Where Do You Get Fingerprinted for a Daycare Job?

The requirement isn't the center's idea — it's federal.

Under the CCDF rules at 45 CFR 98.43, which 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, and any subsidy-eligible provider is covered too.

The check must be requested before you become a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years.

Fingerprints are the parts of that check you attend in person.

The CCDF components include an FBI fingerprint check using Next Generation Identification, a National Sex Offender Registry (NCIC) search, and — for the state where you live plus every state you lived in during the past 5 years — a state criminal repository check, a state sex offender registry check and a state child abuse and neglect registry check.

Of those components, two run on your fingerprints: the FBI check and the state criminal repository check, which requires fingerprints in the state of residence.

Who needs the check is defined broadly in home-based settings: in a family child care home, any household member age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member who needs the check.

So in a home-based program, the check reaches assistants on staff and household members alike.

Start with the state, not the vendor.

Federal rules require every state to publish its background check policies and the process for submitting a request on its website, and that published page — not a third-party vendor's site — is the authority on where daycare fingerprints get done.

The check must be requested before you become a staff member, and the process a provider follows to submit that request is part of what the state publishes, so ask the hiring center for that process or the state page it uses.

States contract fingerprint enrollment vendors to collect the prints — IdentoGO, Live Scan and Fieldprint are examples of the enrollment vendors states use — but there is no single national vendor for childcare fingerprinting.

Each state's contract decides which company, which locations and which booking system handle daycare prints, so schedule through the channel your state's page names.

If your state uses a livescan provider, the state's instructions name the company and how to schedule with it.

Either way, the state's published process is what tells you where to go — read it before you book anything.

The state publishes its background-check policies and the process for submitting a request, so the list of what to bring starts there.

Our research did not confirm a national ID or paperwork list: your state's instructions set what you need at the appointment, so read that page before you go.

Accuracy matters as much as showing up.

The results come back as an eligibility decision about you specifically, and knowingly making a materially false statement in a child care background check is itself a federal mandatory disqualifier.

If your name has changed, follow the state's instructions for documenting the difference rather than improvising.

There is no national dollar figure to give you, because the federal rule caps the price instead of setting it: fees a state charges for background checks may not exceed the actual cost of processing and administration.

The state's published background-check page is where to check the amount for your state.

Who pays is a question to settle with the hiring center.

Ask the director whether the center covers the fee before you pay it yourself, and keep your receipt either way.

One federal rule can save you the whole fee: checks are portable within a state.

A new provider need not re-run the check when you had a qualifying result within the past 5 years while working for — or applying to — another in-state provider, and you have not been separated from in-state child care employment for more than 180 consecutive days.

If that describes you, tell the center; the earlier clearance can stand in for a new set of prints.

The federal ceiling is 45 days: states must complete a provider's background check request as quickly as possible, and within 45 days of submission.

That window runs from the date the provider submits the request, so a center that submits promptly helps your timeline too.

You may not have to wait for everything before starting.

A new hire may start work once they have a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint criminal check, as long as a fully checked staff member supervises them at all times until every component of the check is complete.

The two fingerprint results are the components that can put you on the floor under supervision while the registry searches finish.

What comes back is limited: the employer receives an 'eligible' or 'ineligible' statement rather than the details of any record, and the worker is the one who gets the specifics.

If you've moved, your prints happen where you live now: the fingerprint requirement attaches to the criminal repository check in your state of residence.

The check still reaches back — it covers every state you lived in during the past 5 years — and our research did not confirm whether a former state's part of the check needs a separate set of prints, so follow the instructions the hiring center and your state give you.

Clearances do not cross state lines.

Federal portability is within a state only: a new provider can rely on a check that returned a qualifying result within the past 5 years, for someone working for or applying to another in-state provider who hasn't been separated from in-state child care employment for more than 180 consecutive days.

Move to a new state, and that state runs its own checks — including fresh FBI fingerprints and the look-back at every state you lived in during the past 5 years.

Practically, that means starting the paperwork again when you cross a line, and it means the new state's licensing agency page is your first stop: each state publishes its own background-check process, so its site is the authority on its locations, steps and fees.

If you're relocating for work, it's worth seeing which centers are hiring before you go — browsing childcare teacher jobs gives you a picture of the market you're moving into.

This page is career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Confirm where to get fingerprinted, what it costs and how long results take in your state with your state child care licensing agency.