Under federal rules, every staff member at a licensed, regulated or registered daycare or child care program must have a comprehensive background check, requested before hire: an FBI fingerprint check, a national sex offender registry search, and state criminal, sex offender and child abuse and neglect registry checks covering your current state and every state you have lived in during the past five years.
Here is what the check includes, when it happens and what it means for your job search.
What background checks do childcare staff need?
Under the federal CCDF rules at 45 CFR 98.43 — child care rules the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) administers — every child care staff member of a licensed, regulated or registered provider must have a comprehensive background check.
Providers that are eligible to serve families receiving child care subsidy are covered too.
The childcare background check is not one search but a bundle of them, and it applies to new hires and to staff already on the payroll.
The federal rule writes “child care staff member,” and each state carries the checks out under its own published procedures.
In a family child care home the reach is broader than the employees: any household member age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member who needs the check.
The bundle has several parts — an FBI fingerprint check, a National Sex Offender Registry search, and state criminal, sex offender and child abuse and neglect registry checks for your current state and every state you lived in during the past 5 years.
The request goes in before you become a staff member, and the checks repeat at least once every 5 years.
The sections below take each part apart.
If you are on the other side of the table and hiring, the employer walkthrough — when to request, who can start and under what supervision — lives on our background check process for employers page.
And for where the background check sits among the other qualifications states set, see our teacher requirements by state guide.
Federal floor, state process
The federal comprehensive check, explained
The comprehensive check comes from the CCDBG Act, and the CCDF rules that implement it spell out the components.
For you as an applicant, the full set is:
- an FBI fingerprint check using Next Generation Identification;
- a National Sex Offender Registry (NCIC) search; and
- for your state of residence and every state you lived in during the past 5 years, a state criminal repository check (fingerprints required in your state of residence), a state sex offender registry check, and a state child abuse and neglect registry check.
The rule also sets federal mandatory disqualifiers.
Refusing to consent to the checks, or knowingly making a materially false statement, disqualifies on its own.
So does being on — or being required to be on — a state or national sex offender registry.
On the conviction side, the federal list covers a felony conviction for murder, child abuse or neglect, a crime against children (including child pornography), spousal abuse, rape or sexual assault, kidnapping, arson, or physical assault or battery; a drug-related felony committed during the preceding 5 years; and a violent misdemeanor against a child — child abuse, child endangerment, sexual assault — or any misdemeanor involving child pornography.
That list is a floor, not a ceiling: states may disqualify for additional crimes that bear on fitness to care for children, so your state’s list can run longer than the federal one.
The one federal disqualifier with a built-in second look is the recent drug-related felony — a state may set up a review process that finds a person disqualified only for that felony eligible, run consistently with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Whatever the component, the employer receives only an “eligible” or “ineligible” statement — never the disqualifying crime or other related information about you.
The details go to the worker, along with information on how to appeal.
If you have a record and are weighing what it means for an application, our guide to working in childcare with a record goes through the disqualifiers and the review options.
Head Start programs run a parallel process of their own.
Current Office of Head Start rules at 45 CFR 1302.90 require, before hire, an interview, reference checks, a sex offender registry check and either a state, tribal or FBI fingerprint criminal check; the remaining criminal check and the child abuse and neglect registry check are due within 90 days, a new hire may not have unsupervised access to children until the process is complete, and a full re-check comes every 5 years.
In August 2026, ACF proposed deleting these background-check procedures from the Head Start Performance Standards, with statutory requirements and state CCDBG-aligned checks still applying — the proposal is not final.
Fingerprints: FBI and state
Two components run on your fingerprints.
The FBI check is a fingerprint check run through Next Generation Identification, and the state criminal repository check requires fingerprints in your state of residence.
These two results matter most on day one: a qualifying result on either the FBI check or the in-state fingerprint check is what allows a new hire to start while the rest of the check is still running.
Each state runs its own fingerprinting process, and federal rules require every state to publish its background check policies and how to submit a request on its website.
That makes the state’s own site — not a third-party vendor — the authority on where to get printed and what its process requires.
On cost, the federal rule sets no dollar amount.
It caps what a state may charge: background check fees may not exceed the actual cost of processing and administration.
The current amount lives in your state’s published instructions, alongside where to file.
For where appointments happen, what to bring and how the FBI and in-state checks differ, see our guide to fingerprinting for daycare jobs.
Child abuse and neglect registry checks
The child abuse and neglect registry check is its own component, not a copy of your criminal background check.
The rule lists it alongside the state criminal repository check and the state sex offender registry check as separate searches, each with its own registry behind it.
Its coverage follows your residence history: the registry check runs in your current state and in every state where you lived during the past 5 years, as part of the same request.
Unlike the fingerprint checks, this one has no early-start provision of its own.
A qualifying fingerprint result can put you to work under supervision, but every component — the registry check included — has to be complete before that supervision ends.
For what these registries are, how a clearance is requested and what a state may charge for one, our guide to child abuse clearances covers this component in detail.
Interstate checks if you lived in another state
The check follows where you have lived.
The interstate part of the CCDBG check covers each state where the staff member lived during the preceding five years, so if you have moved within the past five years, one request reaches the criminal, sex offender registry and child abuse and neglect registry checks in each state on your history.
The fingerprint requirement attaches to your state of residence; your prior states are covered through the interstate request the provider submits.
What these results do not do is cross state lines on their own.
Federal portability runs within a state only: a new provider need not re-run the check if you received a qualifying result within the past 5 years while working for — or applying to — another provider in that same state, and you have not been separated from that state’s child care employment for more than 180 consecutive days.
Move to a new state, and that state runs its own comprehensive check with the out-of-state registry searches built in.
One caveat our research could not close: whether every state’s interstate process is now fully in place could not be verified from a current federal source.
Treat your state child care licensing agency as the authority on how your prior-state checks get ordered.
Can you start work before results come back?
Conditionally, yes.
A new hire may start once there is a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint criminal check — no waiting for the full bundle.
Until every component is complete, you must be supervised at all times by a staff member who received a qualifying result on their own comprehensive check within the past five years.
In practice that means you are never the only adult with a group until everything is back — including the child abuse and neglect registry check.
The clock on the provider’s side: states must complete a background check request as quickly as possible, and within 45 days of the date the provider submitted it.
For the stages in between and where the wait runs longest, our guide to how long a background check takes covers the timeline.
How often checks are redone
The checks are not one-and-done.
They must be requested before you become a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years, so a career in early childhood education means recurring checks no matter how long you stay with one employer.
Within a state, a recent result can spare you a re-run when you switch jobs: a new provider need not repeat the check if you received a qualifying result within the past 5 years while working for — or applying to — another provider in the same state, and you have not been out of that state’s child care employment for more than 180 consecutive days.
Wait longer than that gap, or cross a state line, and the checks run again.
Head Start’s current rules set the same 5-year re-check cadence alongside the 90-day completion window — though ACF’s August 2026 proposal would delete the Performance Standards’ own background-check procedures and lean on the statute and state CCDBG-aligned checks instead.
Until any change is final, the current rule governs.
What this means when you apply for jobs
Expect the check during hiring, before your first day — the request has to go in before you become a staff member.
The check runs on your consent, and refusing consent or knowingly making a materially false statement disqualifies on its own.
Have your residence history for the past five years ready so the provider can order the out-of-state checks without a second round of paperwork.
If a result comes back “ineligible,” the employer learns only that word — not the offense behind it.
You receive the details and information on how to appeal, and states must offer an appeal process for challenging the accuracy or completeness of your background report, with written notice of the decision.
Practical timeline: a cleared FBI or in-state fingerprint check can start you working under supervision; states have up to 45 days to complete the full request; and a recent in-state result can follow you to the next employer without a re-run.
When you are ready to search, browse open childcare teacher jobs, and read our childcare teacher career guide for the rest of the qualification picture.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. The comprehensive background check comes from federal CCDF rules at 45 CFR 98.43 and is administered by the states; confirm your state’s process, fees and disqualifying offenses with your state child care licensing agency.