Inmate Search | Inmate Locator

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

The Federal Bureau of Prisons runs a free public Inmate Locator at bop.gov/inmateloc, and it will tell you a person’s name, register number, age, race, the institution holding them, and their release date — and nothing else. It covers the federal system only: if the case was brought by a county or state prosecutor, no federal search will find that person, no matter how many times you try.

Most failed searches are not failures of the tool. They are the tool correctly reporting a situation the searcher does not yet understand — a person still in Marshals custody before designation, a person in a halfway house, a person at a facility that closed, or a person in a category the Bureau does not disclose. The diagnostic table below tells you which one you are looking at.

The BOP Inmate Locator: the facts

What it is	The Bureau of Prisons’ free public search at bop.gov/inmateloc
Cost	Free. No account, no subscription, no third-party service required
Search by	Name, or register number (five digits, hyphen, three digits — e.g. 12345-678)
What it discloses	The eight categories of public-record information at 28 C.F.R. § 540.65(b) — name, register number, place of incarceration, age, race, conviction and sentencing data, past movement, general institutional assignments
What it does not show	Photographs. Housing unit. Cell. Charges pending. Medical information. Disciplinary history. Street address of anyone in community confinement
Facilities on BOP’s roster	118 institutions and 22 Residential Reentry Management (RRM) field offices, as of 5 September 2026 (bop.gov/locations)
How fast records update on arrival	Load and admit transactions “will be completed for each inmate within two hours of the inmate’s arrival at the institution” (PS 5800.19 at p. 9)
Governing regulation	28 C.F.R. § 540.65 (public-record information about an inmate)
Governing policy	Program Statement 1480.06, Multimedia Communications, effective 22 June 2026 — which replaced PS 1480.05, News Media Contacts (2000)

Currency stamp: regulation text read at eCFR (Title 28 current as of 3 Sept. 2026); Program Statements read in full and pin-cited; facility roster figures from BOP’s own locations data as reconciled 5 September 2026. A Program Statement is the Bureau’s operating instruction — agency policy, not law. The regulation binds; the Program Statement tells staff how to apply it.

First: is this a federal case at all?

Before you search anything, answer this, because it determines everything that follows.

A person is in the federal system if they were charged in a United States District Court, prosecuted by an Assistant United States Attorney, and sentenced by a federal judge. Federal charging documents say “United States of America v. —”. Federal cases are numbered on the court’s docket in a format like 1:24-cr-00123. Bail hearings happen before a United States Magistrate Judge. If the arresting agency was the FBI, DEA, ATF, HSI, IRS-CI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service or the Secret Service, it is almost certainly federal.

A person is in a state or local system if a county district attorney, a state attorney general, or a city prosecutor brought the case. Each state runs its own corrections agency — usually called a Department of Corrections — with its own separate search tool and its own numbering scheme. Those systems do not share data with the Bureau of Prisons, and a state number will not resolve in a federal search. If the case is not federal, this page cannot help you, and neither can the BOP locator; you need that state’s own corrections agency.

There is one common in-between situation worth naming: a person facing federal charges who has not yet been sentenced may be held in a non-federal contract bed — a county jail or a privately operated facility holding people for the U.S. Marshals Service. They are in federal custody and they have a federal register number, but the building they are in is not one of the 118 institutions on the Bureau’s roster, and the public locator may not place them. The Marshals, not the Bureau, hold them at that stage.

What the locator returns — and the exact limits of it

The Bureau’s disclosure is not discretionary and it is not arbitrary. It is set by regulation. 28 C.F.R. § 540.65(b) provides that information about an inmate that is a matter of public record is “limited to the inmate’s”:

#	Category	What that means in practice
(1)	Name	The committed name — the exact name on the judgment (PS 5800.19 at p. 12), not a nickname or a corrected spelling
(2)	Register number	Eight digits, five-hyphen-three (PS 5800.19 at p. 38)
(3)	Place of incarceration	The institution name — or, for someone in community confinement, only the RRM field office (see below)
(4)	Age	Age, not date of birth
(5)	Race	As recorded by the Bureau
(6)	Conviction and sentencing data	Offense of conviction, court of conviction, sentencing date, sentence length, good time earned, parole eligibility and release dates, expiration of sentence, and previous federal, state and local convictions
(7)	Past movement via transfers or writs	Institution or RRM field office names and dates assigned, including the commitment date and how committed (PS 1480.06 at p. 12)
(8)	General institutional assignments	Program and work assignments at a general level — not housing unit or cell

Two limits sit on top of that list, both from the Bureau’s implementing instructions in PS 1480.06 at p. 12 (effective 22 June 2026), and both of them explain a search result that looks broken:

“Only provide the specific Bureau institution name or the specific RRM field office that oversees the inmate in community confinement. The specific location of an inmate is not releasable while they are in community confinement (e.g., at an RRC or in home confinement.)”

“The release of inmate designation information is prohibited. An inmate’s designated place of incarceration becomes public information only after the inmate has arrived at the designated institution.”

And a third, from the regulation itself: “Information in paragraphs (b)(1) through (8) of this section may not be released if confidential for protection cases” (28 C.F.R. § 540.65(c)).

Read those together and the design becomes clear. The locator tells you where someone is, never where they are going. It tells you the RRM office, never the halfway house. And for a protection case it may tell you nothing at all.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: Families read an empty search result as an emergency. It almost never is. In my experience the most common cause by a wide margin is timing — the designation has not posted because the person has not physically arrived, and BOP policy forbids releasing the designation before arrival. The second most common is that the person is in community confinement and the system is doing exactly what policy tells it to do. Before you call the prison, work down the table below.

What it means when the locator shows X — the diagnostic table

This is the table nobody publishes. Find your result in column one.

What you see	What it most likely means	What to do next
No result at all, name search	The committed name differs from the name you used, or the person is not in Bureau custody	Re-search using the exact name on the judgment (PS 5800.19 at p. 12). Try each half of a hyphenated surname separately — staff themselves run “multiple name searches” for hyphenated names (PS 5800.19 at p. 39). Then try the register number
No result, register number search, number is well-formed	Not yet in Bureau custody; already released and outside the tool’s retained window; a protection case; or a transcription error	Confirm the format is five digits, hyphen, three digits. Then work through the four rows below
No result, and the number has the wrong shape	It is not a federal register number — probably a jail booking number, a state number, or a court docket number	See how federal register numbers work. A non-federal number will never resolve federally
“Not in BOP custody”	Sentenced but not yet reported; still in U.S. Marshals custody pre-designation; or held in a non-federal contract bed	If sentenced with a self-surrender date, nothing will appear until the reporting date, because designation information is not released before arrival (PS 1480.06 at p. 12). Contact defense counsel or the USMS office for the sentencing district
A release date in the past, and no facility	The person has been released from Bureau custody — to the street, to supervision, or to a detainer	Release does not mean the case is over. Supervised release, detainers and immigration custody all follow release. See BOP release notification requirements
An RRM office instead of a prison (e.g. “RRM Atlanta”)	The person is in community confinement — a residential reentry center (halfway house) or home confinement	This is policy working, not an error. Only the RRM field office is releasable (PS 1480.06 at p. 12). Contact that RRM office; there are 22 of them
“In transit”	The person is being moved between facilities and is at a holdover point	Records update on arrival, “within two hours” (PS 5800.19 at p. 9). Mail sent to the old facility during a move can be delayed or returned
A different facility than you expected	A transfer, a writ, a medical designation, a disciplinary transfer, or a facility conversion	Category (7), past movement, shows the history
A facility you cannot find on bop.gov	The facility closed, converted, or came off BOP’s roster	Five institutions — FCI Dublin, MCC New York, FPC Pensacola, FCI Terminal Island and FCI Taft — are off the Bureau’s live roster. Taft was one of six closures announced on 1 July 2026. See the section on closed facilities below
A release date that doesn’t match what the judge said	Good conduct time, prior custody credit, First Step Act time credits, or an error	Up to 54 days per year of the sentence imposed may be credited for satisfactory behavior (18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1)). If it still looks wrong, see the release-date section below
A release date on a weekend or holiday	The actual release will usually be earlier	The Bureau may release a person whose date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday “on the last preceding weekday” (28 C.F.R. § 571.30; PS 5140.36 at p. 1)
The record vanished after appearing	Release, transfer to a non-BOP authority, or a protection classification	Information otherwise public “may not be released if confidential for protection cases” (28 C.F.R. § 540.65(c))
Two people with the same name	Exactly what the register number exists to prevent	Never send mail or money on a name alone. Confirm the number first

Why someone is not in the locator yet

There is a gap between “sentenced” and “in a federal prison,” and it is where most panicked searches happen.

The designation has to be made before it can be disclosed. For a voluntary surrender, the courts, U.S. Probation and the Marshals transmit sentencing documents electronically to the Designation and Sentence Computation Center (DSCC) at Grand Prairie, Texas, which enters the designation; institution staff then access the designation package through the e-Designate system (PS 5140.43 at p. 2). Our summary of voluntary surrender and unescorted transfers covers that process, and inmate security designation and custody classification explains how the institution is chosen.

And then it cannot be disclosed until arrival. This is the part almost nobody knows. Bureau policy states flatly that “the release of inmate designation information is prohibited,” and that the designated place of incarceration “becomes public information only after the inmate has arrived at the designated institution” (PS 1480.06 at p. 12). So even where the Bureau has decided where someone is going, it will not tell the public until they get there.

A person in Marshals custody pre-sentencing is not the Bureau’s to disclose. Pretrial detainees have federal register numbers — the number is assigned when USMS custody begins (PS 5800.19 at p. 38) — but if they are being held in a county jail or a contract facility under a Marshals agreement, the Bureau is not the custodian. See BOP policy on pretrial inmates.

A person who did not report is not “missing.” If a voluntary surrender fails to arrive, Correctional Systems staff notify the Marshals from the committing district by the end of the workday of the scheduled arrival date; for an unescorted transfer, staff update the record to change the release assignment to “escape” and notify DSCC (PS 5140.43 at pp. 4–5). That is a law-enforcement matter, not a search problem.

Community confinement: why you see an office, not an address

If someone has moved to a residential reentry center — a halfway house — or to home confinement, the locator will show the Residential Reentry Management field office that supervises the placement, not the facility or the address.

That is deliberate. The Bureau’s instruction is to “only provide the specific Bureau institution name or the specific RRM field office that oversees the inmate in community confinement,” and it adds that “the specific location of an inmate is not releasable while they are in community confinement (e.g., at an RRC or in home confinement)” (PS 1480.06 at p. 12).

There are 22 RRM field offices on the Bureau’s roster as of 5 September 2026 — Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Long Beach, Miami, Minneapolis, Montgomery, Nashville, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Sacramento, San Antonio, Seattle and St. Louis. Each covers a defined geographic area, and each publishes a staff address and phone number on bop.gov/locations. That office is the correct place to direct a question about someone in community confinement.

Two related facts are worth having:

• Prerelease custody in a community setting is capped by statute at the final portion of the sentence, “not to exceed 12 months” (18 U.S.C. § 3624(c)(1)); home confinement under that same authority is limited to the shorter of ten percent of the term or six months (§ 3624(c)(2)). So an RRM listing typically signals the last stretch of a sentence. Our pages on federal halfway houses and home confinement go into how placement is decided.
• Arrival at an RRC is entered by Residential Reentry Management staff on the day of arrival, or the next workday if arrival is after business hours; and if a person fails to arrive, RRC staff notify the RRM within 24 hours (PS 5140.43 at pp. 4–5). That is why a record can lag a day at the RRC end and no longer.

Transfers, holdovers, and the two-hour rule

A person in transit is genuinely in motion, and the record follows the body.

Records are updated at the receiving end: “Inmate load/admit transactions into the applicable Bureau inmate management system will be completed for each inmate within two hours of the inmate’s arrival at the institution. The release transaction for departing inmates is performed immediately prior to release” (PS 5800.19 at p. 9; the same two-hour rule is restated at p. 20).

A cross-country move is rarely a single trip. The Bureau operates FTC Oklahoma City, an administrative-security federal transfer center, as a hub, and movements are managed on manifests issued by the federal air and ground transport system that list “the names, register numbers, and destinations of inmates being moved, as well as approved holdover points” (PS 5800.19 at p. 8). A person can sit at a holdover for days.

Two practical consequences:

• Mail and money sent during a move can go astray. Wait for the record to settle before you send anything.
• Near the end of a sentence, moves stop. “Ordinarily, inmates within 60 days of their release date are not moved” (PS 5800.19 at p. 14). A transfer inside that window is unusual and usually has a specific reason behind it.

Our page on the federal inmate transfer process covers how transfers are requested and decided.

When the facility itself no longer exists

A locator record can name a place you cannot find, because BOP’s own footprint changed in 2026.

Five institutions are off the Bureau’s live facility roster as of 5 September 2026 — FCI Dublin, MCC New York, FPC Pensacola and FCI Terminal Island, plus FCI Taft from the July 2026 closure list. Their facility pages no longer resolve on bop.gov. Anyone with a live register number is housed somewhere else. Historical records and old correspondence naming those facilities are not wrong; they are simply out of date. See our records for FCI Dublin, MCC New York, FPC Pensacola and FCI Terminal Island.

Six more closures and two conversions were announced on 1 July 2026. The Bureau announced it would close Beaumont FCI Low, Big Spring FCI and its satellite camp, La Tuna FCI/FSL and its satellite camp, the Lexington FMC satellite camp, Petersburg FCI Low, and Taft FCI; and that Morgantown FPC and Duluth FPC would “transition from minimum-security camps to FSL facilities” (BOP press release, 1 July 2026). The Bureau attributed the decision to “decades of deferred maintenance and extreme staffing challenges” and stated a deferred maintenance backlog “exceeding $4 billion.”

Affected facility records: FCI Beaumont Low, FCI Big Spring, FCI La Tuna, FMC Lexington, FCI Petersburg Low, Taft, FCI Morgantown and FPC Duluth. Our page on major federal prison closures and deactivations tracks the whole list.

One more roster oddity, because it produces confused searches: FCI Yazoo City Low II is carried on BOP’s roster at medium security while still displaying the “Low II” name. It is the only security-level discrepancy in the roster. If a designation or a search result for Yazoo City Low looks inconsistent with what you were told, that is why — confirm before relying on it. Our prison security levels page explains what the levels mean.

Protection cases and Witness Security

Some people will not appear, and there is a rule behind it rather than a glitch.

The regulation permits withholding: information otherwise public “may not be released if confidential for protection cases” (28 C.F.R. § 540.65(c)).

Beyond that, the Bureau operates the Central Inmate Monitoring system, and one of its stated program objectives is that “the status, identity, and location of Witness Security cases will not be improperly disclosed” (PS 5180.05 at p. 2). Witness Security cases are designated by Central Office only, and that classification “overrides any other CIM assignment” (PS 5180.05 at p. 5). Institution staff are not the people who answer questions about these cases. Our summary of the Central Inmate Monitoring system and separatees covers the categories.

If this describes your situation, do not keep calling institutions. Speak to counsel.

Why there are no federal inmate mugshots

A large share of searches on this topic are for photographs — “federal inmate search with pictures,” “federal inmate mugshots.” The honest answer is short: the Bureau of Prisons does not publish inmate photographs, and a photograph is not on the list of information the regulation treats as public.

Look again at 28 C.F.R. § 540.65(b). It enumerates eight categories. A photograph is not among them, and the Bureau’s implementing policy adds nothing that would put one there (PS 1480.06 at p. 12).

The Bureau does maintain a photograph file, but it is an internal security tool. Program Statement 5513.01, Posted Picture File, effective 7 May 2026, “is intended to implement a Posted Picture File (PPF) of inmates or detainees who are potentially disruptive, escape risks, and/or who present a threat to staff or institution security,” maintained in an Electronic Posted Picture System reviewed by the Special Investigative Supervisor and an Associate Warden (PS 5513.01 at pp. 1–2). It is staff-facing and confidential. Our summary of the Posted Picture File policy has the detail.

Sites that advertise “federal inmate search with pictures” are generally recycling arrest photographs taken by state and local agencies before any federal case existed, or by the Marshals, and often charge for it. They are not the Bureau, they are not authoritative, and the images they hold may be years out of date.

Reading the release date

The date on a locator record is a projected release date, and three mechanisms move it.

Good conduct time. A person serving more than one year, other than a life term, “may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence of up to 54 days for each year of the prisoner’s sentence imposed by the court,” subject to the Bureau’s determination about compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations (18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1)). Discipline can cost it — see inmate discipline proceedings and our summary of good conduct time policy.

Prior custody credit. Time already served can count; see prior custody credit under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b).

First Step Act time credits. Earned credits can advance a release date or a transfer to prerelease custody; see First Step Act time credits.

Two cautions. First, a date that falls on a weekend or a legal holiday will usually be advanced: the Bureau may release a person on “the last preceding weekday,” unless a detainer or another reason requires holding them to the scheduled date (28 C.F.R. § 571.30; PS 5140.36 at p. 1). Second, nobody should treat a locator date as a promise. It is a computation that can move. If it looks wrong, that is a records question — start with challenging a BOP sentence computation and the Sentence Computation Manual.

Getting more than the locator will give you

The locator is the ceiling for public information. Above that ceiling, there is a process.

Written consent is the fast route. The Bureau’s policy is that “information concerning an individual inmate is not generally available to FOIA requesters unless the inmate whose records are being sought has given a written consent to the disclosure or unless the information has been determined to constitute ‘public information'” (PS 1351.05 at p. 8). Staff may disclose from a Bureau system of records “with the written consent of the individual to whom the record pertains,” using the Release of Information Consent form (PS 1351.05 at p. 11, applying 28 C.F.R. § 513.34).

A Privacy Act request on someone else’s behalf needs identity certification. That is the DOJ-361 Certification of Identity, which includes an optional “Authorization to Release Information to Another Person” block under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b). Our explainer on FOIA and Privacy Act requests to the BOP covers where it goes and what will be withheld, and BOP central file and records policy explains what is in the file you would be asking for.

The person inside can ask directly. The Inmate Request to Staff — the “cop-out,” now filed electronically in TRULINCS for most people — is the ordinary first step for anything from a records question to a housing problem. If that fails, the Administrative Remedy Program is the formal route; see also prison grievances.

Once you have located someone, the practical tasks begin. Mail (writing to a federal inmate), money (sending money to a federal inmate), phone (inmate phone calls), email (CorrLinks and TRULINCS), and visiting (inmate visitation) each have their own rules, and each of them needs the register number before anything else.

What changed in 2026

Four developments are recent enough that no competing locator page reflects them.

The Bureau’s public-information policy was reissued on 22 June 2026. Program Statement 1480.06, Multimedia Communications, rescinded PS 1480.05, News Media Contacts (21 Sept. 2000) — a policy that had stood for nearly 26 years. Among its changes, it “updates the program statement title from ‘News Media Contacts’ to ‘Multimedia Communications’,” adds expanded direction on external websites and applications including social media, and clarifies how the news media must request institutional visits and interviews (PS 1480.06 at p. 1). The community-confinement and designation-disclosure instructions quoted above are in the current edition at p. 12. Our summary of BOP news media contact policy is the companion page.

The Receiving and Discharge Manual was reissued on 7 May 2026. PS 5800.19 replaced PS 5800.18 CN-1 (27 Feb. 2025), and its summary of changes includes “language limiting the dissemination of sensitive information regarding designations, redesignations, and transfer of inmates to staff not involved with the movement process” (PS 5800.19 at pp. 1–2). Movement information is being handled more tightly, not less.

The Posted Picture File policy was reissued and renumbered on 7 May 2026. PS 5513.01 replaced PS 5510.13 CN-1 (6 Aug. 2021) and now “mandates all institution staff now review the Posted Picture File quarterly” (PS 5513.01 at p. 1).

Core inmate records systems moved to a cloud platform in August 2026. The Bureau’s own statement describes moving, over a single weekend, the systems supporting sentence computation and release-date calculation, custody classification, medical information and program eligibility (BOP News, 27 Aug. 2026). This is an IT migration, not a policy change — it creates no right and alters no procedure — but it is a dated, on-the-record agency statement about the systems behind every date the locator displays. Background on the underlying records system is in our summary of SENTRY.

Where people get stuck using the BOP inmate locator

“I’m being asked to pay for a search.” Don’t. The Bureau’s locator is free. Paid “inmate search” services resell public data, sometimes stale, and have no access the public lacks.

“The prison won’t tell me anything.” Institution staff are limited to public information absent consent (PS 1351.05 at p. 11). That is a rule they are following, not obstruction. The route to more is consent or a Privacy Act request.

“The record shows a facility, but mail comes back.” Check the facility’s own inmate mailing address — several institutions publish a P.O. box rather than the street address, and complexes have separate addresses for the FCI and the camp. Never send funds to a facility address; all money sent by mail goes to a central processing lockbox in Des Moines, Iowa, for every federal inmate regardless of where they are housed.

“I found them, but I need to know how they’re doing.” The locator will never answer that. Medical, disciplinary and housing information are not public. Start with the person, then counsel; see what families should know about federal prison and medical care in federal prison.

“I have a case number but no register number.” Different keys for different locks. A docket number pulls the judgment from the court; a register number finds the person.

When the search is not the real problem

Finding someone is usually the easy part. What comes next is not.

If the designation put someone a thousand miles from their children, if a projected release date does not match what the judgment says, if a disciplinary finding took good conduct time, if First Step Act credits are not posting, or if the person needs medical care they are not getting — those are records and advocacy problems, and they are worked through the unit team, the administrative remedy process, and where necessary the courts.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, with a national federal practice run on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience, is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals, and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, leads the firm’s federal prison consulting practice — designation, sentence computation, disciplinary and medical-care advocacy, First Step Act time credits, RDAP, and reentry planning.

To discuss a federal prison problem, contact the firm at (843) 620-1100. If you are earlier in the process, our directory of federal facilities and our guide to preparing for a federal prison sentence are the right places to start.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Inmate Locator

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026