about

Open Records

Texas Government Code, Chapter 552, gives you the right to access government records. All government information is presumed to be available to the public, although exceptions may apply to the disclosure of some information.

Read more about the Public Information Act.

Submit Your Request

You can submit an open records request by mail, fax, in person or using our online FYI Open Records Tool. With this tool you can make requests and track the progress online.

FYI Open Records Tool

Other options are:

If you need special accommodation pursuant to the Americans With Disabilities Act, please contact our Workplace Accommodations Coordinator at 512-475-3560.

Before you enter a request…

A great deal of information is available here on Comptroller.Texas.Gov. You may be able to find what you are looking for without submitting a request. On the home page, the Business Center has links to:

Manage Your Account

• Change your address or phone number
• Learn about Certificates of Account Status and Tax Clearance Letters
• Access your Webfile account.
• Need help resetting your Webfile account or have questions about your Webfile account? Contact us.
• Not familiar with Webfile? Visit our Getting Started with Webfile webpage.
• Need to talk to someone about your tax account status, update account information, or confirm that reports were filed? Call Taxpayer Services at 800-252-5555.
• Need to pay your tax bill or talk to someone in person? Find your local tax office.

Request a Certificate of No Tax Due

If you are selling your business or buying a business from someone else, you will likely need a Certificate of No Tax Due. Read about buying or selling businesses.

To request a certificate, send your request to cntd@cpa.texas.gov.

Look up taxpayers

Need help finding your taxpayer number or other information? Here are some search tools by tax type:

• Franchise tax
• Sales tax
• Cigarette/tobacco retailers

Hotel Occupancy Tax

You can access Hotel Occupancy Tax data using our Secure Information and File Transfer (SIFT) site. To use SIFT, you'll need to set up an account. After that, you may log in to view and download information at your convenience.

Open Data Portal

The Comptroller's office posts data files to the state's Open Data Portal. You can view data online, search for specific subsets of records and download files. Below is a list of some of the Comptroller data files available on the site.

• Mixed Beverage Gross Receipts Tax (10 years of data)
• Active Sales Tax Permits – Taxpayer and Location Information
• Active Franchise Taxpayers – Taxpayer and Status Information
• Agricultural and Timber Exemption Registrations
• Sales Tax Allocations – by City, City and County Comparisons, and County, MTA and SPD
• Active Cigarette and Tobacco Tax Retailers
• Texas Tax Exempt Entities – Exemptions from Sales, Franchise and Hotel Occupancy taxes
• State Expenditures

We encourage you to spend time learning how the site works and browsing information available to the public. If you have any technical questions about how to use the platform, please visit the Socrata Client Center.