Terms of use

Accuracy and currency

Every page carries a last-updated date and cites the primary sources it relies on. Requirements in this field change without notice, and a government page can change the day after we review it. Where our page and the responsible authority disagree, the authority is right and we are wrong — check the cited source before you act, and tell us so we can correct the page.

Where no authority publishes a figure, this site says so rather than estimating. A page that declines to state a processing time is not incomplete; it is reporting the state of the record. See the evidence standards.

The interactive tools

The tools organise published requirements; they do not make determinations. No output from a tool on this site is an approval, a guarantee of acceptance, an estimate of how long anything will take, or a recommendation of any provider. They run in your browser and keep nothing.

Using and citing this material

You may read, print, link to, quote, and cite these pages, including in academic and professional work, with attribution to FBIBackgroundCheck.org and a link where the medium allows one. Wholesale republication of pages, or reuse that presents this material as your own or as a government publication, is not permitted. Where a page reproduces or paraphrases a government publication, that underlying material carries its own status, which this site does not alter.

Automated bulk retrieval that degrades the service for readers is not permitted. Ordinary crawling within the published robots.txt is welcome.

External links

This site links out to government publications and official registers. Those sites are not under our control, and their availability, content, and policies are their own. A link is a citation, not an endorsement.

Liability

This material is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Consumer Science, LLC is not liable for any loss arising from reliance on it, including rejected documents, missed deadlines, or fees paid to any third party. If that allocation of risk is not acceptable to you, the remedy is not to rely on this site.

Changes and contact

These terms may change; the date below records when they last did. Questions about them, like everything else, go to [email protected].