Idaho County Recorders: Free, Closed Discharge Recording

Idaho Code 65-301 is the rule, read on legislature.idaho.gov on 2026-10-23 in the edition updated July 1, 2026 after the 2026 session; its history ends with a 2015 amendment, and the 2026 session's veterans cleanup act (Senate Bill 1273, chapter 44) did not touch it. Free. "Any state, county, city or public officer, or board, or body, acting in his or her or its official capacity on behalf of the state, county, or city, including notaries public, shall not collect, demand or receive any fee or compensation for recording or indexing the discharge papers of any male or female veteran who had active service in any war or conflict officially engaged in by the government of the United States; or for issuing certified copies thereof" (subsection 1). The same subsection makes free any official service on a VA pension or benefit claim, and a certified copy of a marriage, death, birth, divorce, deed of trust, mortgage or assessment record wanted for such a claim. Section 65-302 lets a VA official, the claimant, or the claimant's guardian, personal representative, dependent or attorney ask for these services, and section 65-303 makes charging for them a misdemeanor. Redaction. "Any veteran wishing to record his or her discharge papers may do so with personal identifying information such as date of birth, social security number, home address(es), blood type and other personal identifying information redacted from the document. The name of the veteran may not be redacted" (subsection 2). Removal. A veteran, or the veteran's surviving spouse, attorney, personal representative, executor or court-appointed guardian, may ask the county recorder to remove a recorded DD-214, DD-215, WD AGO 53, WD AGO 55, WD AGO 53-55, NAVMC 78-PD or NAVPERS 553 from the official records, whenever it was recorded; the request names the page and is made in person with identification, no fee is charged, and every paper and reasonably retrievable electronic copy is removed if that does not affect other recorded documents (subsection 3). Not public. None of those forms, recorded at the request of the veteran or one of those people, "shall be a public record subject to release by the provisions of chapter 1, title 74, Idaho Code, without the express written consent of one (1) of the above enumerated individuals" (subsection 4); the Public Records Act lists "Military records as described in and pursuant to section 65-301" among the records exempt from disclosure (Idaho Code 74-106(4)(f)). What the statute does not say. The free recording is for a veteran with service "in any war or conflict" the United States engaged in; the statute does not define the term, and recorders take DD-214s generally. In Idaho the county clerk is ex officio recorder, so the recorder's counter is in the clerk's office. Expect a county form asking for photo identification and a notarized request for a copy, as Twin Falls County's does. The Division of Veterans Services' State benefits page says nothing about recording.