To fill out the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire, wait for your sponsoring agency to send you an eApp invitation, gather records covering the years of history required by your investigation tier, then work through each section with complete dates, full legal names, and honest explanations for anything that could raise a concern. The PVQ is the federal government’s consolidated background investigation form, replacing the older SF-85, SF-85P, and SF-86.1Office of Management and Budget. Personnel Vetting Questionnaire You cannot start it on your own. Your federal employer, military branch, or contractor sponsor initiates the case and sends you a login invitation for eApp at eapp.nbis.mil.
What the PVQ Covers and Which Parts You’ll Complete
The form has four parts, and your sponsoring agency decides which apply based on the sensitivity of the position. You don’t pick.
- Part A (OPM 5093) is mandatory for every position, including low-risk roles. It covers identifying information, citizenship, residential history, and employment history.
- Part B (OPM 5094) is required for every position except low-risk ones. It adds finances, substance use, and legal history.
- Part C (OPM 5095) is required for national security positions. It covers foreign contacts, foreign travel, and other areas tied to classified access.
- Part D (OPM 5096) applies to select public trust positions with fiduciary or sensitive duties outside the national security context.
Which parts you complete tracks the investigation tier your agency assigned. Tier 1 covers non-sensitive, low-risk positions. Tier 2 applies to moderate-risk public trust roles. Tier 3 covers non-critical sensitive positions needing Confidential or Secret clearance. Tier 4 handles high-risk public trust positions. Tier 5 applies to critical or special sensitive positions requiring Top Secret or Sensitive Compartmented Information access.2Center for Development of Security Excellence. Federal Investigative Standards Short The tier also sets how far back your records need to go.
What to Have Ready Before You Log In
The single biggest time-saver is collecting your records before you open the form. eApp has a session timeout, and the system wants exact dates and complete addresses that almost no one remembers cold. According to NIH guidance for eApp applicants, the lookback period depends on your tier:3National Institutes of Health. Be Aware of the Following When Completing Your eApp
- Tier 1: five years of residential and employment history.
- Tier 2 and Tier 4: seven years.
- Tier 3 and Tier 5: ten years.
The draft PVQ asks for five years of residential history in Part A, which may reduce the burden for lower-tier applicants compared to the legacy SF-86.4U.S. Office of Personnel Management. New Information Collection Common Form – Personnel Vetting Questionnaire
Personal and Identifying Records
Have your Social Security number, proof of U.S. citizenship or legal residency, and documentation of any legal name changes. If you were born abroad or naturalized, keep your naturalization certificate or Consular Report of Birth Abroad handy. You may need to upload it as an attachment.
Residential History
Compile every address for the lookback period. The system wants full street addresses with exact move-in and move-out dates, not approximations. Unexplained gaps get flagged at the validation step, so account for temporary housing, deployments, and stays with family between leases. For each residence, list someone who can verify you lived there — a roommate, landlord, or neighbor — with current contact information.
Employment History
List every job, including part-time work, self-employment, military service, and periods of unemployment. You’ll need employer names, addresses, supervisor names, and phone numbers. Explain gaps of even a few weeks with a short note about what you were doing during that time.
Financial Records
Financial responsibility is heavily scrutinized. Gather records on any outstanding debts, delinquent loans, tax liens, civil judgments, foreclosures, or bankruptcies within the past seven years.5U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Personnel Vetting Questionnaire SF-86 IRS transcripts or tax return summaries help you accurately report federal tax compliance. If you’ve had trouble, pull documentation of what you did about it: payment plans, settlements, credit counseling enrollment. Adjudicators evaluate finances under a whole-person standard, and evidence of concrete steps carries real weight.
Foreign Travel and Contacts
For national security positions in Tiers 3 and 5, log every trip outside the United States during the lookback period, with dates, countries, and purpose. You’ll also disclose foreign nationals with whom you have a close or continuing relationship, meaning people you’re bound to by affection, shared interests, or obligation. Passing acquaintances and social media follows don’t count. Ask yourself whether the person knows personal details about your life and whether you socialize outside professional settings.
References
You need people who can speak to your character and activities during the covered period. They must have actual personal knowledge of you, cannot be relatives, and shouldn’t be people you’ve lost touch with. Confirm their current phone numbers and addresses in advance. Outdated contact information slows the investigation.
Completing the Form in eApp
The PVQ is completed through NBIS eApp, which replaced the older e-QIP system.6Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. NBIS eApp and Agency Once your sponsor initiates the case, you log in at eapp.nbis.mil, create your account, and work through each applicable section based on the tier your agency selected.
A few practical points that head off the most common problems:
- Use full legal names throughout. Enter complete names for relatives, references, and former employers. Initials and nicknames cause validation errors.
- Account for every gap in your residential and employment timelines. If you were unemployed, traveling, or between addresses, enter those periods with an explanation.
- Work in manageable sessions and save often. DCSA extended the login window to 30 days, but the system can still lose data if a session drops.7Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Update – New Authentication Ongoing Rollout Issues
- Use the comment fields to explain derogatory information. Adjudicators evaluate judgment and honesty, not spotless records. An unexplained red flag is worse than a fully explained one.
The system requires electronic signatures on release forms that authorize investigators to access your medical, financial, educational, and legal records from public and private institutions. These are not optional. Before submission, eApp runs a validation check flagging incomplete fields. The form won’t transmit until you clear everything.
Being Honest About Drugs, Debts, and Past Trouble
The PVQ asks about illegal drug use and misuse of prescription medications with specific dates and frequency. Marijuana is where people talk themselves into trouble. State legalization does not change the federal analysis. Recreational marijuana remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, and the April 2026 reclassification moved only FDA-approved marijuana drugs and state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III. For clearance purposes, federal law governs.
Prior marijuana use is not automatically disqualifying. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence clarified in 2021 that past use alone does not bar someone from eligibility. What matters is recency, frequency, and whether you’ve stopped. Current use while holding or seeking a clearance is a different matter and directly implicates Guideline H (Drug Involvement and Substance Misuse) of the adjudicative guidelines.8Director of National Intelligence. Security Executive Agent Directive 4 – National Security Adjudicative Guidelines
The same principle governs financial difficulties, past arrests, and other sensitive disclosures. The item people most want to hide is usually survivable through honest disclosure and mitigation evidence. The lie about it almost never is. Investigators compare your answers against law enforcement databases, credit reports, court records, and interviews with your references, and omissions surface regularly.
After You Submit
Your sponsoring agency reviews the completed form for completeness and signatures, then routes the case to an authorized Investigations Service Provider. For many applicants that provider is DCSA, though some agencies conduct their own investigations if authorized.9Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Investigations and Clearance Process Investigators use your responses to check federal databases, law enforcement records, courts, credit bureaus, and schools. Under 5 U.S.C. § 9101, federal agencies can request criminal history records from any criminal justice agency to determine clearance eligibility or suitability for sensitive or public trust positions.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 9101 – Access to Criminal History Records for National Security and Other Purposes
Depending on your tier, you may be contacted for a subject interview in person or virtually. An investigator will ask you to clarify information or address concerns from records checks. Answer honestly. Inconsistencies between what you wrote on the PVQ and what you say in the interview raise serious credibility concerns, and the accuracy of your original entries is the main thing determining whether follow-ups extend the timeline by weeks or months.
The Cost of Lying
Providing false information on the PVQ carries criminal exposure separate from the clearance decision. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, knowingly making a false statement or concealing a material fact in any matter within federal jurisdiction is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally The form warns you before you sign. Fill out every section as accurately as you can, use the comment fields to give context for anything that looks bad, and trust the whole-person analysis to weigh disclosed problems more kindly than concealed ones.