How to Read ACRIS: A Practical Guide to NYC Property Records
ACRIS indexes NYC recorded property documents from 1966. Search by BBL, join the Master, Legals and Parties tables, and read a document type code.
Quick answer
ACRIS is the New York City Office of the City Register’s Automated City Register Information System, the online index of recorded property documents for Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens from 1966 forward. Search it by borough-block-lot, not by address. Each document is split across separate Master, Legals and Parties records that only make sense joined on document_id.
What is ACRIS?
The Department of Finance states the scope in one sentence: "The Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS) allows you to search property records and view document images for Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn from 1966 to the present."
ACRIS is two things at once, and conflating them causes most of the confusion. It is a filing system, where attorneys and title companies e-record deeds and mortgages and pay transfer and mortgage recording tax. It is also a public index, exposed through a web search at a836-acris.nyc.gov and through bulk extracts on NYC Open Data.
It is an index of instruments, not an opinion about title. The Department of Finance says so directly on its own recording page: "Reviewing these documents is not necessarily the same as a title search." ACRIS will tell you what was recorded against a parcel. It will not tell you which of those instruments is still live, whether the grantor had authority to sign, or what was never recorded at all.
Definition
ACRIS (Automated City Register Information System) — ACRIS is the New York City Department of Finance system that records property documents and publishes the searchable index of them. It covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens from 1966 to the present.
Why is one ACRIS document split across several tables?
A recorded document has three independent one-to-many relationships: it can touch several tax lots, it names two or more parties, and it can cross-reference several earlier instruments. Rather than flatten those, ACRIS stores each as its own record type keyed on a shared document_id. Reading a single table gives you a third of a document.
The row counts show the fan-out. Retrieved from NYC Open Data on 18 August 2026, with all extracts good through 31 July 2026, the Real Property Master table held 17,065,090 rows; Legals held 22,727,180; Parties held 46,540,137. There are roughly 1.3 lot records and 2.7 party records for every document.
Everything joins on document_id. It is the only key common to all six tables, and it is the key you carry through a search from index hit to scanned image.
| Table (Open Data ID) | One row per | What it gives you | Rows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real Property Master (bnx9-e6tj) | Document | doc_type, document_date, recorded_datetime, document_amt, CRFN, percent_trans, pre-ACRIS reel/page. | 17,065,090 |
| Real Property Legals (8h5j-fqxa) | Document + tax lot | borough, block, lot, unit, street number and name, easement, partial-lot, air and subterranean rights flags, property_type. | 22,727,180 |
| Real Property Parties (636b-3b5g) | Document + party | party_type (1, 2 or 3), name, and mailing address. Nothing else. | 46,540,137 |
| Real Property References (pwkr-dpni) | Document + cross-reference | The CRFN, document_id or reel/page of an earlier instrument this one acts on. This is how a satisfaction points at its mortgage. | 8,699,896 |
| Real Property Remarks (9p4w-7npp) | Document + remark line | Free-text remark lines carried on the cover page. | 5,732,540 |
| Document Control Codes (7isb-wh4c) | Document type code | The lookup that decodes doc_type and tells you what party_type 1, 2 and 3 mean for that code. | 126 |
How do I actually search ACRIS?
The search that produces a defensible result runs on the tax lot and ends at the scanned image. Everything in between is a join.
Resolve the address to a borough, block and lot first
Search the Legals table, not the address field. One lot carries many address spellings, and many index rows carry none at all: of the 95 Legals rows on Manhattan block 851, lot 1, queried on 18 August 2026, 32 had an empty street_name. Block and lot padding differs between datasets, which is its own silent failure mode and is covered in the BBL article.
Pull every document_id indexed to that lot
A Legals query on borough, block and lot returns the document_id set for the parcel. Deduplicate it. Documents affecting more than one lot produce more than one Legals row, and the Open Data extracts also carry occasional duplicate rows that differ only in good_through_date and modified_date.
Join to Master for the instrument facts
Master supplies doc_type, the recording date, the stated amount and the CRFN. Read recorded_datetime as the legal recording date. Read document_date as the date on the instrument itself, and treat it with suspicion: it is user-entered, often blank on older records, and the Master extract contains document_date values with years such as 0001 and 0074.
Join to Parties and decode party_type against the document type
Parties stores only the codes 1, 2 and 3. The Document Control Codes table tells you what they mean for that specific doc_type. On a DEED, party 1 is the grantor and party 2 the grantee. On an ASST, party 1 is the assignor or old lender and party 2 the assignee or new lender. On a UCC1, party 3 is the assignee. The same integer means a different role on every code.
Join to References before you conclude anything is open
A satisfaction, assignment or assumption names the instrument it acts on in the References table, not in Master. The satisfaction recorded on Manhattan block 851, lot 1 on 7 June 2019 carries one reference: CRFN 2005000011325, which is the $7,200,000 mortgage recorded 6 January 2005. Without that join the two records sit in the same result set with nothing connecting them.
Pull the scanned image with the document_id
The public viewer takes the document_id directly: a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/DocumentImageView?doc_id= followed by the ID, with DocumentDetail in place of DocumentImageView for the indexed fields. Read the image on anything you intend to rely on. The index carries the legal description as a block and lot; only the instrument carries the metes and bounds, the exceptions and the signatures.
What is the difference between a document_id and a CRFN?
A document_id is the submission identifier. A CRFN, or City Register File Number, is the recording identifier. They are assigned at different moments by different processes, and a document has one of each.
The document_id is a 16-character string: eight digits of submission date, then a six-digit sequence, then a two-digit suffix. The suffix is the useful part. A closing package submitted as one transaction shares the first fourteen characters and increments the suffix, so 2024103000647001 through 2024103000647009 are nine instruments from a single 30 October 2024 submission. Reporting them as nine unrelated events is a reading error.
The CRFN is thirteen digits: a four-digit year and a nine-digit sequence, assigned in recording order. Because it is assigned at recording rather than submission, the two identifiers frequently disagree about the date. Document 2004011500796001 was submitted on 15 January 2004 and recorded on 3 April 2004 as CRFN 2004000201095. Anything that derives a recording date from the document_id prefix is off by eleven weeks on that record.
Documents backfilled from microfilm behave differently again. Their document_id begins with the literal prefix FT_, their CRFN field is empty, and their location is carried in the reel_yr, reel_nbr and reel_pg fields instead. The 1985 mortgage on Manhattan block 851, lot 1 is document FT_1840000111784, reel 962 page 1042, with no CRFN. Modern documents invert this: a CRFN and reel values of 0, 0, 0. Code that requires a CRFN drops every pre-2000s record on the parcel.
How do I read an ACRIS document type code?
ACRIS publishes 126 document type codes in four classes: 40 Other Documents, 34 Deeds and Other Conveyances, 29 UCC and Federal Liens, and 23 Mortgages and Instruments. The list below is the subset that carries most of the weight in a title search.
Two cautions about the code list itself. The party labels are DOF’s own text, typos included: the satisfaction and partial-satisfaction codes label party 1 "MORTGAGER/BORROWER". And the list is closed. There is no notice-of-pendency code anywhere in the 126, which is why an ACRIS-only search returns a clean record on a property in active foreclosure, worked through in the lis pendens article.
| Code | ACRIS description | Class | Party 1 / Party 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEED | DEED | Deeds and other conveyances | Grantor/Seller / Grantee/Buyer |
| MTGE | MORTGAGE | Mortgages and instruments | Mortgagor/Borrower / Mortgagee/Lender |
| SAT | SATISFACTION OF MORTGAGE | Mortgages and instruments | Mortgager/Borrower / Mortgagee/Lender |
| PSAT | PARTIAL SATISFACTION | Mortgages and instruments | Mortgager/Borrower / Mortgagee/Lender |
| ASST | ASSIGNMENT, MORTGAGE | Mortgages and instruments | Assignor/Old Lender / Assignee/New Lender |
| ASPM | ASSUMPTION OF MORTGAGE | Mortgages and instruments | Mortgager/Borrower / Mortgagee/Lender |
| M&CON | MORTGAGE AND CONSOLIDATION | Mortgages and instruments | Mortgagor / Mortgagee |
| AL&R | ASSIGNMENT OF LEASES AND RENTS | Mortgages and instruments | Assignor / Assignee |
| AGMT | AGREEMENT | Mortgages and instruments | Party 1 / Party 2 |
| FL | FEDERAL LIEN-IRS | UCC and federal liens | Debtor / Secured Party |
| TLS | TAX LIEN SALE CERTIFICATE | Other documents | Party 1 / Party 2 |
| LOCC | LIEN OF COMMON CHARGES | Other documents | Party One/Debtor / Party Two/Secured Party |
| RPTT | NYC REAL PROPERTY TRANSFER TAX | Other documents | Grantor/Seller / Grantee/Buyer |
Does recorded_borough tell you where the property is?
No, and this is the single most expensive misreading of the ACRIS schema. The Master table has a field called recorded_borough. It records which City Register office processed the filing. The property’s borough lives only in the Legals table.
The Flatiron Building sits on Manhattan block 851, lot 1. Of the 95 Master rows indexed to that lot on 18 August 2026, 87 carry recorded_borough 1 and eight carry recorded_borough 4, Queens. The eight Queens rows are the entire November 2023 sale of the building: five deeds, an assumption of mortgage, an assignment of leases and rents and a termination.
A worked example: reading five deeds recorded on one day
Manhattan block 851, lot 1 is the Flatiron Building. PLUTO gives the lot as 8,650 square feet, 21 floors, built 1903, owner FLATIRON OWNER LLC. ACRIS indexes 94 distinct documents to it, the earliest recorded in February 1972 and the most recent in November 2024.
On 9 November 2023, five DEED records hit the lot at once, CRFNs 2023000291812 through 2023000291816. A naive report calls that five conveyances and flags the property. The Master fields say otherwise: their percent_trans values are 25, 52.0833, 8.75, 10 and 4.1667, which sum to exactly 100. Five fractional interests, one building, one closing.
Only two of the five carry a dollar figure, $40,250,000 and $6,708,387. The other three are recorded at $0.00. Adding document_amt across a set of deeds produces a number that means nothing.
The Parties table supplies the fact that changes the interpretation. On CRFN 2023000291812, party 1 is not an owner. It is "PETER A. AXELROD, ESQ, REFEREE". A referee conveys under a court order, so this was not a negotiated sale between the record owner and a buyer; it was the disposition of a partition action. Master alone gives you a deed for $40.25 million. Master joined to Parties gives you a litigated exit.
The financing tells the same story about joins. The assumption of mortgage recorded in that package cross-references seven earlier instruments. Five resolve inside ACRIS. Two do not: reel 4782 page 157 from 1945, and reel 6001 page 159 from 1961. The document names a mortgage chain reaching back to 1945, and ACRIS cannot show you either end of it.
What are the real coverage limits of ACRIS?
ACRIS is complete for what it covers and silent about what it does not. Each of these limits produces an empty or clean-looking result rather than an error.
- Staten Island is in ACRIS as tax returns, not as conveyances. DOF directs Staten Island recording to the Richmond County Clerk, while requiring that "All Real Property Transfer Tax (RPTT) returns must be submitted electronically using ACRIS, including transfers of property in Staten Island." The data matches the rule exactly. Of 10,000 borough-5 Legals records sampled systematically across the dataset on 18 August 2026, 10,000 of the 10,003 matched Master rows were RPTT or RPTT&RET filings. Two were landmark designations and one was a mortgage. None was a deed.
- The 1966 floor is a cliff, not a slope. All four City Register boroughs begin together: citywide, 458 documents carry a 1965 recording date and 142,119 carry a 1966 date. In total only 9,595 of 17,065,090 Master rows, 0.06 percent, were recorded before 1966. DOF directs pre-1966 research to the Land Records Research Library at the Queens City Register Office. There is no outer-borough digitisation gradient among the four; the split is Staten Island, and the floor is covered in the BBL article.
- The Open Data extracts lag the live system. Every ACRIS extract carries a good_through_date. Retrieved on 18 August 2026, that date was 31 July 2026, an eighteen-day window in which a deed, mortgage or federal lien can be recorded and not appear. Confirm the currency date before treating an extract result as current, and re-run against the live index before closing.
- Party names are truncated. In a 25,000-row sample of the Parties table taken on 18 August 2026, only three names exceeded 50 characters. Long institutional names arrive cut mid-word, as with "CAPITAL ONE N.A. AS SUCCESSOR IN INTEREST BY MERGE" at exactly 50. Exact-match name searching against that field will miss the entity you are looking for.
- Bulk image retrieval is blocked by design. The web search and image viewer sit behind a bandwidth policy that refuses "detection of automated scripts/robots that are capturing data from the website" and points high-volume users at DOF subscription data services or NYC Open Data. The index is bulk-accessible; the images are not.
- Condominium lots need scoping before anything is counted. Documents on a condominium billing lot are not encumbrances on a unit, and the declaration types that appear across every unit lot are not separate transactions. The condo master lot article covers which lot to search and why.
Key takeaways
Key takeaways
- ACRIS covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens from 1966 to the present. Staten Island conveyances are recorded at the Richmond County Clerk; ACRIS holds Staten Island transfer tax returns, not its deeds.
- A document is split across Master, Legals, Parties, References and Remarks records that all join on document_id. Any one of them alone is a partial reading.
- Search on borough, block and lot in the Legals table. recorded_borough in the Master table is the recording office, not the property location, and filtering on it drops real documents.
- party_type is only 1, 2 or 3. The Document Control Codes table decodes it, and the meaning changes with every one of the 126 document type codes.
- document_id is the submission identifier and CRFN is the recording identifier. They frequently carry different dates, and pre-ACRIS documents have an FT_ document_id, no CRFN, and a reel and page instead.
- A satisfaction, assignment or assumption names the instrument it acts on in the References table. Nothing in Master connects them.
- ACRIS is an index of what was recorded. It is not a title search, it does not report what was never recorded, and it is not title insurance.
Frequently asked questions
- What years does ACRIS cover?
- 1966 to the present. The Department of Finance states that ACRIS covers Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn from 1966 forward, and directs pre-1966 research to the Land Records Research Library at the Queens City Register Office. The cutoff is abrupt: only 0.06 percent of Master records predate 1966.
- Is Staten Island in ACRIS?
- Only partially. The Office of the City Register records for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, and directs Staten Island property to the Richmond County Clerk. Staten Island appears in ACRIS almost entirely as Real Property Transfer Tax returns, which DOF requires to be filed electronically. Its deeds and mortgages are not there.
- Should I search ACRIS by address or by block and lot?
- By borough, block and lot. Address strings in ACRIS are inconsistent and frequently blank. On Manhattan block 851, lot 1, a third of the Legals rows carried no street name at all on 18 August 2026. Use the address only to resolve the BBL, then search on the BBL.
- What is a CRFN in ACRIS?
- A CRFN is the City Register File Number, a thirteen-digit identifier assigned in recording order: a four-digit year plus a nine-digit sequence. It differs from the document_id, which is assigned at submission. Documents backfilled from microfilm have no CRFN and are cited by reel year, reel number and page.
- How do I tell who the buyer and seller were on an ACRIS deed?
- Join the Parties table and decode party_type through the Document Control Codes table. On a DEED, party 1 is the grantor or seller and party 2 the grantee or buyer. The same codes mean different roles on other document types: on an assignment of mortgage, party 1 is the old lender.
- Does ACRIS show whether a mortgage has been paid off?
- Not on the mortgage record itself. A satisfaction is a separate document with its own document_id, and the link between the two lives in the Real Property References table as a CRFN, document_id or reel and page. Without that join, an open mortgage and a satisfied one look identical in the index.
- Can I download all of ACRIS?
- The index yes, the images no. NYC Open Data publishes the Master, Legals, Parties, References, Remarks and code-lookup tables in bulk. The web viewer that serves scanned document images enforces a bandwidth policy against automated retrieval and refers high-volume users to DOF subscription data services.
- Is an ACRIS search a title search?
- No, and the Department of Finance says so on its own recording page: "Reviewing these documents is not necessarily the same as a title search." ACRIS is one index among several. HeritageDeed searches public records and returns PDF and structured JSON; it does not sell or underwrite title insurance, and a financed purchase requires a policy from an insurer.
Sources
Primary records and official documentation cited in this article.
- 1ACRIS (coverage: Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, 1966 to present) - NYC Department of Finance
- 2Recording property-related documents (Staten Island, pre-1966 records) - NYC Department of Finance
- 3ACRIS - Real Property Master - NYC Open Data
- 4ACRIS - Real Property Legals - NYC Open Data
- 5ACRIS - Real Property Parties - NYC Open Data
- 6ACRIS - Document Control Codes (126 document type codes) - NYC Open Data
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