Background Check Statistics (2026)

A 2026 data report on U.S. background checks: 94% of employers screen, up to 100M Americans have a record, 75.7M volunteers, with 30+ cited stats.

94%of U.S. employers run at least one background check

100MAmericans estimated to have a criminal record

75.7Mpeople volunteered in America in a single year

$5.1BU.S. background-check services market (2024)

Background checks have quietly become one of the most pervasive administrative rituals in American life. They sit between a job applicant and a paycheck, between a volunteer and a classroom of children, between a tenant and an apartment, and between a buyer and a firearm. Every year, tens of millions of them are run by employers, nonprofits, landlords, licensing boards, and government agencies — and the data behind them touches an extraordinary share of the adult population.

This report aggregates more than 30 verifiable statistics from primary government and industry sources — the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, AmeriCorps, the Professional Background Screening Association, Quest Diagnostics, and others — to paint the most complete picture available of who gets checked, what those checks find, how the system is governed, and where it is heading. Every figure below links directly to its source.

Key takeaways

Roughly 94% of U.S. employers conduct at least one type of background screening, and the most common reason cited is protecting employees and customers (PBSA industry survey).
An estimated 70 to 100 million Americans — as many as one in three adults — have some kind of criminal record (Brennan Center for Justice).
State criminal-history repositories held 114,376,500 records as of year-end 2020, more than 95% of them automated (BJS Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2020).
The FBI's Next Generation Identification system holds fingerprints for more than 185 million criminal, civil, and military individuals (FBI).
Since 1998 the FBI's NICS has processed more than 500 million firearm background checks, resulting in over two million denials (FBI NICS).
More than 75.7 million people (28.3% of Americans 16+) formally volunteered through an organization in a single year, contributing an estimated $167.2 billion in economic value (U.S. Census Bureau & AmeriCorps).
Employers lose negligent-hiring lawsuits an estimated 75% of the time, with average settlements around $1 million (Greenberg & Ruby).
The U.S. background-check services market reached roughly $5.1 billion in 2024 and has grown at about a 5.5% annual rate (IBISWorld).

A note on definitions and methodology

Background-check statistics are unusually easy to misread, because the word "check" covers wildly different things. A NICS firearm inquiry, a fingerprint-based FBI submission for a teacher, a name-based county criminal search for a retail hire, and a multi-state database scan for a rideshare driver are all "background checks," but they query different systems, return different data, and carry different legal obligations. Likewise, a "criminal record" can mean anything from a single decades-old arrest that never led to charges to an active felony conviction. Throughout this report we have kept each figure tied to its original definition and source rather than blending incompatible numbers, and we flag where a count (such as NICS checks) should not be read as a proxy for something else (such as gun sales).

The figures here are drawn from primary government data collections — the FBI's CJIS Division, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and AmeriCorps — supplemented by the leading recurring industry surveys (PBSA, HireRight, Quest Diagnostics) and market-research estimates. Where multiple credible estimates exist, as with overall market size, we report the range rather than cherry-picking a single number. Every statistic in this article links to a source you can verify yourself, and any figure we could not trace to a working primary or authoritative secondary source was excluded.

How many Americans have a record worth checking?

The single most important context for any background-check statistic is the sheer size of the population that has a record. The most widely cited estimate is that between 70 million and 100 million Americans — as many as one in three adults — have some kind of criminal record, a figure repeatedly documented by The Sentencing Project (Sentencing Project). The Brennan Center for Justice frames it memorably: roughly as many Americans have a criminal record as hold a four-year college diploma (Brennan Center).

That "record" is a broad category. It includes arrests that never led to a conviction, dismissed charges, and minor misdemeanors — not just felonies. PolitiFact's review of the underlying FBI data confirmed the "one in three adults" framing while emphasizing that an arrest record alone is enough to be counted (PolitiFact). Narrowing the definition to felony convictions, The Sentencing Project estimates that at least 19 million people are living with a felony conviction in the United States (Sentencing Project).

For additional scale: more than 2.1 million people are held in U.S. prisons and jails, and another 4.4 million are under community supervision on probation or parole at any given time (Sentencing Project).

The size of the official record systems

Behind every criminal background check is a record sitting in a state repository or a federal database. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam together reported 114,376,500 individual subjects in their criminal history files as of December 31, 2020, with more than 95% of those records held in automated form (BJS, 2020).

That total has climbed steadily for decades. The 2016 edition of the same survey found that the number of subjects in state repositories grew 36.6% over the prior decade — from 80.7 million records in 2006 to more than 110 million in 2016 (SEARCH/BJS). The most recent edition documents the status of these systems as of year-end 2022 (BJS, 2022).

Subjects in U.S. state criminal-history repositories over time
Year-end	Subjects in state files	Notable detail
2006	80.7 million	Baseline for the decade-long comparison
2016	110+ million	Up 36.6% over ten years
2020	114,376,500	More than 95% automated

Source: BJS Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems (2016 and 2020 editions).

At the federal level, the FBI's biometric backbone is even larger. The Next Generation Identification (NGI) system — which replaced the older IAFIS in 2014 — held fingerprint records for more than 185 million criminal, civil, and military individuals as of late 2023, including roughly 88 million criminal records and about 85 million civil records, with millions of people appearing in both categories (FBI NGI/IAFIS).

The volume: how many checks actually happen

The fingerprint pipeline alone is enormous. At its peak the FBI's IAFIS processed an average of more than 63,000 fingerprint submissions per day — on the order of 23 million per year — with the overwhelming majority submitted electronically (FBI). When NGI replaced IAFIS, the system's machine-matching accuracy rose from about 92% to more than 99% (FBI).

On the firearms side, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is the most public-facing check of all. Since its launch in November 1998, NICS has processed more than 500 million firearm background checks and generated over two million denials (FBI NICS). The industry-standard "NSSF-adjusted" figure — which strips out permit checks and rechecks to better approximate sales-related activity — totaled 14,612,314 for full-year 2025, a 4.1% decline from 15,239,011 in 2024 (NSSF-adjusted NICS). It is worth stressing that a NICS check is not the same as a firearm sale; one check can cover multiple transfers, and many checks are for permits rather than purchases (FBI NICS).

NSSF-adjusted NICS firearm background checks, year over year
Year	NSSF-adjusted checks	Change vs. prior year
2024	15,239,011	Baseline
2025	14,612,314	Down 4.1%

Source: NSSF-adjusted NICS report, annual 2025.

Employment screening: nearly universal

For employers, background screening is now close to standard practice. Surveys by the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) and the HR Research Institute consistently find that roughly 93–94% of organizations conduct at least one type of background screening (PBSA; PBSA/HR.com report). The most commonly cited motivation is straightforward: about 76% of employers say they screen to protect their employees and customers (PBSA).

Those checks routinely surface problems. HireRight's Global Benchmark Report — one of the largest annual surveys of screening professionals — found that more than three-quarters of businesses encountered at least one candidate discrepancy in the prior 12 months, with undisclosed criminal records the most common discrepancy type identified by North American employers (HireRight).

Run any background screening94%

Screen to protect staff & customers76%

Found a candidate discrepancy in past year~76%

Resume fraud and the honesty problem

Part of why screening finds so much is that a meaningful share of applicants misrepresent themselves. A 2024 StandOut CV study found that, on average, 64.2% of Americans have lied about their personal details, skills, experience, or references on a resume at least once (StandOut CV). And the lies frequently work: a Resume.org survey found that 63% of resume fraudsters received a job offer in 2024, and 70% of those went on to accept the position (Resume.org).

Most common resume misrepresentations
What applicants lie about	Share who admitted it
Salary at previous jobs	32.8%
Skills	30.8%
Previous work experience	30.5%

Source: StandOut CV resume-lies study, 2024.

Drug screening trends

Drug testing remains a major component of pre-employment and ongoing screening. Quest Diagnostics' Drug Testing Index — which analyzed nearly 10 million workforce drug tests for its 2024 edition — found that marijuana positivity in the general U.S. workforce rose to 4.5% in 2023, a year-over-year increase of 4.7% and a cumulative jump of 45.2% over five years (Quest Diagnostics).

The safety implications are visible in the post-accident data: marijuana positivity in post-accident urine drug tests reached 7.5% in 2023 — meaningfully higher than the overall workforce rate, underscoring why safety-sensitive roles continue to test (Quest Diagnostics).

General workforce marijuana positivity (2023)4.5%

Post-accident marijuana positivity (2023)7.5%

5-year rise in workforce marijuana positivity+45.2%

The cost of getting it wrong: negligent hiring

The legal stakes are a core reason organizations screen at all. According to defense-bar analysis, employers lose negligent-hiring lawsuits an estimated 75% of the time, and the average settlement of such claims is roughly $1 million (Greenberg & Ruby). A review of roughly 1,350 negligent-hiring cases found that 92.5% of employer payouts tied to a past conviction involved just four job categories — driving, access to vulnerable populations, access to people's homes, and law enforcement or security — and that verdicts in those categories ran about three times more expensive than the rest (Envoy).

The tail risk is extreme. In one widely reported case, a Texas jury ordered Charter Communications to pay more than $7 billion in a negligent-hiring matter, including roughly $330 million in compensatory damages plus a $7 billion punitive award (HRMorning).

Employer loss rate in negligent-hiring suits75%

Payouts concentrated in 4 high-risk job types92.5%

Compliance is a statistic too: FCRA litigation

Running checks creates its own legal exposure if done carelessly. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) governs how employers obtain and act on background reports, and class-action litigation over technical FCRA violations has become a persistent risk. Roughly 73% of FCRA lawsuits against employers stem from three recurring mistakes — most commonly defective disclosure-and-authorization forms — and statutory damages run from $100 to $1,000 per violation, plus attorney fees (Koley Jessen). Recent settlements illustrate the scale: one 2024 FCRA matter was valued at about $4.38 million covering more than 2,300 affected individuals (Koley Jessen).

Fair-chance hiring: "ban the box"

The flip side of widespread screening is a national movement to keep records from automatically disqualifying applicants. So-called "ban the box" and fair-chance laws delay the criminal-history question until later in the hiring process. As of recent counts, 37 states and more than 150 cities and counties have adopted some form of fair-chance hiring policy, and 15 states have extended the conviction-history removal to private employers (National Employment Law Project). All told, more than 267 million people — over four-fifths of the U.S. population — live in a jurisdiction with some form of ban-the-box or fair-chance policy (NELP). The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a running tally of these laws (NCSL).

Fair-chance ("ban the box") adoption in the United States
Measure	Figure
States with a fair-chance policy	37
States covering private employers	15
Cities and counties with policies	150+
People living under a fair-chance jurisdiction	267 million+

Source: National Employment Law Project.

Volunteers: a huge, often-unscreened population

Background checks are not only an employment issue. America runs on volunteers, and many of them work directly with children and vulnerable adults. According to joint research by the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, more than 75.7 million people — 28.3% of Americans age 16 and older — formally volunteered through an organization in a single year (U.S. Census Bureau & AmeriCorps).

Those volunteers served an estimated 4.99 billion hours, contributing roughly $167.2 billion in economic value (Census/AmeriCorps). The volunteering rate's recent rebound was striking — a 5.1-percentage-point jump over two years, a 22.1% growth rate, the largest expansion since the Census Bureau and AmeriCorps began tracking it in 2002 (AmeriCorps). Beyond formal volunteering, more than 137.5 million people (54% of Americans) helped neighbors informally — running errands, watching each other's children — during the same period (Census/AmeriCorps).

The two-year rebound is worth dwelling on. After volunteering rates fell sharply during the pandemic, the recovery represented a 22.1% growth rate — the steepest increase recorded in more than two decades of tracking — even though the rate still sat about 1.7 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level (AmeriCorps). For organizations that depend on volunteers, that surge means a larger and faster-churning pool of new adults entering positions of trust each year — precisely the moment when consistent screening matters most. Notably, 18% of formal volunteers served at least partly online, a shift that makes in-person vetting impossible for a growing slice of the volunteer base and pushes identity verification to the foreground (Census/AmeriCorps).

Formally volunteered through an organization28.3%

Helped neighbors informally54%

Served at least partly online18%

Why volunteer screening matters: the child-safety data

The reason volunteer screening is not a formality is the population many volunteers serve. Darkness to Light estimates that about 1 in 10 children experiences sexual abuse before their 18th birthday, and that only about a third of children who are abused ever disclose it (Darkness to Light). Because abuse is so often unreported, organizations cannot rely on a person's reputation alone — a documented screening layer is one of the few systematic safeguards available.

The public registries reflect the scale of the known risk. The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) — administered by the U.S. Department of Justice — aggregates registries from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the principal U.S. territories, and more than 150 Native American tribes, covering on the order of 800,000 registered sex offenders nationwide (DOJ SMART Office; NSOPW).

The business of background checks

All of this activity supports a substantial industry. IBISWorld estimates the U.S. background-check services market at roughly $5.1 billion in 2024, having grown at about a 5.5% compound annual rate over the prior five years (IBISWorld). Globally, Cognitive Market Research pegs the background-screening market at about $11.93 billion in 2024, with North America accounting for roughly 41% of revenue (Cognitive Market Research).

Background-check / screening market size estimates (2024)
Source	Scope	2024 market size
IBISWorld	U.S. background-check services	$5.1 billion
Cognitive Market Research	Global background screening	$11.93 billion
Cognitive Market Research	North America (share of global)	~41% of revenue

Sources: IBISWorld; Cognitive Market Research.

Trends shaping the next decade

Several forces are reshaping the data. First, the population of people with records keeps growing even as fair-chance laws expand — meaning more checks will surface records that, by law, must be weighed individually rather than used as automatic disqualifiers (NELP). Second, marijuana's shifting legal status is steadily changing what drug screens look for, with workforce positivity at multi-year highs (Quest Diagnostics). Third, the rise of remote and gig work — and the surge in remote volunteering, now 18% of formal volunteers — is pushing identity verification to the center of screening, because you increasingly cannot meet the person you are checking in the same room (Census/AmeriCorps).

Finally, the FCRA litigation environment is steadily raising the compliance bar: organizations that screen must do so with proper disclosures and adverse-action procedures or risk class-action exposure (Koley Jessen).

Where volunteer and nonprofit screening fits

The statistics above point to an uncomfortable gap. Employers screen at near-universal rates, yet the 75.7-million-strong volunteer workforce — much of it working with children and vulnerable adults — is screened far more unevenly, often because cost and complexity get in the way. A negligent-hiring (or negligent-selection) judgment does not care whether the person was a paid employee or an unpaid volunteer; the same legal exposure that produces million-dollar settlements applies to nonprofits that place an unscreened adult in a position of trust (Greenberg & Ruby).

This is the layer VolunteerBadge is built for. A background check is not a guarantee — roughly two-thirds of abuse goes undisclosed, and a clean record never proves future behavior. But a documented, FCRA-compliant criminal check combined with identity verification is one of the few systematic, defensible safeguards an organization can put in place before handing someone access to children or vulnerable adults. VolunteerBadge provides FCRA-compliant background checks starting at $5 alongside identity verification, so that the cost and paperwork that keep nonprofits from screening stop being the reason an unvetted adult slips through. Screening is one necessary layer — paired with training, supervision, and clear reporting policies — not a substitute for the rest.

FAQ

How many Americans have a criminal record? Estimates range from 70 million to 100 million — as many as one in three adults — when arrests and minor offenses are included; at least 19 million people are living with a felony conviction (Sentencing Project).

What share of employers run background checks? Roughly 93–94% of organizations conduct at least one type of background screening, according to PBSA and HR.com surveys (PBSA).

Is a NICS firearm check the same as a gun sale? No. A single NICS check can cover multiple firearm transfers, and many checks are for permits or rechecks rather than purchases, so the count is not a one-to-one proxy for sales (FBI NICS).

How much can a bad hire cost? Employers lose negligent-hiring suits an estimated 75% of the time, with average settlements around $1 million — and outlier verdicts have reached into the billions (Greenberg & Ruby; HRMorning).

Do volunteers need background checks? Legally and practically, yes — especially when serving children or vulnerable adults. With about 1 in 10 children experiencing sexual abuse before age 18 and most abuse going unreported, a documented screening layer is one of the few systematic safeguards available (Darkness to Light).

How big is the background-check industry? The U.S. background-check services market was about $5.1 billion in 2024, and the global screening market roughly $11.93 billion (IBISWorld; Cognitive Market Research).