Nevada Background Check: Your Rights, Records, and Sealing

A Nevada background check for your own criminal history is a fingerprint-based report pulled from the state’s Central Repository, requested through the Nevada State Police Records, Communications and Compliance Division. Processing takes about 30 calendar days after your packet arrives, plus roughly two weeks of mail time in each direction.¹ The report covers Nevada criminal records only; a national search is a separate FBI process.

How to Request Your Own Nevada Criminal History

You submit a packet to the Records, Communications and Compliance Division with four pieces:

The Request for Nevada Records of Criminal History form. NRS 179A.100 lists who is entitled to receive these records, and the subject of the record is one of them.²
Full identifying information: legal name, any aliases or former names, date of birth, and Social Security number.
A completed FD-258 fingerprint card with all ten fingers printed at once, including flat impressions, taken, dated, and signed by a certified fingerprinting technician. Photocopies and previously processed cards are not accepted.
The current processing fee, usually paid by money order or certified check made out to the Department of Public Safety. Fees were updated in January 2025; confirm the current amount at rccd.nv.gov before mailing.

Fill every field. Incomplete forms or incorrect payment amounts come back, and you start over.

LiveScan Instead of Ink Cards

Nevada has a network of approved LiveScan sites that capture your prints electronically and send them to the division directly.³ Electronic submission moves faster and sidesteps the smudged-ink rejections that come with paper cards. If no LiveScan location is near you, contact the division about submitting a physical card.

Processing Time and Results

The Central Repository turns requests around in about 30 calendar days once your packet is in hand.¹ Add about two weeks each way for mail. Results come back by mail to the address on your form, in a format you can hand to an employer, licensing board, or landlord.

What the Report Shows

The report draws on your interactions with Nevada’s criminal justice system. Released without restriction: all convictions, felony or misdemeanor, and any matter where you are currently inside the system, including active parole or probation.² A pending arrest shows up while the case is open; an arrest that was never prosecuted and is fully resolved does not. Required registrations, such as sex offender entries, also appear.

Civil matters do not. Evictions, small claims judgments, and credit history live with other agencies and private reporting companies. If a landlord or employer wants that side of the picture, they pull separate reports.

A Nevada report also stops at the state line. If a licensing board or employer requires a national criminal history, that calls for an FBI Identity History Summary, which FBI-approved channelers can run by collecting your prints and forwarding them to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division for its own fee and timeline.⁴

What Employers Can and Can’t Ask

Nevada limits when a criminal history question can enter the hiring process, and federal law layers on top of that.

Ban the Box

State and local government agencies cannot ask about criminal history on an initial application. Under NRS 284.281, a public employer may not inquire until after extending a conditional offer, and the application must tell you that a conviction is not an automatic disqualifier.⁵

Private employers face a similar rule. NRS 613.132 bars criminal history questions on job applications and prohibits inquiry about your record until after an initial interview or a conditional offer.⁶

FCRA Rights When a Third Party Runs the Check

If an employer uses a screening company, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act controls the process. Before ordering the report, the employer must give you a written, standalone disclosure that a background check may be obtained, and you must authorize the check in writing.⁷

If something in the report is going to cost you the job, the employer must first send a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of your rights, giving you a window to spot errors before the decision is final.⁷ Most FCRA failures happen right here, because employers rush the step.

EEOC Limits on Blanket Rejections

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discourages policies that automatically reject anyone with a record, since under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act such policies can create illegal disparate impact. Employers are advised to weigh the nature and gravity of the offense, the time that has passed, and the relevance of the offense to the actual job, and to conduct an individualized assessment that lets you present context like rehabilitation, work history, or the circumstances of the offense.⁸

The EEOC also separates arrests from convictions. An arrest alone is not evidence of a crime and should not be the sole basis for an employment decision; only the underlying conduct, if independently verified, may be considered.⁸

Sealing a Nevada Record

After a waiting period, you can petition a court to seal most Nevada criminal records. The clock runs from release from custody or discharge from parole or probation, whichever is later:⁹

Category A felonies, crimes of violence, and residential burglary: 10 years
Category B, C, or D felonies: 5 years
Category E felonies: 2 years
Non-felony DUI, non-felony battery domestic violence, and other enhanceable misdemeanors: 7 years
Gross misdemeanors and misdemeanor battery, harassment, or stalking: 2 years
Other misdemeanors: 1 year
Acquittals and dismissed charges: no waiting period

Some offenses are never eligible, including crimes against children, felony DUI, sexual offenses, and home invasion with a deadly weapon.

When a court grants sealing, the proceedings are legally treated as though they never happened. You can deny the arrest, conviction, and related proceedings on job applications, housing forms, and other inquiries, and sealing restores lost rights to vote, hold office, and serve on a jury. Sealing does not restore firearm rights. That requires a separate pardon, and the pardon itself must not restrict firearm possession.¹⁰

Fixing an Error on Your Report

If a third-party screening company produced the report, the employer must give you the company’s name, address, and toll-free number so you can dispute the information. The screening company then has 30 days to investigate and correct or remove anything it cannot verify.¹¹

If the error is on your Nevada state report itself, such as a conviction attributed to the wrong person or a sealed matter still showing, the fix has to happen at the Records, Communications and Compliance Division. Send documentation with your dispute: a court sealing order, a dismissal record, or proof of an identity mix-up alongside your fingerprint-verified report.

Move quickly. In an active hiring process, the pre-adverse action notice is your window. Once the final adverse action notice goes out, the decision is made and the leverage is gone.

1
Nevada State Police Records, Communications and Compliance Division. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
2
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code Chapter 179A – Records of Criminal History and Information Relating to Public Safety
3
Nevada Secretary of State. Fingerprinting for Investigation of History of Applicant
4
Federal Bureau of Investigation. List of FBI-Approved Channelers for Departmental Order Submissions
5
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 284.281 – Unclassified Service: Policies and Procedures
6
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code Chapter 613 – Employment Practices
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
9
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 179.245 – Sealing Records After Conviction
10
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 179.285 – Order Sealing Records
11
Federal Trade Commission. Background Checks: What Employers Need to Know