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US Federal Criminal Record Checks

A search of the US federal district courts offers valuable insight into a candidate’s possible federal criminal records, expanding your criminal record search to include more potentially important insights for your business. 

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PROVEN RESULTS

Make More Informed Hiring Decisions 

Federal criminal records are maintained in a separate court system from state county criminal records and are not reported as part of a state county criminal records search. Adding federal criminal record checks to your screening program can provide your business with:

Running federal criminal record searches in all locations that appear in the candidate’s address history for your specified look-back period can identify records you otherwise would not know about, such as cybercrimes, tax law violations, and weapons violations.

Gain rapid, direct digital access to records in all 94 federal judicial district courts in the US and its territories. Search options include searching district of residence and all districts in a state if there is more than one district in that state.

When federal criminal records are found, we check data completeness and filter records, then apply your adjudication matrix, accelerating your results.

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Build an Effective Program for Your Unique Needs

Adding federal criminal record searches into your background check program can help mitigate business risk by providing a more expansive view of your candidate’s record.

Unsure what searches are essential for your screening program? We can provide resources to help you develop a screening strategy that gives you the insights you need to hire with confidence.

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Why Our Partners and Customers Trust First Advantage1

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Why First Advantage? 

Our advanced fulfillment systems will accelerate the turnaround times and enhance your background criminal record checks. Approximately 90% of our US criminal searches utilize intelligent automation to speed up the entire employment criminal background check process1.

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Federal Record Check FAQs 

Federal criminal records are found by searching the US District Court system. This is a separate system from a state county court system. Federal criminal searches at First Advantage typically look in all locations that appear in the candidate’s address history for your specified look-back period.

Examples of federal-level crimes prosecuted in the 94 US District Courts include kidnapping, international or inter-state drug trafficking, cybercrime, tax law violations, weapons violations, and mail crimes.

No. Federal criminal records from the US District Courts are not reported in county or state record searches. Likewise, state county criminal records are not reported in federal criminal searches.

A federal criminal record search checks the US District Courts for violations of federal law. A nationwide criminal record check searches a database of various county and state source records for criminal records that are in additional counties that can then be searched. First Advantage offers our National Criminal Record File search, which leverages our proprietary database of millions of US criminal records to help locate matching criminal records that can be searched and included in criminal record results.

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Whether you want to rethink your employment background check program or need enhanced criminal background checks for more informed hiring, we can help.

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Sources 1 Gartner. April 2025  | 2 First Advantage, as of 12/31/2024

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