Household Staff Background Check: What to Run

By The Calendar Group

A household staff background check is not one printout. It is a short stack of records matched to the access that role will have: keys, children, accounts, the car, or the household books. Order the stack before the first interview ends, and read it against the job, not against a generic pass-fail list.

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The useful screen confirms identity, searches the counties where the person has lived, checks the public registry, and verifies the work history the candidate claims. A criminal printout alone does not do that work.

What should a household staff background check cover?

Start with identity. The name, date of birth, and prior names on the resume have to belong to the person in front of you. If that step is sloppy, every later search is aimed at the wrong file. Identity work is not the same thing as work authorization. Form I-9 sits in its own section below, and mixing the two creates gaps in both.

Next, build an address history. County criminal records are local. A national database is a convenience, not a complete file. The address list tells you which courthouses to search. Skip a county where the person lived for years, and you can miss the only record that matters.

Then run the criminal search in those counties, plus any statewide repository the reporting company can reach. Add the public sex-offender registries through the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website. NSOPW is the only U.S. government site that links public state, territorial, and tribal registries. It was created in 2005 and renamed under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. It points to public registries. It is not a national criminal history.

Close the paper screen with the claims on the resume. Confirm the employers, the dates, and the title. When a role cites a school, a license, or a food-safety card, confirm that credential with the issuer. Then speak with references who actually supervised the work. We look for at least three, including a direct supervisor, and we test long stretches of employment rather than a single glowing call.

That base stack is the same for nearly every permanent household role. The extras depend on access. A property lead who moves money is not screened like a cook who never sees a statement. The FTC and EEOC joint guide is clear on the boundary: you may ask about background and you may require a check, and you may not use that information to discriminate.

Which extra check belongs to which role?

Match the extra check to a duty you can name. If you cannot name the duty, do not order the check. Broad fishing reads as distrust, and some of it is unlawful.

Role and access	Base screen	Add only when the duty is real
Property lead or household manager. Budgets, vendors, and codes.	Identity. Address history. County criminal search. Registry. Employment verification. Three references.	Credit report only if state law allows it and the person will move or approve money.
House manager or butler. Keys, staff, and vendors.	Same base screen.	No credit pull unless the role also controls accounts.
Principal support. Calendar, travel, and inbox.	Same base screen. Look hard at prior employers.	Credit only if the role pays bills or holds a card. Confirm any claimed license.
Private chef. The kitchen and the family's food.	Same base screen.	A current food-safety credential if you require one. Not a health exam.
Private childcare. Unsupervised time with children.	Same base screen. Do not skip the registry.	Motor-vehicle record if the role includes driving children.
Any role that includes driving.	Same base screen.	Motor-vehicle record for the license the person will use.

Credit is the check families overuse. The FTC notes that some states limit consumer reports for employment, and credit reports are the usual target. Order one when the person will handle money. Do not order one because the resume feels thin. A thin resume is a reference problem, not a credit problem.

Leave health history, family health history, and genetic information out of the screen. The same FTC and EEOC guide says not to ask about health before a conditional offer, and not to use genetic information in the decision. Drug panels, personality scores, and social-media scrapes are a poor default for a private home. They pull in facts you cannot lawfully use, and they rarely tell you whether the person can run a house.

A registry hit, or a clean registry, still needs the county search beside it. Families sometimes stop at the public site because it is free and fast. That site does not show an ordinary theft case in a county court. The address history is what sends you to that court.

What must you do before a company runs the report?

When a company in the business of compiling background information prepares the file, that file is a consumer report. The FTC's employer guide says the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to hiring, retention, promotion, and reassignment. In October 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the same duties cover background dossiers and scores bought from third parties, not only a classic criminal printout.

Before you receive the report, do three things:

1. Give a written notice, on its own page, that you may use the report for employment decisions. Do not bury it in an application.
2. Get written permission. It may sit on that same standalone notice. If you want later reports during the employment, say so plainly.
3. Certify to the reporting company that you gave notice, received permission, will follow the Act, and will not misuse the information.

If you decide not to hire based on that report, pause before you act. The same pause applies if you later reassign or end the employment because of the report. Give the person a notice with a copy of the report you used. Include "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act." The company that sold you the report should supply that summary. The advance copy is the chance to correct a wrong file. Mixed files are common when two people share a name.

This is the floor, not a full compliance manual. State and city rules can be stricter, especially on credit and on how far back a criminal record may be considered. Have counsel read the notice you actually use. Do not copy a template from a vendor blog and hope.

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How should you read a criminal record?

A record is a fact about a past event. It is not, by itself, a reason to refuse every role. The EEOC's 2012 enforcement guidance draws a hard line between an arrest and a conviction. An arrest does not prove the conduct. A conviction can be weighed when it is related to the job and consistent with business necessity.

The guidance points to three practical tests, often called the Green factors. What was the offense, and how serious was it? How much time has passed since the offense and since the sentence ended? What will this person actually do in your house? A ten-year-old nonviolent case reads differently for a cook than a recent theft case reads for someone who will hold the household card.

Apply the same standard to every candidate for that role. The joint FTC and EEOC guide treats a selective screen, one group checked and another waved through, as evidence of discrimination. A flat ban, with no look at the person or the duty, is the wrong tool. If the report will change your decision, use the pre-decision notice above so a mistake in the file can be fixed first.

None of this is a promise that a database is complete. Courts misspell names. Counties lag. A reporting company can only certify its process. Your job is to aim the search at the right counties. Read what comes back against the access you are about to give, and write down why a particular record did or did not matter.

Where does Form I-9 fit, and where does it not?

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services treats a domestic worker who does household work on a regular basis, for wages or other benefits, as someone who generally needs Form I-9. That form checks identity and permission to work. It does not check criminal history, references, or driving history.

USCIS names two cases where you do not complete the form. The work is sporadic, irregular, or intermittent. Or the person is employed by an outside company that supplies the worker. You still may not use someone you know is not authorized to work.

Keep the form off the background vendor's checklist. The vendor confirms a file. You, as the employer, complete I-9 on the government timeline, with the documents the worker chooses to present. Folding I-9 into a consumer report confuses both duties and helps neither.

What a clean registry search does not prove

A clear result on NSOPW means the public registries it links did not show that identity. It does not mean every court is empty. It does not confirm the employers on the resume. It does not tell you how the person behaved in the last house.

That last gap is why references stay in the household staff background check even after the databases look quiet. Ask what the person controlled, what happened when something went wrong, and whether the prior principal would hire them again for the same access. A polished interview cannot answer those points. The prior supervisor can.

We also confirm education when the resume leans on it, and we pull a driving record only when driving is part of the duty. Credit stays in the "where appropriate" column: financial control, and a state that allows the pull. The paper stack is one layer. The others are a real conversation about the house. And time in the residence when a visit is possible, so the match is about how the home actually runs.

How should a family use the result?

Decide the access first. Write the duties in plain language: who holds keys, who is alone with children, who sees the inbox, who can spend, who drives. Then order only the checks that those duties justify, through a reporting company, with the notice and permission steps done before the file arrives.

Read the file with one person accountable for the decision. Compare counties searched with the address history. Separate an arrest from a conviction. Note the age of any conviction and the duty it would touch. If you will turn the candidate down because of the report, send the report and the rights summary first.

Then keep the screen in its place. A clean file is permission to continue, not proof of fit. Fit shows up in how the person handles a real household: the standard, the handoff, the moment something breaks. We have written separately about what a wrong household hire costs once that person is inside the house. The screen is how you avoid handing over access on hope. It is not the whole search.

If a placement later fails for fit, our six-month replacement covers a new search. That commitment is about the match after the person starts. It is not a warranty that any database was complete. The screen and the replacement do different jobs, and a serious family wants both.

Families who want that stack run inside a full search, rather than as a stack of vendor logins, can start from our private household staffing work or read how the firm is built. Since 2002 the work has been the same shape: fewer candidates, checked harder, introduced only when the access and the person line up.

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FAQ

Is a household staff background check the same as a criminal check?

No. A criminal check is one layer. A useful household screen also confirms identity, searches the counties in the address history, checks the public registry, verifies employment, and includes reference calls. One national printout skips most of that.

Do I need written permission before a company runs the report?

Yes, when a consumer reporting company prepares the file. The FTC requires a standalone written notice and written permission before you get the report, plus a certification to that company. If the report will lead you to turn someone down, give them the report and the rights summary first.

Should every household role include a credit report?

No. Order credit only when the person will move or approve money, and only where your state allows a credit report for employment. Some states restrict that use. A role built on keys, cooking, or childcare does not need a credit file by default.

Does a clear registry search mean the record is empty?

No. NSOPW links public sex-offender registries. It is not a full criminal history and it does not verify the resume. Keep the county search, the employment check, and the reference calls in the stack even when the registry is clear.