How to get a car accident report in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania provides state-police crash reports through Pennsylvania State Police Online Crash Report Requests. Crashes handled by local police or county sheriffs are requested from the responding agency (listed below).
Official source
Pennsylvania State Police Online Crash Report Requests
Official Pennsylvania crash-report source — $22 per report. State-police crashes; locals request from the responding agency.
Open the official portal→Source: Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania State Police Online Crash Report Requests. Checked 2026-07-24. Details can change — always confirm with the official source.
Step by step
- Wait 15 days and confirm eligibility. PA State Police crash reports become available 15 days after the crash date. Confirm you qualify to receive one — you must be a person involved in the crash, their attorney or insurer, or an involved government agency. These reports are not public, so uninvolved parties cannot obtain them.
- Choose online or mail. Request online through the PA State Police Online Crash Report Requests portal (pa.gov/psp/crash-reports), or download mail-in Form SP 7-0015. The online portal is fastest; the mail form is for those who prefer to pay by check/money order.
- Provide the crash details. Enter the CAD/Case number if you have it, or search by the involved party's last name plus the date of the crash. The mail form also asks for county, municipality, route/location, time of crash, and your reason for the request.
- Pay the $22 fee. Each report costs $22. Pay online during checkout in the portal, or for mail requests enclose a money order or certified check for $22 payable to 'Commonwealth of Pennsylvania' with Form SP 7-0015.
- Submit and receive the report. Mail requests go to PA State Police, Crash Reports Unit, 1800 Elmerton Avenue, Harrisburg, PA 17110. PSP reviews and approves or denies requests within about 7 business days; approved reports are then released to you.
State police / highway patrol crashes
For a crash investigated by the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP): use the PSP Online Crash Report Requests portal at pa.gov/psp/crash-reports, or mail Form SP 7-0015 with a $22 money order/certified check (payable to 'Commonwealth of Pennsylvania') to PA State Police, Crash Reports Unit, 1800 Elmerton Avenue, Harrisburg, PA 17110. Search by CAD/Case number or by last name + crash date. Reports are available 15 days after the crash; PSP approves or denies the request within about 7 business days. Questions: 717-783-3380 or RA-pspcrashreports@pa.gov.
Crashes handled by local police or sheriffs
Pennsylvania does NOT have one statewide portal for local crashes. The PSP Online Crash Report Requests site covers ONLY crashes investigated by the Pennsylvania State Police. If a city/municipal police department, borough/township police, or county handled the crash, you must request the report directly from that investigating agency's records unit — by mail, in person, or through that department's own online system (large departments like the Philadelphia Police Department and Pittsburgh Bureau of Police run their own request processes and set their own fees). Some PA local departments use third-party portals (e.g., CarFax/crashdocs or LexisNexis-based systems), but adoption is department-by-department, not statewide. PennDOT compiles statewide crash DATA but does not sell copies of police crash reports to the public. Bottom line: identify which agency wrote the report (it is on the driver-exchange slip) and follow that specific agency's process.
Pennsylvania counties (52)
Pick the county where your crash happened for every local agency and its exact request process:
- Adams County (3)
- Allegheny County (31)
- Armstrong County (1)
- Beaver County (5)
- Berks County (23)
- Blair County (4)
- Bradford County (1)
- Bucks County (23)
- Butler County (3)
- Cambria County (5)
- Cameron County (1)
- Carbon County (4)
- Centre County (4)
- Chester County (26)
- Clearfield County (2)
- Clinton County (1)
- Columbia County (8)
- Crawford County (2)
- Cumberland County (12)
- Dauphin County (10)
- Delaware County (22)
- Elk County (1)
- Erie County (4)
- Fayette County (4)
- Franklin County (2)
- Huntingdon County (1)
- Indiana County (2)
- Jefferson County (1)
- Lackawanna County (10)
- Lancaster County (20)
- Lawrence County (1)
- Lebanon County (8)
- Lehigh County (11)
- Luzerne County (19)
- Lycoming County (4)
- McKean County (2)
- Mercer County (4)
- Monroe County (3)
- Montgomery County (35)
- Montour County (1)
- Northampton County (10)
- Northumberland County (5)
- Pike County (3)
- Schuylkill County (6)
- Somerset County (2)
- Tioga County (3)
- Union County (2)
- Warren County (2)
- Washington County (5)
- Wayne County (1)
- Westmoreland County (6)
- York County (12)
Plus 49 statewide or specialty agencies: Aldan Police Department, Ashley Borough Police Department, Benton Borough Police Department, Brecknock Township Police Department, Brentwood Borough Police, Brookhaven Boro Police Department, Cleona Borough Police Department, Collier Township Pa Police Department, Conemaugh Township (Cambria County) Police Department, Conemaugh Township (Somerset County) Police Department, Conyngham Boro Police Department, Coplay Borough Police Department, and more.
After you get the report
Give the report (and its CAD/Case number) to your insurer to support your claim — it documents the date, location, involved parties, vehicles, insurance info, and the officer's account of what happened. Read it carefully for errors: check spelling of names, license-plate/VIN and insurance details, the crash date/location, and the officer's diagram or narrative. If something is wrong, contact the investigating PSP station or officer (or the local department that wrote it) to request a correction, since insurers and attorneys rely on this document to assign fault.