BLM Eastern States houses more than 5 million land patent documents. Over 2 million pre-July 1, 1908 documents from the Eastern States (), with the exception of Iowa, have been scanned and indexed, and are available on this website. We anticipate the pre-July 1, 1908 Iowa land patents to be accessible () in 2004. Iowa land patents issued from July 1, 1908 are currently being added to this website.

Western state () land patents issued before 1908 are filed in the BLM state office that has jurisdiction over the land. Beginning in 1908 and ending in the early 1960s, all land patents were assigned consecutive (i.e. serial) numbers, and filed numerically in the Eastern States collection.

In December, 1998, we began scanning and indexing the serial patents issued from July 1, 1908. Since these serialized documents are filed numerically (instead of by state) and include eastern and western records, it is not possible to determine when a particular state's patents will be completed. Documents that have already been scanned and indexed are in our searchable database. For the western patents that are not yet scanned and indexed, we have included retrievable data, with the exception of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska,() that has not been verified against the hardcopy patents.

The Bureau of Land Management does not maintain records for the Thirteen Original Colonies and their territories (what is now Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky), or Hawaii and Texas. () The responsibility for these documents remains with each state. Please contact the appropriate State Archives, click here for more information.