Can I Run a Background Check on Someone? Reasons, Steps, and Penalties

Yes, you can run a background check on someone in most situations, but the rules tighten fast once you go through a screening company or use the results to make a decision about hiring, renting, or lending. Public records like court dockets and sex offender registries are open to anyone. A compiled consumer report from a background check company is not: federal law limits who can order one and why.

When You’re Allowed to Order a Consumer Report

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, at 15 U.S.C. § 1681, controls background checks that go through a consumer reporting agency — the legal name for companies in the business of assembling personal information about people.¹ These agencies can only release a report to someone who has a “permissible purpose” under the statute. Without one, they are legally barred from handing it over.

The qualifying reasons are:²

A court order or grand jury subpoena.
The written permission of the person being checked.
A credit transaction, such as a loan application or account review.
Employment purposes, including hiring, promotion, reassignment, or retention.
Insurance underwriting.
A government agency deciding a license or benefit that requires a financial responsibility review.
A legitimate business need tied to a transaction the consumer started, or an account review.

Curiosity about a neighbor, an ex, or someone you just met is not on that list. You cannot pay a background check company to pull a compiled report on someone because you want to know who they are. You can, however, look up publicly available records yourself. That distinction is the whole game.

The Common Reasons People Ask

Screening a Job Applicant

Employers are the biggest users of background checks. Before ordering a consumer report on an applicant or current employee, the employer has to give the person a standalone written notice that a background check may factor into the decision, and has to get written consent.³ The notice cannot be buried inside the job application. It has to be its own document. That applies whether you’re checking criminal history, credit, driving records, or past employment.

Screening a Rental Applicant

Landlords can pull tenant screening reports to check credit, prior evictions, and criminal history. The screening company is a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA, so the same permissible-purpose rules apply.⁴ A signed consent line on the rental application usually does double duty: it gives you the written permission and confirms the housing-related purpose.

Checking Someone for Personal Reasons

If you want to look into a person for private reasons, you’re stuck with what’s publicly available. That’s still a lot: county and state court dockets, property records, the national sex offender registry, and other government databases are open to anyone willing to search them. Many online “people search” services stitch these public records together into one report and sell it for personal use. Those reports typically leave out credit information and carry disclaimers saying they can’t be used for hiring, housing, or lending decisions. The moment you use one for any of those purposes, the FCRA applies regardless of what the product is called.

Hiring a Nanny or Caregiver

Hiring a nanny, home health aide, or similar in-home worker is an employment decision, so the FCRA applies just as it would for any other employer. Written consent is required, and if you decide not to hire someone based on what you find, you have to follow the adverse action steps described below.

How to Actually Run One

You have three practical options, and they suit different situations.

Search public records yourself. Many county and state courts publish case records online, and the national sex offender registry is free. This costs little but takes time, and criminal records live in thousands of separate county and state databases. You’d need to know every jurisdiction the person has lived in and search each one. You’ll also miss anything that isn’t digitized.

Use an online screening service. Commercial screening companies pull from multiple databases and hand you one consolidated report. For employment or housing screening, these companies are consumer reporting agencies, so you and the company both have to follow the FCRA, including written consent from the person being checked.⁵ FCRA-compliant employment reports generally run from about $30 to $90, with add-ons like drug testing, education verification, or international searches costing more. Personal-use “people search” reports are cheaper but exclude credit data and can’t be used for regulated decisions.

Hire a licensed private investigator. For complicated situations, an investigator can go further than an automated search. They know which records exist in specific jurisdictions, and they can interview people and verify documents. A straightforward investigation might run a flat fee of $200 to $600, or an hourly rate typically between $50 and $275, depending on location and the work involved.

What the Report Will Show

What appears in a background check depends on what you order and what the screening company searches. The usual pieces include criminal records (felony and misdemeanor convictions, and depending on the jurisdiction, pending cases or arrest records), credit history for permissible-purpose reports, driving records for roles that involve driving, education and employment verification, professional license confirmation, civil court records like lawsuits and judgments, and an address history used to figure out which jurisdictions to search.

Federal law hides some older information from consumer reports:⁶

Bankruptcies drop off after 10 years from the filing date.
Civil suits and civil judgments drop off after 7 years, or when the statute of limitations expires, whichever is longer.
Arrests without a conviction drop off after 7 years.
Paid tax liens drop off after 7 years from payment.
Collection accounts drop off after 7 years from when the account went to collections.
Other adverse information drops off after 7 years.

Criminal convictions are the exception. Federal law puts no time limit on reporting them, so a decades-old felony can still appear. Some states impose their own caps, particularly for employment screening, but nothing in the FCRA requires it.

The Adverse Action Steps Employers and Landlords Miss

If you use anything in a background check to deny someone a job, promotion, rental, or credit, you have to follow a two-step process. Skipping it is one of the most common FCRA violations and one of the easiest ways to end up in a lawsuit.

Before you take adverse action, give the person a copy of the report you relied on and a written summary of their FCRA rights.² The point is to let the person review it and flag errors before you decide. There’s no federally mandated waiting period, but five business days is a common practice.

After you take adverse action, send a second notice telling the person the decision was based in whole or in part on the report. Include the screening company’s name, address, and phone number, a statement that the screening company did not make the decision, and notice of the person’s right to dispute the report and request a free copy within 60 days.³

If You’re the One Being Checked

The FCRA gives the person on the receiving end of a background check real protections. If you’re being screened, you have the right to:

Be told, in writing, that an employer is ordering a report, and to consent before it happens.³
Request a free copy of the report from the screening company within 60 days if a landlord, employer, or creditor turns you down based on it.⁷
Dispute anything wrong, outdated, or not yours. The screening company has to investigate within 30 days (with a possible 15-day extension if you send in more information during that window) and correct or delete anything it can’t verify.⁸
Add a brief statement of your side to your file if the investigation doesn’t resolve the dispute.⁷

Errors are more common than most people expect. Mixed files, where another person’s records get attached to yours because of a similar name or Social Security number, are a persistent problem in the industry. If you’ve been denied a job or rental and something looks unfamiliar in the report, use the dispute process right away.

Penalties for Running a Check the Wrong Way

Pulling a consumer report without a permissible purpose, or skipping the notice and consent requirements, comes with real exposure. The FCRA creates two tiers of civil liability.

Willful violations let the affected consumer recover actual damages or statutory damages between $100 and $1,000, plus punitive damages at the court’s discretion, plus attorney’s fees. Knowingly obtaining a report without a permissible purpose carries a minimum of actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater.⁹

Negligent violations, where you didn’t intend to break the rules but failed to follow them, allow recovery of actual damages plus attorney’s fees.¹⁰

The screening company faces its own liability. If it hands over a report to someone it knows lacks a permissible purpose, it owes actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater.⁹ The Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can also bring enforcement actions, and class actions against screening companies are common.

State Rules Can Add More

Federal law sets the floor. States and cities often layer more on top, especially around criminal records in hiring.⁵ More than 35 states and over 150 cities and counties have adopted “ban-the-box” or fair chance hiring laws, which typically prohibit asking about criminal history on the initial job application. The strongest versions delay any criminal inquiry until after a conditional offer and require the employer to individually assess whether the conviction is actually relevant to the job.

Other state variations include caps on how far back convictions can be reported (going beyond the federal rule, which allows indefinite reporting), restrictions on using credit reports in hiring unless the job involves financial responsibilities, and extra disclosure or consent requirements. Check the rules in your state and city before you run a check for employment or housing. You can follow the FCRA to the letter and still be liable under state law.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681 – Congressional Findings and Statement of Purpose
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
3
Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports – What Employers Need to Know
4
Federal Trade Commission. What Tenant Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act
5
Federal Trade Commission. Background Checks – What Employers Need to Know
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
7
Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Tenant Background Check Report
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681o – Civil Liability for Negligent Noncompliance