How Long Does a Background Check Take?

Conducting a background check is necessary for recruitment in various fields like medicine, law enforcement, schools, etc. You may also want to conduct background checks on your nanny, a potential date, or an influencer you want to collaborate with. Hence, you would want to know how long these background checks take. If you have tried conducting any form of background check or requested for your records, you must know that not every report may return exactly as per the estimated time.

It is natural to get impatient and confused, wondering how long a background check might take. This is especially true if you are waiting on a report that should have been ready within a day but you have been waiting for more than a couple of days. Hence, I have mentioned the estimated time of different kinds of background checks and found out why there could be delays to put your mind at ease.

Types of Background Checks and How Long do they Take

Here, I have mentioned the different types of background checks and how long they could take. I have also included the reason why they could take longer than estimated at times.

How Long Does it for Background Checks

Type of background check	Turnaround time
Federal Background check	1 to 3 business days.
Prior Employment and Employment Verification	A few minutes to a few weeks.
Education Verification	About 3 days.
Reference Check	A few minutes to hours to several days.
Drug Screening	1 to 3 days.
Driving Record	7 to 10 days
Professional License & Certificate Confirmation	3 days to a few weeks.
Social Security Number Trace	A few hours or a whole day.
Fingerprint check	It may take 3 days.

Now let me take you through each of these background checks and discuss the reason for their delays.

Federal Background Check

• What is it? A federal background check involves going through 94 different federal courts in the US. In this background check, you will find records of an individual’s criminal history. The crimes that it can reveal are tax and identity fraud, sex offenses, smuggling, terrorism, extortion, and other serious crimes.
• How long does it take? It can take from one to three business days to gain complete details. If it is only about one report, it can usually be done within a day.
• Reasons for the delay? If you are looking into both state and federal records or an entire criminal history, it can consume more than the estimated time. It may also be due to manual searches and waiting on international records for complete, accurate information. The complexity and depth of federal background checks, plus its legal and compliance procedures, can also delay the process.

Prior Employment and Employment Verification

• What is it? Pre-employment and employment verification involves verifying an individual’s background before and during the employment. This includes criminal, educational, previous occupation, address, etc., checks.
• How long does it take? Depending on the required details, this background check can take a few minutes to several weeks.
• Reason for the delay? The reason for the delay of this background check could be some internal policies of the employer. Delays may also occur from the side of third parties, like educational institutes and previous employers, as they could take time to prepare the details. It could also occur due to lazy management in some institutions, as it may not be their priority task.

Education Verification

• What is it? Education verification is a background check to verify whether you qualify for admission to an institute or certain job roles. This includes finding a report on how much you scored in the specific exams, your major, the level of your training, and more.
• How long does it take? Usually, whenever I took an admission somewhere and they conducted a background check, I would get a reply from the place I was applying to within 3 days. A few places have also mentioned that they got all the details that particular day. This may also depend on the speed at which an institute’s staff responds to a request.
• Reason for the delay? The delay in this case is usually due to the institute’s management, as they may not find the time to go through your reports the same day due to other priorities. I was usually asked to return the next day when I applied to get any record from the administrator’s office. This can also depend on how old the records are, what reports you require, and how detailed you want them to be.

Reference Check

• What is it? The reference check can be a part of an employment background check. This involves checking on the references provided by the candidate such as understanding the applicant’s strengths and weaknesses based on the views of references. It includes asking for reviews from teachers, previous employers, research guides, etc.
• How long does it take? The time it takes to check references depends on the availability of the people and the response time the candidate has provided. It may take anywhere from a few minutes to hours to several days. I suggest you contact the references during business hours and weekdays for faster responses.
• Reason for the delay? The delay may be due to the response time of the references. In certain cases, I got on a call instantly with the reference, which was done within a few minutes. However, I had to take a prior appointment most of the time, which can also be time-consuming as you may have to wait for hours or days for a reply.

  There are also times when a complete write-up or recommendation letter is expected. Such activity can take even a week as the reference will need to spend a good amount of time on the write-up.

Drug Screening

• What is it? Drug screening is done for the employment process, which involves checking for the presence of substances in the blood or urine. I have also come across drug addiction background checks that involved looking into any previous substance abuse records, rehab center reports, etc.
• How long does it take? As usual, blood or urine tests can take a few hours or 1 to 2 days. While getting previous records of substance abuse may take anywhere from 1 to 3 business days.
• Reason for the delay? There might be a delay due to the medical testing which needs to be done in a different lab which is situated elsewhere. I have also noticed that the complexity of tests or sample collection issues can slow down the results. The time taken to acquire records and reports from a rehab center or a hospital can also add to the delay.

Driving Record

• What is it? A driving record checks your driving and license history. This includes license status, criminal driving offenses, traffic violations, incidents, and tickets.
• How long does it take? I usually contact the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to get my driving record, which includes accurate data. It can take up to 7-10 days if it’s mailed to you. These records may also be available online; however, it’s best to contact your state DMV.
• Reason for the delay? The procedures may differ in different states therefore, some may receive it much later than 10 days. There were times when I didn’t get the report even after 20 days. Hence, I gave them a call and asked them to mail it instantly, and received it after three days.

  Sometimes, your recent incidents may not have been added, so you may have to wait a while for them to reflect on your record. If you have requested to mail the record, then there might be postal delays, which are out of the agency’s hands.

  Note that accidents may only show up as tickets on this record if you received a ticket for it.

Professional License & Certificate Confirmation

• What is it? Professional License and certificate confirmation is a background check to verify your skill’s authenticity. This is usually done for medical practitioners, fitness instructors, emergency service professionals, legal professionals, CPAs, etc.
• How long does it take? Verifying a professional license can take 3 days to several weeks, depending on the process and the license type in question. The Connecticut Department of Public Health provides license verification for professors online. My sister submitted her verification form online on this portal, www.elicense.ct.gov, and received a confirmation mail within 3 days via US mail.

  It may be faster if it is only certificate confirmation, as you can contact the institute or training center that provided it.

• Reason for the delay? The reason for the delay can depend on the type of license you are looking to verify. Sometimes, the offices that verify licenses are overloaded with such verifications, which can result in up to six weeks of waiting. Issues like jurisdictional differences due to various requirements based on a state or a country can also cause roadblocks.

Social Security Number Trace

• What is it? Social Security Number or SSN trace includes all records between 3 to 10 years. It consists of name, date of birth, employment, tax, credit, and more.
• How long does it take? SNN check usually takes only a few hours. However, in some cases, you may get it within some minutes or it may take a whole day.
• Reason for the delay? There might be delays at times as you might be requesting a trace during peak season or peak hours. It may also occur due to server downtime, overload on government agencies, some privacy measurements, or incomplete verification.

Fingerprint Check

• What is it? Fingerprint checks use an IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System) to do background checks. The FBI manages a fingerprint database of over 35 million Americans. A fingerprint check is usually done to find criminal records, match crime scene reports, or during recruitment in the healthcare and law enforcement sectors.
• How long does it take? If there is an exact match to the submitted fingerprint, you will get the results within 3 days.
• Reason for the delay? There might be delays in fingerprint checks due to technical issues, the quality of the fingerprint, and accessibility issues such as technical glitches in the database portals. You may also face delays due to extra manual review for accuracy and delays in interagency communications.

Overall, the general reasons for the delay usually are manual verification, information gaps, state and international laws, and the vastness of data. Furthermore, it could also be due to technical issues, information inaccuracies, and too many aliases.

Note: I came across a study conducted by HR Institute that partnered with Accurate Background. In this research, they asked HR professionals from different fields about the current situation of the background check. The 63% said that the delay occurred due to government shutdowns and slowdowns and 61% said, it’s due to a lack of access to a government database. For more information on this report, you can visit the Accurate Background.

How Does an International Background Check Differ from a Domestic one?

International and domestic background checks are mostly similar kinds of verifications conducted on an individual. The only difference is that an international background check includes details about a person from all over the world. The international background check consists of criminal offenses, education, and employment history from overseas. Apart from the official court and federal records, it may also use sources like media such as news reports, blogs, tabloids, etc.,

A domestic background check is the same thing, however, it does not cross international boundaries to gather the information.

If you conduct an international background check, you will face more delay than the domestic. This is because it includes numerous laws and regulations that do not exist in the domestic search. Even if the law for background checks differs in every state in the US, the rules of different countries and continents can be much more complex. For example, France, the UK, and Germany do not allow employers to run background checks on candidates that could bring up their political views.

Regulations like FCRA and GDPR can also slow down the process. Additionally, there are cultural and language barriers, which may also add some sort of hindrance to international background checks.

How to Speed up the Background Check Process?

I tried numerous tools before shortlisting the ones mentioned below which happen to produce the most accurate and fastest results.

1) Spokeo

Spokeo lets you find background information with the help of name, username, phone number, email, and address search. It can help you find background details on anyone be it your long-lost pals, relatives, or colleagues.

I found its reports quite detailed, and they were ready within just a few minutes. Spokeo also provides a one-time report for just $0.95, so I did not have to purchase a complete plan during the research process.

Features:

• Large database: Spokeo has 130 million property records, 600 million court records, 3.9 billion historical records, and much more.
• Informative reports: The reports that I received contained their aliases, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. It also gave me their location history, social media accounts, criminal records, employment history, etc.

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Here are the steps that I used for doing a background check using Spokeo:

Step 1) I visited the Spokeo website and selected Name Search. You can select any other piece of information you have, for example, phone number, email address, etc., to search.

Step 2) Then, you can type the person’s name into the search bar and click Search Now.

Step 3) Once the search is complete, you will get basic results like their full name with middle name, age, and relatives. To get the full report, you can click on See Results; this will unlock further basic details.

Step 4) Now, for a complete report, click on Unlock Profile on this page, pay $0.95 for a one-time report, and receive complete details.

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7-Day Trial at $0.95

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2) Intelius

Intelius is a reverse lookup background check tool that has name, phone number, and address lookup capabilities. Using Intelius, I could find background details on my new house caretaker, as I needed to know if she had over 10 years of experience.

I found it quite useful as it can only be used in the US, so you get narrowed-down results. Hence, I didn’t have to search through too many similar names to find the target person in my results. To learn more, read our Intelius review.

Features:

• Confidential: All the background searches I conducted on Intelius remained confidential. Hence, I could anonymously look up people’s backgrounds without them being notified.
• Detailed reports: It looks into federal, state, and county data sources to provide detailed accurate information. I found details such as their age, location, possible relatives, phone number, online activities, ex-spouses, traffic tickets, and more.

Visit Intelius >>

5-Day Trial at $0.95

Here are the steps that you can use to get background details using Intelius:

Step 1) Go to the Intelius website, enter the person’s first and last name along with the city and state, and click Search. If you do not know which state they live in, you can select All States. You can also use its other search parameters if you only have a phone number or an address.

Step 2) Once you click Search, Intelius will begin its reverse lookup and lead you to several results with similar names.

Step 3) Now, click on Open Report for the full report and get detailed information about the person.

Note: I suggest you purchase its paid trial for $0.95 before looking up a person, as it will directly lead you to a subscription for reports without a paid trial option.

Visit Intelius >>

5-Day Trial at $0.95

Apart from sites like Spokeo and Intelius, you can also use Barada Associates, which offers background and high-profile screening. Then there are others like iProspect and Checkr, which are employment background check tools.

I also tried Social Catfish, which is a reverse lookup site that has numerous search parameters and is quite helpful for people who want to avoid being catfished.

Best Practices of Background Check

Before you do a background check, you must learn its best practices. Here’s what I like to keep in mind:

• Respect privacy: Respect the individual’s privacy and do not share the details you find with anyone. Most of the tools I used for background checks asked me to agree to these terms and conditions before they proceeded with the report.
• Comply with legal boundaries: I suggest you strictly follow all legal requirements while conducting any form of background check, as it is a highly sensitive matter that can lead to legal consequences. Furthermore, steer clear from biometric data such as fingerprint or iris scan if you do not have proper written consent.
• Use reliable tools and sources: Use people search tools that have a high rating and good reviews or are widely known for background searches. The tools that I have used in this article are reliable background check services that you can use. Additionally, make sure the sources you use are trustworthy, as I’d choose to trust the federal court report over a tabloid.
• Verify the information: It is important to verify the details that you find, especially if you are using a tool. I have encountered outdated or inaccurate data a few times, which caused a lot of confusion. Hence, it’s best to verify the details in the reports.
• Focus on relevancy: Only investigate the background check details you require for the particular purpose. For example, if you only need to verify their educational history, you do not have to investigate their marital information.
• Keep records and documentation: I usually store the records safely so I can look into them whenever required. This is recommended as you are already aware of how difficult and time-consuming background checks can be. Hence, keep documentation so you do not have to start from scratch.
• Regular updates: A person’s background details can change, such as their employee, job role, marital status, phone number, etc. Many background search tools and reverse lookup sites offer email alerts whenever new information is added, or anything is updated in the existing report.
• Get consent and educate them: Getting consent is important, especially when hiring a candidate. Educate them on a background check, why you need to screen them, how it will be done, and what reports you require.

Conclusion

Background checks can take a few minutes, a single day, several weeks, or even months. When you use background check tools, you can rely on estimated time as they use specific algorithms and technology. However, a manual search may not always produce the result as per the estimated duration. On the other hand, tools may not always provide accuracy like a manual or a professional search.