Background Checks: The FCRA Compliance Guide

The Fair Credit Reporting Act covers far more than credit: any background report you buy from a screening company — criminal history, employment verification, driving records, education checks — is a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency, and ordering one for hiring triggers the FCRA's employment provisions, per the FTC's employer guidance. Checks you run yourself (calling references, searching public records directly) sit outside the FCRA, though the EEOC's discrimination rules still apply to how you use what you find.

Write the check into the offer as a contingency — the offer letter guide shows the language — and run the FCRA sequence before acting on anything the report returns.

Two documents, in this order. First, a clear and conspicuous written disclosure that you may obtain a consumer report — in a document that consists solely of the disclosure. The "standalone" requirement is literal: courts have certified class actions over liability waivers, at-will statements, and even state-law notices packed into the same page. Second, the candidate's written authorization (which may share the page with the disclosure). For "investigative consumer reports" — interviews about character and reputation — an additional notice and a statement of the person's rights apply.

The FCRA is the floor. Many states and cities add ban-the-box timing rules (no criminal history questions until after a conditional offer), individualized-assessment requirements before rejecting for convictions, salary-history bans, and limits on credit checks for most roles. Before finalizing your screening flow, check the state pages in our law library for the jurisdictions where you hire — and never let a vendor's default forms substitute for your own compliance review; the employer, not the screening company, answers for the process.