The County Clerk Records Your DD214 Free — and Will Destroy It on Fifteen Days’ Notice
Discharge papers, DD Form 214 included, may be recorded with the county clerk where the veteran lives, and the clerk must record them without charge. The recorded file is not a public record; a defined list of people may take certified copies; and a veteran may require the clerk to destroy every copy within fifteen days.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
Discharge papers, DD Form 214 included, may be recorded with the county clerk where the veteran lives, and the clerk must record them without charge. The recorded file is not a public record; a defined list of people may take certified copies; and a veteran may require the clerk to destroy every copy within fifteen days.
What it's worth: Recording without charge, and a same-day certified copy from the county instead of a wait on the Archives
- The statute waives the recording charge expressly. It does not state that certified copies are free, so a clerk may charge its ordinary copy fee for those — the saving that matters here is time, not money.
- The real value is a certified copy available locally on the day a claim, a funeral or a burial needs one, rather than a National Archives request measured in weeks.
Who is entitled to it
- The veteran records the discharge; the copy list then reaches spouse, widow or widower, adult child, parent, grandparent and adult sibling.
- You are in this state.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
- 1Take the discharge papers to the clerk in the county where the discharged person is a resident. The clerk must record them without charge in a book kept for the purpose.
- 2A certified or attested copy of the recorded discharge is admissible evidence wherever the discharge itself would be, so the county copy does the same legal work as the original.
- 3Bring proper identification when you come back for copies. The list of people who may be given one is closed: the veteran; a spouse, widow or widower, adult child, parent, grandparent or adult sibling; anyone the veteran authorises; a guardian or conservator; an attorney-in-fact; the funeral director handling the arrangements; and the personal representative of the estate.
- 4The recorded papers are NOT public records subject to disclosure. Only the alphabetical index of names is public, and the statute requires that index to be bound separately from the book holding the papers.
- 5If you would rather the county not hold it, you can undo it: on proper identification a veteran may ask the clerk to destroy their discharge papers, and the clerk must destroy every copy in whatever form within fifteen days.
- 6Papers filed before 13 July 2004 may sit commingled with unrelated documents. The statute lets the clerk apply the confidentiality and separate-index rules to those older filings too, so it is worth asking rather than assuming an old filing is exposed.
- Form
- Present the discharge papers to the county clerk
- File with
- County clerk of the county where the veteran resides
- Documents you will need
- dd214
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
Sources
- authority · statuteKRS 422.090 — Discharge from military or naval service may be recorded; persons entitled to copies; exemption from public disclosure; request to destroy copies
Why only one source type: Only the statute could be read. Individual county clerks publish their own counter guidance and the state veterans department’s site is edge-blocked from here, so no county-level fee schedule or form is claimed.
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.