Florida fingerprint retention is the state’s practice of keeping the fingerprints you submitted for a license or job in a biometric database for five years and running every new arrest in the state against those prints. If yours are on file, your employer or licensing board can be notified within days of an arrest, you owe periodic fees to keep the record active, and you have to renew the prints on a schedule or start the whole screening process over. Here is what that means in practice.
How Retention Actually Works
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement runs a Criminal Justice Information Program that maintains a statewide automated biometric identification system storing fingerprints, palm prints, and facial images.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 943.05 – Criminal Justice Information Program; Duties; Crime Reports When you submit prints for a licensing or employment background check, the requesting agency or employer can ask FDLE to retain them rather than run a one-time check and move on.
Once your prints are retained, FDLE searches every incoming arrest submission in the state against the stored set. A match triggers an automatic notification to the agency or employer that requested retention.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 943.05 – Criminal Justice Information Program; Duties; Crime Reports A weekend arrest can reach your employer the following week. To participate in this notification process, the employer or agency must tell you your prints will be retained, pay an annual fee, and inform FDLE whenever someone leaves the position that justified retention.2Florida Statutes. Florida Code 943.05 – Criminal Justice Information Program; Duties; Crime Reports
People working with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities are also handled through a separate system: the Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse, a secure web platform managed by the Agency for Health Care Administration in coordination with FDLE.3Florida Statutes. Florida Code 435.12 – Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse The Clearinghouse also captures a photograph at the time of fingerprinting.
The Clearinghouse’s practical advantage is portability. Screening results can be shared among the participating state agencies, which include AHCA, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Education and its Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Department of Elder Affairs, the Department of Health, the Department of Juvenile Justice, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, along with Managed Care and Medicaid providers.4Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. FL Clearinghouse A certified nursing assistant who moves from an AHCA-regulated nursing home to an APD-regulated group home does not need a fresh set of prints; the screening travels.
Who Has to Be Fingerprinted and Retained
Florida requires fingerprint-based screening for a broad list of licensed health care practitioners under Section 456.0135. As of July 2025, both initial and renewal applicants must comply, and the applicant pays for both initial processing and ongoing retention.5Florida Statutes. Florida Code 456.0135 – Background Screening Affected professions include medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, psychologists, clinical social workers, massage therapists, chiropractors, optometrists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and dozens more.6FL HealthSource. Initiate a Screening
Several health professions are exempt from the Section 456.0135 requirement unless the applicant is using the military active-duty spouse licensure pathway: emergency medical technicians, paramedics, pharmacy interns, registered pharmacy technicians, and radiologic technologists.6FL HealthSource. Initiate a Screening
Outside health care, fingerprint screening and retention apply to employees and volunteers in positions involving children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. Anyone required to pass a Level 2 background screening under Chapter 435 is subject to retention and ongoing monitoring. Level 2 is the more thorough tier: fingerprint checks through both FDLE and the FBI, plus a search of the sexual predator and offender registries of every state you have lived in during the preceding five years. Section 435.04 lists the disqualifying offenses, which cover violent crimes, sex offenses, exploitation of vulnerable people, crimes against children, certain weapons offenses, and felony fraud, along with attempts, solicitation, and conspiracy to commit any of them. The full list is long, so if you have any criminal history, read the statute or talk to an attorney before assuming you will pass.7Florida Statutes. Florida Code 435.04 – Level 2 Screening Standards
What Retention Costs
Two different fee streams can apply to the same person, and it is easy to conflate them.
FDLE’s applicant retention program charges $6 per retained record per year for non-criminal justice agencies. The first year after initial entry is free; the $6 charge begins on the anniversary of each following year.8Cornell Law Institute. Florida Administrative Code Rule 11C-6.010 – Retention of Applicant Fingerprints It can be paid by the employer, the qualified entity, or the individual, depending on the arrangement. If the payer falls behind, FDLE can suspend participation in the retention program until the overdue fees are paid.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 943.05 – Criminal Justice Information Program; Duties; Crime Reports Arrest monitoring effectively stops during that suspension, even though your prints remain on file.
Health care practitioners screened through the Department of Health face a separate retained print fee of roughly $43, due every five years when the retention comes up for renewal.6FL HealthSource. Initiate a Screening This one is the practitioner’s own responsibility, not the employer’s.5Florida Statutes. Florida Code 456.0135 – Background Screening If your retained prints expire after your license renewal date, you will typically be billed for this fee at renewal.
The Five-Year Renewal Window
Prints in the Clearinghouse are retained on a five-year cycle.3Florida Statutes. Florida Code 435.12 – Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse The renewal window is where people trip.
For Department of Health licensees, the retention renewal window opens 75 days before the expiration date and closes 15 days before it, leaving about a 60-day period to act.9FL HealthSource. Background Screening Fingerprint Retention For providers screened through the Department of Children and Families, the window opens 60 days before expiration, and the employee’s name appears in the provider’s expiration table on the Clearinghouse home page during that period.10Florida Department of Children and Families. Clearinghouse Fingerprint Renewal Frequently Asked Questions
Miss the window and your prints drop out of the Clearinghouse, monitoring ends, and you have to run the entire fingerprinting process again: new appointment at a Livescan provider, full initial screening fee, and a wait for results.11Florida Board of Orthotists and Prosthetists. Florida Department of Health, Fingerprint Retention For an employer relying on current screening, a lapse can sideline you from your regulated role until the new results come back.
Getting Your Prints Removed
When you leave a position or no longer hold a license that requires monitoring, your prints should come out of the retention database. The statute puts that duty on the employer or agency: they must notify FDLE whenever a change in employment, contract, or affiliation eliminates the basis for continued monitoring.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 943.05 – Criminal Justice Information Program; Duties; Crime Reports The Department of Health has a parallel obligation to notify FDLE when a retained practitioner is no longer licensed.5Florida Statutes. Florida Code 456.0135 – Background Screening
To confirm removal, or to follow up if you suspect a former employer never submitted the notice, contact FDLE or AHCA directly. Removal requests generally need your full name, date of birth, and the Transaction Control Number assigned when your prints were originally submitted. That TCN comes from the Livescan service provider and appears on your receipt or screening documentation.
The duty to notify is your employer’s; the incentive to follow up is yours. Employers forget, especially after an informal departure or in organizations with loose HR practices. If you have left a regulated role and want the monitoring to stop, do not assume the notification happened.
If You Have a Past Offense or an Inaccurate Record
A disqualifying offense does not automatically end your career in a regulated field. Florida allows you to apply for an exemption from disqualification under Section 435.07. The standard is clear and convincing evidence that you have been rehabilitated and will not present a danger to children or vulnerable adults.12Florida Department of Children and Families. Apply for Exemption from Disqualification The reviewing agency weighs time passed, harm to the victim, and any other evidence that you are no longer a risk. You assemble the record: court documents, proof of completed rehabilitation programs, employment history, character references. Applications go to the agency that oversees the position you are seeking, such as DCF for child welfare or AHCA for health care.
Accuracy is the other angle worth checking. Before a final determination is made on your background screening, you must be notified in writing of your right to obtain a copy of the report and to challenge the accuracy of what it contains.13Florida Statutes. Florida Code 943.0542 – Access to Criminal History Information Provided by the Department to Qualified Entities State record errors can be disputed with FDLE. Errors in your FBI Identity History Summary are best fixed by contacting the agency that originally submitted the information; you can also challenge the FBI’s CJIS Division directly, electronically or by mail, with supporting documents such as court or prosecution records. The FBI updates the record after receiving official verification from the controlling agency.
Missing disposition data is the common problem. An arrest that ended in dismissal or a not-guilty verdict can sit in your record as an open case if the court never reported the outcome, and an incomplete record can trigger a disqualification that should not exist. If a screening returns something unexpected, request the full report before you respond to the employer or agency.