Arizona Background Check: Employment, Housing, and Firearms

An Arizona background check can mean several different things depending on who is running it and why. Employers, landlords, licensing boards, and firearm dealers each operate under different rules, and Arizona layers its own fingerprint clearance card system and record-sealing law on top of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. What follows is what matters most for the person being checked: how to see your own record, what others are allowed to see, and what you can do to clean it up.

See Your Own Record Before Anyone Else Does

The Arizona Department of Public Safety is the state’s central repository for criminal records under A.R.S. 41-1750, and you have the right to request your own record to check it for accuracy.¹ Doing this before you apply for a job, a license, or an apartment is far easier than disputing an error after it has already cost you an opportunity.

Start with the Record Review Packet, available from the DPS Public Services Portal. It contains a blank fingerprint card, a contact information sheet, instructions, and a return envelope. Get fingerprinted at a law enforcement agency or a DPS-contracted vendor, then mail the completed packet back to DPS. Electronic submission is available through the portal, but the fingerprint card still has to be mailed.²

DPS mails back a response, including a copy of your record if one exists, within 15 business days of receiving the completed packet.² If you spot an error, you can challenge it through DPS. The review itself has no DPS processing fee, but the fingerprinting vendor will charge its own.

What Shows Up on an Employment Background Check

Most employment screening in Arizona runs through the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which governs any time an employer uses a third-party screening company to pull a report on you. The FCRA controls what can be reported, how old it can be, and what the employer has to tell you.

Disclosure and Consent

Before an employer orders a report, two things are required: a written disclosure that a report may be obtained, and your written authorization. The disclosure must appear in a standalone document. It cannot be buried inside the job application or combined with liability waivers or policy acknowledgments.³ This is one of the most frequently violated FCRA provisions, and courts have allowed class actions over it. If you signed an application with the background check authorization folded into the same document, the employer may have already broken the rules.

What Can and Can’t Be Reported

Screening companies generally cannot report negative information older than seven years. That cap covers arrests that did not result in a conviction, civil judgments, paid tax liens, and collection accounts.⁴ Bankruptcies have a ten-year window. Criminal convictions have no federal time limit and can be reported indefinitely.

One important exception: the seven-year cap does not apply when the job you are being considered for pays $75,000 or more per year. For those positions, the full history can be reported.⁴

If the Employer Decides Not to Hire You

When a background report factors into a decision not to hire you, the FCRA requires two notices. First, a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of your rights, giving you a chance to dispute anything inaccurate before the final decision.⁵ Then, after the final decision, a second notice confirming the adverse action. The second notice must identify the screening company by name, address, and phone number, state that the screening company did not make the hiring decision, and explain your right to a free copy of the report and to dispute its contents.⁶ Skipping either step exposes the employer to liability.

Ban-the-Box in Arizona

Executive Order 2017-07 prohibits state agencies from asking about criminal history on an initial job application. A state agency can only ask after the application stage and an initial interview.⁷ This covers state agency hiring only. Arizona has no statewide ban-the-box law for private employers, though some cities have their own ordinances.

Fingerprint Clearance Cards

Arizona requires a fingerprint clearance card for many professions that involve working with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. Teachers, childcare workers, healthcare professionals, foster parents, and many state agency employees need an active card before starting work. Your licensing board, certifying agency, or employer can confirm whether your role requires one.⁸

DPS processes all applications. The fee is $67, or $65 for volunteers, and it is nonrefundable whether the card is approved or denied.⁸ You submit fingerprints through an authorized vendor, and DPS runs state and federal checks against the list of precluding offenses in A.R.S. 41-1758.03.

The statute splits precluding offenses into two groups. Subsection B offenses, including sexual exploitation of a minor, child abuse, and any offense requiring sex offender registration, make you permanently ineligible with no appeal.⁹ Subsection C offenses, which include theft, certain assaults, and drug charges, also block the card but let you petition the Arizona Board of Fingerprinting for a good cause exception. If the Board finds you do not pose a risk to the population served by your profession and grants the exception, DPS issues the card.¹⁰ The same process applies if an active card is suspended because of a new arrest for a precluding offense.

Setting Aside vs. Sealing a Record

Arizona offers two different ways to deal with a criminal record, and the difference matters for background check purposes. People confuse them constantly.

Set-Aside Under A.R.S. 13-905

Once you have completed every term of your sentence, including probation and payment of fines and restitution, you can ask the court to set aside the conviction. If granted, the court vacates the judgment and dismisses the charges.¹¹

A set-aside does not erase the conviction from your record. DPS adds a note that the conviction was set aside but cannot remove any part of your history. A background check will still show the original conviction alongside the notation. The conviction can also still count as a prior in future prosecutions and can still be weighed by the Board of Fingerprinting. Dangerous offenses, offenses requiring sex offender registration, felonies with a finding of sexual motivation, and felonies where the victim was a minor under 15 cannot be set aside at all.¹¹

Sealing Under A.R.S. 13-911

Sealing goes further. Under the 2023 law, eligible individuals can petition the court to seal arrest, conviction, and sentencing records entirely, removing them from public view. That makes sealing far more useful for background check purposes than a set-aside.

You can petition if your charges were dismissed, you were acquitted, you were arrested but never charged, or you were convicted of an eligible offense and have completed your sentence plus a waiting period.¹² The waiting periods, measured from the completion of all nonmonetary conditions of your sentence, are:

Class 2 or 3 felony: 10 years
Class 4, 5, or 6 felony: 5 years
Class 1 misdemeanor: 3 years
Class 2 or 3 misdemeanor: 2 years

A prior felony conviction adds another five years to the waiting period for any subsequent felony you want sealed.¹³ The waiting clock runs on nonmonetary conditions, so you can file even if you are still paying off fines, though all monetary obligations must be satisfied before the petition can be granted.¹²

Some offenses can never be sealed. The exclusion list covers dangerous offenses, dangerous crimes against children, serious or violent felonies, any offense involving a deadly weapon or the knowing infliction of serious physical injury, sex trafficking, and most sexual offenses classified as class 2 through 5 felonies.¹³ You also cannot file a new petition if a prior sealing petition was denied within the last three years.

Rental Background Checks

Arizona landlords typically check credit history, eviction records, and criminal history. When a landlord uses a third-party screening company, the same FCRA rules that apply to employment screening apply to the rental decision.

Eviction records are often the first thing a landlord looks at. Arizona courts must seal all records of an eviction case if the case is dismissed before judgment, if judgment goes in the tenant’s favor, or if the landlord and tenant agree in writing to set aside the eviction order and seal the file.¹⁴ The sealing covers the entire file, including pleadings and transcripts. Under the FCRA, screening companies generally cannot report negative housing court information more than seven years old.¹⁵

If a landlord denies your application based on information in a consumer report, the FCRA requires an adverse action notice identifying the reporting agency, stating that the agency did not make the decision, and explaining your right to a free copy of the report and to dispute inaccuracies.⁶ Fair Housing law also applies: a denial cannot be based on race, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, or disability.

Firearm Purchases

Arizona has no state-level background check system for firearm purchases. Licensed dealers follow the federal requirement to run buyers through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System by contacting the FBI directly. Private sales between individuals who are not licensed dealers are not subject to a background check requirement under Arizona law, which covers gun shows, online listings, and transactions between acquaintances. Arizona concealed weapon permit holders are also exempt from the federal check when buying a handgun, because the permit process already includes a background investigation that satisfies federal criteria.

1
Arizona Department of Public Safety. Criminal History Records
2
Legal Information Institute. Arizona Code R13-1-107 – Procedures for Review and Accuracy and Completeness of Criminal History Records
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
5
Federal Trade Commission. What Employment Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports
7
Arizona Legislature. Senate Fact Sheet for S.B. 1434 – Criminal History Required Disclosure Limitations
8
Arizona Department of Public Safety. Fingerprint Clearance Card
9
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 41-1758.03 – Fingerprint Clearance Cards Issuance Immunity
10
Board of Fingerprinting. Applying for a Good Cause Exception
11
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-905 – Setting Aside Judgment of Convicted Person on Discharge
12
Arizona State Courts. Completing the Petition to Seal Criminal Case Records
13
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-911 – Sealing of Arrest Conviction and Sentencing Records
14
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1379 – Eviction Action Dismissal Sealed Records
15
Federal Trade Commission. Tenant Background Checks and Your Rights