Mississippi Fingerprint Background Check Requirements

A Mississippi fingerprint background check is a biometric criminal history search run by the Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Information Center. Your fingerprints are captured either electronically at a county health department or rolled onto a card at a law enforcement office, then submitted to the center, which checks them against the Mississippi criminal database and forwards them to the FBI for a national search. Results go to the agency or employer that requested the check, not to you. The fee, the turnaround, and what counts as a disqualifying record all depend on the sector you’re entering.

Who Has to Get Fingerprinted

Mississippi doesn’t have one blanket fingerprint law. Separate statutes cover separate industries, and if your job or license sits in one of them, the check is mandatory before you start work.

You’ll need a fingerprint check if you are:

A new hire at a Mississippi public school, licensed or nonlicensed, including bus drivers, cafeteria staff, and substitute teachers supplied by contract staffing firms (applies to anyone hired after July 1, 2000).¹
A direct patient care employee at a hospital, nursing home, personal care home, home health agency, hospice, or healthcare staffing agency, hired on or after July 1, 2003. You cannot provide patient care until the check clears or a waiver is granted.²
An owner, operator, employee, volunteer, or anyone else with unsupervised access to children at a residential childcare facility, group home, or residential treatment center.³
An applicant for a Mississippi real estate broker’s, resident salesperson’s, or nonresident license, or a renewal applicant (in effect since July 1, 2016).⁴
A corrections officer, casino worker, banker, pharmacist, physician, or in another regulated role where state law or a licensing board requires clearance.⁵

If you’re not sure whether your role is covered, ask the licensing board or hiring agency directly rather than guessing.

Where to Get Your Fingerprints Taken

There are two ways to capture prints in Mississippi: electronic LiveScan or the traditional ink-on-card method. Which one you use depends on where you live and what your employer or board will accept.

Electronic LiveScan at a County Health Department

County health departments offer LiveScan fingerprinting by appointment through the Mississippi State Department of Health. Bring a government-issued photo ID. Your prints are scanned and transmitted digitally, and state-level results usually come back within about 24 hours.⁶

For healthcare and childcare positions, MSDH handles the appointment scheduling only after your background check application has been reviewed and approved through the SAFER system, which typically takes a few days.⁷

Ink Cards at a Sheriff’s Office or Police Station

If LiveScan isn’t practical for you, or your licensing board accepts paper, you can have your prints rolled onto a standard FD-258 card at a local sheriff’s office, police station, or other authorized entity. You then mail the completed card to the requesting agency. For healthcare and childcare workers, cards go to:

MSDH Criminal History Fingerprint Unit
143B LeFleur’s Square
Jackson, MS 39211

Fill out every field. Incomplete or illegible cards get returned, and you start over.⁷ The Department of Public Safety publishes instruction manuals for both card completion and LiveScan transactions.⁸

If You Live Out of State

If you need a Mississippi check but live elsewhere, apply online through the MSDH SAFER system, then go to a local law enforcement office to get printed on a card. Mail it to the MSDH address above and include a tracking number. For childcare positions, anyone who has lived outside Mississippi within the last five years also has to submit an Out of State Fingerprint Check Affidavit. For healthcare employment, the card must be submitted by the licensed facility, not directly by you.⁷

What Happens After You’re Printed

Whichever method you use, the prints go to the Criminal Information Center inside the Department of Public Safety. The center runs them through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which compares them against Mississippi arrest records and is linked to the FBI’s national fingerprint database, so a single submission covers state and federal records.⁵ Because the match is biometric rather than name-based, a misspelling or wrong date of birth won’t hide anything relevant.

Results are sent to the agency or employer that requested the check, not to you. If something on your record looks disqualifying, you can generally expect a letter by mail within seven to ten days explaining what came up.

How Much It Costs

There is no single statewide fee. For healthcare and childcare workers going through MSDH, the process starts with a $50 registration fee in the SAFER system. Electronic fingerprinting at a county health department adds another $25.⁶ If you use a paper card instead, you skip the $25 electronic fee but may pay a rolling fee at the law enforcement office that takes your prints, and that amount varies locally.

For healthcare facility employees, the licensing agency can charge the facility up to $50 for the check, and the facility is allowed to pass that cost to you.² Real estate applicants pay whatever the Real Estate Commission incurs for the state and national search, on top of standard licensing fees.⁴

How Long It Takes

Electronic is dramatically faster than paper. MSDH reports state-level results in about 24 hours for LiveScan submissions and roughly 48 hours for cards, plus mail time in each direction.⁶ The FBI’s national portion adds more time on top of the state check. The single biggest source of avoidable delay is an incomplete or unreadable card that gets bounced back, so if you’re going the paper route, double-check every field before you drop it in the mail.

What Counts as a Disqualifying Offense

A record does not automatically knock you out of every fingerprint-required job or license. The bars are sector-specific.

For family childcare homes, Mississippi law prohibits anyone from working at or residing in the home who has any of the following:

A felony conviction for a crime against a person
A felony conviction under the Uniform Controlled Substances Act
A conviction for child abuse or neglect
A conviction for any sex offense
An equivalent federal or out-of-state conviction for any of the above

The same bars apply to anyone adjudicated as a juvenile for an act that would be a felony crime against a person if committed by an adult, or anyone whose parental rights have been terminated.⁹

For residential childcare facilities, the check focuses on sex offense history and felony convictions, verified through both the criminal records system and the child abuse registry.³ Healthcare facilities apply a separate list of disqualifying offenses set by State Board of Health regulations.²

Real estate is judged more broadly. The Real Estate Commission asks whether your background “calls into question public trust,” weighing the nature of the offense, how long ago it happened, and how relevant it is to holding a license.⁴

If the Check Turns Up Something Wrong

If the record used to decide your job or license contains inaccurate or incomplete information, Mississippi law gives you the right to challenge it. Start by requesting to inspect your criminal records at the Criminal Information Center; you or your attorney submit a written request, and the center must make the records available.¹⁰

If you find an error, ask the original agency (usually the arresting law enforcement agency or the court) to correct, modify, or remove the record and notify the center of the change. If that agency refuses or the outcome doesn’t satisfy you, you have 30 days to appeal to the county or circuit court. The court holds a fresh hearing and can order the record corrected, annotated, or removed. Once the court orders a change, every agency holding a copy must update its file, and the center has to notify anyone who previously received the bad information.¹⁰

Don’t wait. The 30-day clock runs from the date the original agency makes its decision, and missing it forces you back to the start.

Who Sees Your Results

Criminal history information from the fingerprint process is not a public record. For real estate applicants, any criminal history the commission receives that isn’t already public is confidential and exempt from the Mississippi Public Records Act. It can’t be released to outsiders without your written consent or a court order, except as evidence in a licensing hearing.⁴

The Criminal Information Center itself is required by statute to control access to its data and limit use to authorized personnel and agencies, meeting both state standards and the requirements of national systems like the FBI’s databases.¹¹ When records are released for noncriminal justice purposes like employment screening, the center can impose extra procedures, fees, and restrictions to protect record integrity.¹²

If your employer is using a third-party background screening company rather than pulling the check directly, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act also applies. The employer has to tell you in writing that a report will be pulled, get your written permission first, and give you a chance to respond before taking any adverse action based on what comes back.¹³

1
Justia. Mississippi Code 37-9-17 – Selection of Licensed and Nonlicensed Employees
2
FindLaw. Mississippi Code 43-11-13 – Licensing of Institutions and Facilities
3
Justia. Mississippi Code 43-15-6 – Criminal Background Checks and Child Abuse Registry Checks for Providers of Childrens Services in Residential Setting
4
Justia. Mississippi Code 73-35-10 – Background Investigation
5
Mississippi Department of Public Safety. About the Criminal Information Center
6
Mississippi State Department of Health. Background Check Requirement for New Certification and Licensure
7
Mississippi State Department of Health. Comprehensive Background Checks
8
Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Certification Information
9
Justia. Mississippi Code 43-20-57 – Persons Prohibited From Operating or Working in Family Child Care Homes
10
Justia. Mississippi Code 45-27-11 – Review or Challenge of Criminal Offender Records and Correction of Errors in Records
11
Justia. Mississippi Code 45-27-7 – Duties and Functions of the Center
12
Justia. Mississippi Code 45-27-12 – Dissemination of Certain Information for Noncriminal Justice Purposes
13
Federal Trade Commission. What Employment Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act