Record drawings are the formal final drawing set delivered to the owner at project closeout. They show what was actually built, including every field change, substitution, and revised dimension. The architect produces the record set from the contractor's field-redlined as-built drawings, typically as PDF and CAD files. The owner uses record drawings for future maintenance, renovations, leasing, and tenant improvement work.
Record drawings differ from as-builts by who produces them and what form they take: as-builts are the contractor's working redlined set in the field, often messy and partial. Record drawings are the architect's clean re-drafted set integrating all the redlines into a coherent final document. On many commercial projects the two terms are used interchangeably, but contracts often specify "record drawings" as the deliverable to clarify that what the owner gets is a clean professional-grade set, not a stack of marked-up prints.