How to Run a Background Check on Yourself (and Fix What You Find)
You can see almost everything an employer will see, for free, before they see it. Here is where each piece of your own file lives, what it costs, and what to do about the parts that are wrong.
See what is published about you before you read on
The scan checks the data brokers and people-search sites in our catalog for your name and shows what each one publishes. No account needed.
No account needed. Adding a city and state is what lets us tell your record apart from everyone who shares your name.
To run a background check on yourself, request your file from the screening companies that hold one, pull your own criminal history from your state or the FBI, and separately search the consumer people-search sites that publish a profile on you. The first two are free or close to it and show what an employer buys. The third shows what anyone finds by googling your name, and it is usually the part that is wrong.
Almost everyone who searches for this is about to be screened and wants to know what is coming. That is the right instinct, and the timing matters more than people realize: an error found six weeks before you apply is paperwork, and the same error found the day an offer gets pulled is an emergency. The awkward part is that there is no single place to look. Your record is scattered across four different systems that do not talk to each other, and each one has its own request process.
Here is the whole map, cheapest and fastest first.
Where each part of your own background check actually lives
| Source | What it shows | Cost | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment screening companies (Checkr, HireRight, Sterling, First Advantage) | The report an employer buys: criminal records, employment and education verification, sometimes driving records | Free, once every 12 months | Days to a few weeks |
| The three credit bureaus, via annualcreditreport.com | Your credit file, which matters only if the role is financial or fiduciary and the employer pulls credit | Free | Immediate online |
| Your state criminal history repository | The official state rap sheet, including dispositions | Usually $10 to $50 | Days to weeks |
| FBI Identity History Summary | The federal record, fingerprint-based, the most authoritative version of your criminal history | $18 plus fingerprinting | Roughly 12 to 14 weeks by mail |
| County clerk where a case was heard | The actual docket and disposition paperwork for a specific case | Usually free to view, small fee to copy | Same day |
| Consumer people-search and background-check sites | What a recruiter sees when they simply google you | Free to look | Minutes |
Start at the bottom of that table, not the top. The consumer sites take five minutes, they are the most likely to contain an outright error, and they are the only row you can delete rather than dispute.
How do I run a background check on myself?
Work through the sources in order of speed. Search your own name on the consumer people-search sites first, since that takes minutes and shows what anyone can find. Then request a free file disclosure from the major employment screening companies. Then order your state criminal history if a court case is involved. The FBI summary is worth requesting only when you need the definitive federal version.
The screening-company step is the one most people do not know exists. Companies like Checkr, HireRight and Sterling are nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which means each of them owes you a free disclosure of your file once every 12 months on request, and each has to maintain a way for you to ask. You do not need a pending job, a lawyer, or any particular wording. You ask, you prove who you are, and they send it.
Can I run a background check on myself for free?
Mostly yes. The screening-company file disclosures are free once a year each, your credit reports are free, county dockets are usually free to view online, and searching the consumer people-search sites costs nothing. The only parts with a real price tag are the official criminal history records: your state repository typically charges a modest fee, and the FBI Identity History Summary is $18 plus whatever fingerprinting costs you.
Be careful with the sites that advertise a free background check on yourself. They are selling a subscription, the free part is a teaser, and what they return is not the report an employer will see. It is an aggregated profile assembled by name matching, which is a different product with different data and no accuracy obligations.
What shows up on a background check?
A standard employment check covers identity verification, criminal records in the counties where you have lived, and confirmation of the jobs and degrees you listed. Roles that involve driving add a motor vehicle record, roles handling money may add a credit check, and licensed professions add a license verification. Drug testing, where it happens, is a separate process from the report itself.
What does not show up is worth knowing too. Employers do not receive your medical records, your bank balances, your immigration status beyond work eligibility, or your social media history unless someone looked it up manually. And sealed or expunged records should not appear in a compliant report, though they occasionally do when a screener is working from a stale database, which is exactly the kind of error a self-check catches.
How far back does a background check go?
Seven years is the common answer and it is only half right. The FCRA restricts reporting of adverse non-conviction items, arrests that led nowhere, civil suits, paid tax liens and collections, after seven years. Convictions carry no federal time limit at all. Several states impose their own seven-year cap on convictions, and the federal restrictions lift entirely for positions paying $75,000 a year or more.
The clock also runs from an earlier point than most people expect. Federal appellate authority measures the seven years from the entry of the charge rather than from its dismissal or final disposition, so a case that took two years to resolve ages out sooner than its closing date suggests. Your state law is often stricter than the federal rule and is usually what actually binds the screener, so check it before assuming anything is too old to appear.
What do I do if my background check is wrong?
File a dispute with the screening company that produced the report, in writing, with the disposition paperwork attached. Under section 611 of the FCRA the agency must reinvestigate free of charge and correct or delete an inaccurate item within 30 days, extendable by 15 days if you send additional information during the review. Keep a copy of everything you send.
If an offer is being withdrawn, you should already have received a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of your rights, sent before the decision is final specifically so you have a window to respond. Use it. Read the report closely enough to identify which agency produced it, because that is who you dispute with, not the employer.
The most common error in this whole system is not a wrong date or a missing dismissal. It is the wrong person entirely. Name-based matching pairs you with a stranger who shares your name and lived in a nearby county, and the result looks completely plausible to a hiring manager who has no reason to doubt it.
Do people search sites show up on an employment background check?
No. Employers buy from FCRA-regulated screening agencies that pull records directly from courts, and those agencies do not source from consumer people-search sites. Those sites say so themselves: their terms state they are not consumer reporting agencies and their results may not be used for employment, tenant screening, credit or insurance decisions.
That does not make them harmless. A hiring manager who is curious rather than formal does not order a report, they search your name, and the first page of results is where these sites live. What they publish is your home address, your age, your phone number, a list of relatives and frequently a criminal record belonging to somebody else. Nobody has to justify a decision they made before the formal process started.
This is the one part of your file you can simply delete. Every one of those sites runs a free opt-out, and a background check removal pass across them typically clears within a week. Our guides cover the opt-out process for each people-search site individually, including the ones that quietly share a parent company and can be cleared in a single filing.
How long does a background check take?
A standard employment check usually comes back in one to five business days. Delays cluster around a few predictable causes: a county court that only accepts in-person record requests, an old employer that has gone out of business, education verification during a university holiday, or an international component. If yours is taking longer than a week, it is almost always one of those and not a problem with you.
Do this before you start applying, not after
The reason to run your own check early is that every fix in this article takes longer than a hiring timeline allows. A dispute takes 30 days. An FBI summary takes three months by mail. A correction at the county clerk takes however long the clerk takes. None of that fits inside the two weeks between a final interview and a start date.
So if you are about to line up a batch of applications, whether that is local roles or a serious run at fully remote positions, treat this as part of the preparation rather than something to worry about later. An afternoon spent pulling your own file and clearing the consumer sites turns a potential emergency into a non-event.
The short version
Search the consumer sites today, because it is free and instant, and opt out of everything you find. Request your file disclosures from the major screening companies, because they are free once a year and nobody does it. Order your state criminal history if there is a case in your past, and go to the county clerk for the paperwork proving how it ended. Dispute anything inaccurate in writing and keep the receipts.
The parts you can delete, delete. The parts you can only dispute, dispute early. Once the consumer listings are gone, the useful next step is checking what is left in search results, which our guide to removing your name from Google search walks through.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Expungement, sealing and record correction have state-specific rules, and a lawyer or your court clerk is the right source for your situation.