28 U.S.C. § 1738
State and Territorial statutes and judicial proceedings; full faith and credit
United States · Title 28 — JUDICIARY AND JUDICIAL PROCEDURE · Status: effective
Cite this
- Citation
- 28 U.S.C. § 1738, State and Territorial statutes and judicial proceedings; full faith and credit, United States, version 1 as recorded 2026-07-09, yourstate.us, https://yourstate.us/provision/465341
- Permanent ID
ys:prov:465341@1- SHA-256
8b665dd25857b47d98168f7698e34138c65b584d456e92e788b4e2fd3d0dedb1
The hash is SHA-256 of this version's text, with every run of whitespace collapsed to a single space and the ends trimmed. The ID always leads back here, and checking it says whether the text you cited is still the current version.
Full text
The Acts of the legislature of any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof, shall be authenticated by affixing the seal of such State, Territory or Possession thereto.
The records and judicial proceedings of any court of any such State, Territory or Possession, or copies thereof, shall be proved or admitted in other courts within the United States and its Territories and Possessions by the attestation of the clerk and seal of the court annexed, if a seal exists, together with a certificate of a judge of the court that the said attestation is in proper form.
Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.
Legislative history
We haven't linked the enacting public law for this provision yet. That means it is missing from our records, not that no law enacted it.