Requesting a document from the government: the Transparency Act

Ley 141-2019 establishes a uniform procedure for accessing the public information that government entities generate or hold. Information the government produces is presumed public and accessible to everyone equally, subject to the applicable exceptions. Each entity designates Information Officers, who receive requests, process them, register them in the order received and number them — that number is the reference for any procedure or review — must provide help to any citizen wishing to file, and must render monthly public reports on the entity’s web page on how many requests they received, of what type and their status. Ley 156-2025 additionally added a definition of “format”: as a general rule the requester chooses among printed paper, PDF, URL or physical inspection, and no entity is obliged to create or prepare a document that did not exist when the request was received.

Anyone. Article 6, as amended, says any person may request public information by written or electronic request, without needing to show any particular or legal interest. You do not have to say what you want it for or show that it affects you. Two limits: information expressly classified as confidential by a law, regulation or judicial determination prior to the request cannot be disclosed, and personnel files are not public information. And one practical caveat: information already published free of charge on the Government of Puerto Rico’s official pages is not subject to this request process.

• Notifying the request to the Head or Director of the agency or entity — or to the President of the corresponding Legislative Branch and/or the Judiciary — with a copy to the Information Officer. Requests not notified this way are deemed defective and do not start the term.Verified against the official source
• Including at least a postal address and an email address to receive notifications.Verified against the official source
• Including a description of the information being requested.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Check first whether it is already published

   Article 4, as amended, requires every entity to publish on its official page, periodically, proactively and updated, information about its operations and the public documentation it routinely produces. And it says something that saves you the procedure: information already published free of charge on the Government of Puerto Rico’s official pages is not subject to the request process of Articles 5, 6, 7 and 8. Search before writing.

2. 2

   Step 2: Write it: you do not have to explain why

   Any person may request public information by written or electronic request, without needing to show any particular or legal interest. Include at least a postal address and an email address to receive notifications, and a description of the information you are requesting. If the document is available in the format you asked for, the entity must give it to you in that format absent just cause; as a general rule you can choose among printed paper, PDF, URL or physical inspection. Note: no entity is obliged to create a document that did not exist when your request arrived.

3. 3

   Step 3: And this is the step that sinks requests

   The request must be notified to the Head or Director of the agency or governmental entity — or to the President of the corresponding Legislative Branch and/or the Judiciary — with a copy to the Information Officer. Article 6, as amended, is blunt: requests not notified this way are deemed defective and do not have the effect of running the term to disclose the information. If you write only to the Information Officer, you may be waiting on a clock that never started. Send both.

4. 4

   Step 4: Keep proof of when you sent it

   The term starts running from the date you sent the request, as shown by the email, the postal postmark or the fax receipt. Not from when the agency opens it. Keep that email. The Information Officer, for their part, is responsible for notifying you by email, fax or regular mail that your request was received and what its identification number is.

5. 5

   Step 5: Count the business days

   Twenty business days if the document does not exceed three hundred pages and is under three years old. Thirty business days if it exceeds three hundred pages or is more than three years old. If in the Executive Branch you filed directly with a regional office, the term cannot exceed thirty business days, and that regional Officer has forty-eight hours to alert the central level. They can ask you for an extension, but only one and of twenty business days, and they must notify you within the initial term explaining why.

6. 6

   Step 6: Silence is a denial

   If the entity does not answer within the established term, the request is understood to have been denied and you can go to court. And any decision to deny disclosure must state in writing the legal grounds on which the refusal rests. Five things count as compliance: making the information available at the offices for inspection and reproduction; sending it to you by email; mailing you a copy by First Class federal mail if you are willing to pay postage and associated costs; giving you an internet address with instructions to access it; or letting you inspect the documents.

7. 7

   Step 7: The court recourse: free and without a lawyer

   Here is what almost nobody knows. It is called a Special Recourse for Access to Public Information and is filed in the Court of First Instance, San Juan Judicial Region. The Judicial Branch must create and make available to the public a simple form to complete. Filing carries no stamps or fees. Except in specifically-founded extraordinary circumstances, no citizen will be required to hire a lawyer, and none may be prevented from litigating pro se. The court itself serves the entity at no cost, warning it that failing to appear in writing means acquiescing to the allegations and the remedy will issue without further summons or hearing. The entity has ten business days to appear. The deadline to file the recourse is one of strict compliance: thirty days from being notified of the denial, or from the date the term expired without an answer.

8. 8

   Step 8: And if the agency defies the court

   Ley 156-2025 added a new article precisely for that. If an agency or governmental entity to which the Act applies fails to comply with a Resolution issued by the Court under Article 9, it may be sanctioned with a fine of up to one hundred dollars a day, with the fine not exceeding eighteen thousand dollars in total. And that penalty applies retroactively to any sanction imposed that had not been satisfied as of the Act’s effective date.

To the entity that holds the document: to the Head or Director, with a copy to the Information Officer. Many agencies also link PR.gov’s Public Transparency Portal, from which access is requested, notifications received and progress tracked. Each entity publishes on its web page who its Information Officers are and its monthly request reports. The judicial recourse is filed in the Court of First Instance, San Juan.

• Notifying only the Information Officer: without a copy to the Head or Director the request is defective and the term does not run.
• Explaining why you want the information, believing it is required: no interest needs to be shown.
• Counting calendar days instead of business days.
• Counting the term from the agency’s acknowledgment rather than from when you sent it.
• Not keeping the email, postmark or fax receipt proving the send date.
• Letting the thirty strict-compliance days for the judicial recourse lapse after a denial or silence.
• Paying stamps for the recourse: filing carries no stamps or fees.
• Hiring a lawyer believing it is mandatory: absent founded extraordinary circumstances, it cannot be required.
• Requesting information already published free on the entity’s official page.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Portal de Servicios del Gobierno de Puerto Rico (PR.gov)

  PR.gov

  sutra.oslpr.org

• DTRH — Public Information, an example of how one agency publishes the procedure

  DTRH

  www.trabajo.pr.gov