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PACER User Manual
Introduction to PACER
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) allows users to view, print, or download
current and recently closed federal cases. If a document is not available through PACER, you may
need to contact the court.
Fees
The PSC does not receive appropriations from the federal government to provide electronic public
access services. Instead, Congress directed the Judiciary to fund PACER through user fees. As a
result, all registered agencies and individuals are charged $0.10 per page for PACER searches. This
includes searches that yield no matches. In addition, audio files generate a $2.40 per-file charge.
PACER counts billable pages in three ways:
1. For an html-formatted report, a formula determines the number of pages.
2. For a PDF, the actual number of pages is counted.
3. On the PACER Case Locator (PCL), 54 lines are counted as one billable page.
NOTE: If you accrue less than $15 of charges in a quarter, fees are waived
for that period.
For printed report data from CM/ECF, the print job will not always match the number of pages
billed, as settings may vary. All users are charged equally for the same information regardless of
settings or printer configurations.
The per-page charge applies whether pages are printed, viewed, or downloaded. The charge for any
single document is capped at $3, or 30 pages. In CM/ECF, most reports obtained through the
Reports menu are not case-specific and are not capped at 30 pages.
NOTE: The 30-page cap does not apply to transcripts of federal court
proceedings, new case reports, or other non-case-specific reports or searches.
Each court site provides a transaction receipt and options to review billing history. To review
transactions from all courts, log in to Manage My Account at pacer.gov and click the View Detailed
Transactions option under the Usage tab.
Dockets, Case Reports, and Search Results
Docket reports are generated with the number of pages for a docket sheet before the document is
reformatted as a webpage.
Billable pages for docket reports, case reports, and search results are calculated using a formula
based on the number of bytes extracted (4,320 bytes = 1 billable page).
NOTE: Docket reports are capped at 30 pages; however, use caution when
running case reports, as they are not capped at 30 pages.