What Is Pennsylvania’s Employment Background Check Law?

Pennsylvania’s employment background check law is really two laws working together. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) sets the procedure an employer has to follow when it orders a report on you: written disclosure, your written consent, a copy of the report before any rejection becomes final, and a formal notice afterward. Pennsylvania’s Criminal History Record Information Act (CHRIA) narrows what the employer is allowed to do with what comes back, by limiting consideration to felony and misdemeanor convictions that relate to the job and by requiring written notice if a conviction is the reason you weren’t hired. Knowing both frameworks is what lets you spot a problem while you still have time to do something about it.

What an Employer Can Pull

The scope depends on the employer and the role. Common components include:

Criminal history from state and county databases. Pennsylvania’s central repository is maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police.
Credit history, most often for jobs that involve money, like cash handling or accounting.
Driving record for positions that put you behind the wheel, showing license status, violations, and suspensions.
Employment and education verification, confirming the jobs and degrees you listed.

Not every check pulls every record. A warehouse role is unlikely to request your credit report; a delivery driver position almost certainly orders a motor vehicle record. Each type of check is supposed to tie to a legitimate purpose for the position being filled.

A separate regime applies if you’ll be working with children. Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law requires three clearances before you start: the Pennsylvania State Police Criminal History Check (PATCH), the Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance, and an FBI fingerprint-based criminal background check. All three must be renewed at least every 60 months.¹

How Far Back a Report Can Go

The FCRA bars consumer reporting agencies from including older negative items. Arrests that didn’t lead to a conviction, civil judgments, paid tax liens, and most other adverse items drop off after seven years. Bankruptcies can be reported for up to ten.²

Convictions are the major exception. There is no federal time limit on reporting an actual conviction, so a 20-year-old felony conviction can still show up. The seven-year ceiling also drops away entirely when you’re being considered for a position with an annual salary of $75,000 or more; at that point, all adverse items are fair game regardless of age.²

How Convictions Can and Can’t Be Used

This is where Pennsylvania law carries the most weight. Under CHRIA, an employer may consider only felony and misdemeanor convictions. Arrests that didn’t lead to conviction, pending charges, and non-criminal dispositions are off the table.³

Even a qualifying conviction isn’t automatically disqualifying. The conviction has to relate to your suitability for the specific job you applied for. A recent theft conviction clearly bears on a cash-handling role; it probably has nothing to do with a landscaping job. Blanket policies that screen out everyone with any criminal history run afoul of this requirement.³

If an employer decides not to hire you because of your criminal record, CHRIA requires written notice telling you so. That obligation is independent of the FCRA process, so you should receive it even if the employer ran the check internally rather than through a third-party agency.³

Federal anti-discrimination law adds a second check. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued guidance warning that blanket criminal record exclusions can violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act if they disproportionately screen out applicants based on race or national origin. The guidance expects employers to weigh the nature and seriousness of the offense, how much time has passed since the conviction or release, and the nature of the job being sought, and to conduct an individualized assessment that lets you explain the circumstances and present evidence of rehabilitation.⁴

Clean Slate Records

Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law, enacted in 2018, automatically seals certain criminal records from public view. Sealed records should not appear on a standard employer background check and cannot legally be used in hiring decisions.⁵

Automatic sealing covers non-conviction records and certain summary and criminal offenses once enough conviction-free time has passed. Summary convictions become eligible after five years, many misdemeanors after seven years, and some felonies after ten years. You must have stayed free of any conviction for an offense punishable by a year or more in prison and completed all court-ordered obligations during the waiting period.⁵

Sealing is not expungement. A sealed record still exists and remains accessible to law enforcement and judicial officers. Sealed records may also still appear on FBI background checks required for certain positions, such as those involving children or law enforcement.

Ban-the-Box Coverage in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania does not have a general private-sector ban-the-box law. Two carve-outs matter:

Governor Wolf signed an executive order in 2017 removing the criminal history question from state employment applications for agencies under the governor’s jurisdiction. Those agencies can still ask about convictions later in the process. Exceptions exist for positions where a conviction creates a legal disqualification or where the role involves law enforcement, security, or vulnerable populations.

Philadelphia goes further. The city’s Fair Chance Hiring Law bars private employers from asking about criminal background on an application or during any interview; a background check can only be run after a conditional job offer. Complaints go to the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.⁶

Outside Philadelphia and state agency hiring, most private employers in Pennsylvania are free to ask about criminal history on the application itself.

The Consent and Notice Sequence

When an employer uses a third-party agency to run your check, the FCRA imposes a strict order.

Before the Check

You must get a written disclosure, in a standalone document, stating that a background check may be obtained for employment purposes, and you must authorize the check in writing. The disclosure can’t be buried in the application or mixed with other paperwork.⁷

Before a Final Decision

If the results have the employer considering rejection, the employer must first send a pre-adverse action notice that includes a copy of the report and a summary of your FCRA rights. That gives you a window to review the report and flag errors before the decision locks in. The FCRA doesn’t specify a waiting period; “reasonable” is the standard, and five business days has become a common benchmark without being a legal requirement.⁷

After the Final Decision

If the employer ultimately rejects you, a final adverse action notice is required. It must include the name, address, and phone number of the reporting agency, a statement that the agency did not make the hiring decision, and notice of your right to request a free copy of the report within 60 days and to dispute any inaccurate information.⁸

Fixing Errors on Your Report

Errors are common. Records belonging to someone with a similar name can land on your report, and expunged convictions sometimes keep showing up because a database wasn’t updated. Consumer reporting agencies are legally required to follow reasonable procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy.⁹

File any dispute directly with the reporting agency. The agency has 30 days to investigate, contact the original data source, and either verify or correct the information. If it can’t be verified, it has to be removed. You’ll receive written results and a free copy of any corrected report.

Put disputes in writing and keep copies of everything. A phone call is hard to document if the problem comes back. If the same error reappears after being corrected, that pattern is useful evidence of a systemic failure.

What You Can Recover If the Rules Are Broken

FCRA violations create two tracks of liability. For negligent violations, you can recover your actual damages plus attorney fees and court costs. Actual damages can include lost wages from a job you didn’t get because of a flawed report, and in some circuits, emotional distress.¹⁰

Willful violations raise the stakes. You can recover either actual damages or statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per violation, whichever is greater, without having to prove specific financial harm. Courts can also award punitive damages and must award attorney fees and costs to a successful plaintiff.¹⁰

The attorney fee provision is what makes these cases viable for most job applicants. Even when individual damages are modest, the prospect of paying the plaintiff’s legal bills pushes employers and reporting agencies toward settlement or compliance. On the state side, an employer who fails to provide CHRIA’s written notice when a conviction drives a rejection loses one of its strongest defenses in any later dispute about whether the conviction was actually job-related.

1
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Child Abuse Clearances – Department of Human Services
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
3
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 18 Chapter 91 Section 9125 – Use of Records for Employment
4
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII
5
Dauphin County. Clean Slate, Expungement, and Limited Access From the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania
6
City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s Fair Chance Hiring Law
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681e – Compliance Procedures
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance