owes is the section 502(b)(2) file and the section 504(b) posting.

What a defensible RTKL operation looks like

Name the open-records officer, post the section 504(b) information at the agency and online, and direct every employee to forward requests the day they arrive.
On receipt, note the date and compute and note the day-five date on the request itself, as section 502(b)(2) requires — then calendar it.
Decide by day three whether a section 902(a) ground applies; if so, send the notice with a specific expected date and a fee estimate, and get written agreement to any date more than 30 days out.
Template the section 903 denial so the five required elements are never missing, and cite the specific section 708(b) paragraph for every redaction.
Keep the request, the response, and all written communications together through any appeal, and calendar the requester's fifteen-business-day window from every mailing date.
Charge only what section 1307 and the OOR schedule allow — never for review, redaction, or electronic delivery — and require prepayment only above $100.
Send the officer and a back-up to the OOR's annual training.

Where AccessPoint fits

The Right-to-Know Law is a chain of short clocks — five business days, thirty days, fifteen business days, thirty days, thirty days — with a deemed-denial consequence attached to silence at almost every link. AccessPoint runs that chain inside your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant, and the Pennsylvania jurisdiction pack loads the Act as the legal-authority spine, the state-holiday calendar with the five-day and thirty-day due-date rules, deemed-denial tracking, the thirty section 708(b) exceptions colour-coded for redaction, the section 1307 charges, the OOR appeal workflow, and RTKL correspondence templates with statutory wording, including the standard request form.

Day five, computed on receipt

A request is received on your own calendar day and its due date computed on the Pennsylvania holiday calendar — the section 502(b)(2)(ii) notation, done by the system; if day five passes, the overdue status is applied automatically and written to the Activity feed.

Section 902 notices with a date in them

The Extensions panel records a standard extension against the reasons configured for the request type and moves the due date to the promised response date; the notice goes out from a template carrying the statutory wording, and a clock pause covers the requester who has not paid.

Section 903 denials, signed off

Decision letters come from milestone-typed templates with merge fields for the record description, citations, and the officer's details, and the tenant can require a senior official to sign off before a letter that starts appeal rights is sent.

Thirty exceptions, cited on the mark

Every redaction carries its section 708(b) paragraph, with alternates, from the colour-coded catalogue; the response package adds an exemption summary and redaction index, and a tenant setting can block export while any redaction is uncited.

The OOR appeal file

The Complaints & Appeals module registers an OOR appeal as an appeal-kind case with the OOR as governing authority, the fifteen-business-day filing-window rule, and its own clock to the final determination; evidence sets export productions Bates-stamped and hashed.

Fees under section 1307

Fee schedules carry the OOR rates, the fee panel itemizes and records payment, and a prepayment estimate can be issued when the expected fees exceed $100 — with review and redaction never on the bill.

The section 502(b)(2) file — the request, the response, and every written communication — is what the request record, its correspondence log, and its activity trail already are, and the Compliance & overdue report shows at any moment how many requests are inside day five, inside an extension, or on appeal.

Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law questions

How long does a Pennsylvania agency have to respond to a Right-to-Know request?

Five business days. Under section 901 of the Right-to-Know Law, the time for response “shall not exceed five business days from the date the written request is received by the open-records officer,” and if the agency fails to send a response within that time the request “shall be deemed denied.” The Office of Open Records counts from the day after the request is received during regular business hours. Section 502(b)(2) requires the open-records officer to note the date of receipt on the request and compute and note the day the five-day period expires.

When can a Pennsylvania agency take more than five business days?

Only on one of the seven grounds in section 902(a): the request requires redaction; it requires retrieval of a record stored in a remote location; a timely response cannot be accomplished due to bona fide and specified staffing limitations; legal review is necessary; the requester has not complied with the agency's access policies; the requester refuses to pay applicable fees; or the extent or nature of the request precludes a response within the required time. The agency must send written notice within the five business days stating that the request is under review, the reason, a reasonable expected response date, and an estimate of fees. If the expected date is more than 30 days after the five business days, the request is deemed denied unless the requester agrees in writing to the extension — and if the requester agrees, it is deemed denied the day after that date if no response has been provided.

What must a Right-to-Know denial contain?

Section 903 requires a written denial that includes: a description of the record requested; the specific reasons for the denial, including a citation of supporting legal authority; the typed or printed name, title, business address, business telephone number, and signature of the open-records officer on whose authority the denial is issued; the date of the response; and the procedure to appeal the denial. Under section 706, a redaction is itself a denial of the redacted material, so a partially redacted release carries the same obligations.

What can a Pennsylvania agency charge for records?

Section 1307 limits fees to postage at actual cost, duplication at rates set by the Office of Open Records for Commonwealth and local agencies, reasonable certification fees, and other costs the agency necessarily incurs; no fee may be charged for an agency's review of a record to determine whether it is a public record. The OOR fee schedule adopted December 30, 2024 allows up to $0.25 per page for black-and-white copies (up to $0.20 per page beyond 1,000 pages), up to $0.50 per page for colour, up to $5.00 per record for certification, and actual first-class postage; no fee may be imposed for redaction or for electronic delivery. Under section 1307(h), an agency may require prepayment of an estimate when the fees are expected to exceed $100.

How does an appeal to the Office of Open Records work?

Under section 1101, a requester whose request is denied or deemed denied may file an appeal within 15 business days of the mailing date of the agency's response or of the deemed denial, stating the grounds on which the record is claimed to be public and addressing every reason the agency gave. The OOR assigns an appeals officer, who sets a schedule for submissions, may hold a hearing, and must issue a final determination within 30 days of receipt of the appeal unless the requester agrees otherwise; if none issues in 30 days, the appeal is deemed denied. The final determination is a final order. Either side may then petition for review within 30 days — to Commonwealth Court for a Commonwealth, legislative, or judicial agency (section 1301) or to the court of common pleas for a local agency (section 1302).

What penalties and fee awards does the Right-to-Know Law carry?

Under section 1305, a court may impose a civil penalty of up to $1,500 if an agency denied access to a public record in bad faith, and an agency or public official who does not promptly comply with a court order under the Act is subject to a civil penalty of up to $500 per day until the records are provided. Under section 1304, if a court reverses the appeals officer or grants access after a deemed denial, it may award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the requester where the agency acted willfully, with wanton disregard, or in bad faith, or where its asserted exemptions were not based on a reasonable interpretation of law; it may also award fees against a party whose challenge was frivolous.

Sources

Right-to-Know Law, Act of Feb. 14, 2008, P.L. 6, No. 3 — official text as published by the Office of Open Records, including the Act 2023-29 amendments effective July 1, 2024 (accessed September 2026)
2008 Act 3, Pennsylvania General Assembly unconsolidated statutes (accessed September 2026)
Official RTKL Fee Schedule, Office of Open Records (adopted December 30, 2024; accessed September 2026)
How to File an Appeal and the Citizens' Guide to the Right-to-Know Law, Office of Open Records (accessed September 2026)
About RTKL Training and the Office of Open Records home page (accessed September 2026)

Last reviewed: September 2026. This guide is general information for records practitioners, not legal advice — rely on the official text of the Right-to-Know Law, the Office of Open Records' guidance, and your agency's counsel.