Background Checks by State: What Each Check Covers, Where to Get It, What It Costs

Please read this first. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and a listing is not a recommendation: the national companies appear alphabetically and we receive nothing from any of them. Every fee and rule below was read on the official page on the date shown beside it; where a fact could not be confirmed it says Not confirmed rather than a guess. Fees change. Confirm the current figure on the agency's own page, linked in each row, before you budget or promise it to a board.

Choose a state to see the official way to get each check there: the state criminal history name check and whether it shows arrests that did not lead to a conviction, fingerprint checks that include the FBI, reduced fees for volunteers, the sex offender registry, the driving record (which shows DUI), and the child abuse and neglect registry, each with its fee and a link to the official page. Below the state are the national screening companies with their published prices, government checks such as the National Sex Offender Public Website and the federal exclusion lists, drug and alcohol testing including the federal rules for drivers who need a CDL, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act steps for consent and for turning someone down.

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Inside the platform. The same guide opens on your organization's own state from Volunteer Management (https://volunteers.allinonenonprofit.com/, Screening & Background Checks, "Show background checks by state") and from Employment and HR (https://hr.allinonenonprofit.com/, the Dashboard, below Hiring & Onboarding), where an order can also be placed with a connected vendor and its status comes back to the person's screening record. The guides: https://volunteers.allinonenonprofit.com/guide.html and https://hr.allinonenonprofit.com/guide.html.

How to read a state's rows

Name check versus fingerprint check. A name check searches the state repository by name and date of birth; it is cheaper, faster, and can miss or mismatch. A fingerprint check is matched to the person; where the state program includes the FBI, it reaches other states' records too.
Arrests with no conviction. Some states show them, some do not, and federal law limits how far back a consumer reporting agency may report a non-conviction item (the seven-year rule, with an exception for higher-paid positions). Convictions have no federal time limit.
Volunteer fee relief. Where a state offers a reduced or free check for volunteers who serve children, the elderly or people with disabilities, the row says so, with the program's conditions.
Who may order what. A child abuse registry check and some fingerprint programs are open only to organizations the state authorizes for that purpose; the row names the gate where there is one.
Never ask a person for their own FBI record for employment or volunteering. The FBI says an Identity History Summary is not to be used that way; use the state or the FBI channel built for organizations.

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