Guide

What a Red Notice is, and what it is not

A Red Notice is an international alert asking police worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person. INTERPOL says it is not an arrest warrant.

• INTERPOL describes a Red Notice as a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action.¹
• INTERPOL states that a Red Notice is not an arrest warrant. Each member country applies its own laws in deciding whether to arrest a person.^1,2
• Red Notices are published by INTERPOL at the request of a member country and must rest on an arrest warrant or court order issued by judicial authorities in the requesting country.¹
• Every Red Notice request is reviewed for compliance with INTERPOL's rules by the Notices and Diffusions Task Force, a team of lawyers, police officers and operational specialists. Notices later found non compliant are cancelled and member countries are told to remove the data from national databases.^1,3
• The US Department of Justice calls the Red Notice the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today and notes that many countries will arrest a person based solely on one.⁴
• Red is one of several colour coded notices. Others include Yellow for missing persons, Blue for information gathering and a Silver Notice for tracing criminal assets, which INTERPOL describes as being in a pilot phase.³

Sources

1. INTERPOL, About Red Notices (2026)
2. INTERPOL, View Red Notices (2026)
3. INTERPOL, About Notices (2026)
4. US Department of Justice, Justice Manual 9-15.000, International Extradition and Related Matters (undated)