Volunteer screening in Wyoming: the complete guide
The statutes that apply, which of your volunteers they reach, which agency runs which check, what organizations here actually get wrong, and the order to do it in.
What makes Wyoming different
Wyoming releases criminal history to private requesters only against fingerprints: a Division of Criminal Investigation check of another person requires that person’s fingerprints and proof of consent satisfactory to DCI, filed through a Wyoming criminal justice agency (W.S. § 7-19-106(c), (k)). Its child abuse reporting law puts the duty on any person and names no professions (§ 14-3-205), and nonprofit summer camps and qualifying after-school programs are exempt from child care licensing (§ 14-4-102(b)(viii), (x)). Since July 1, 2026, a registered sex offender may not establish a residence within 1,000 feet of a licensed child care facility (§ 6-2-320(a)(v)), and unpaid volunteers of 501(c) nonprofits are personally immune except for willful or wanton misconduct, gross negligence or the negligent operation of a motor vehicle (§ 1-1-125(c)).
The short version: Wyoming has no general volunteer-screening law. Volunteers must be checked only in licensed or funded settings: DFS-licensed child care (Central Registry, sex offender registry, FBI fingerprint and state criminal history checks before working), DFS-certified group homes, residential treatment centers and child-placing agencies, the Medicaid Community Choices Waiver, and state-funded victim-service programs. An organization whose volunteers may have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults may request a $10 DFS Central Registry screen with the volunteer’s consent, and youth-serving and family-violence volunteer groups pay no more than $10 for a Division of Criminal Investigation fingerprint check of a prospective volunteer (W.S. §§ 7-19-108(a)(ii), 14-3-214(f), 35-20-116(a)).
The statutes, one at a time
These are the laws that create the obligation. Read the citation, not a summary of it, before you build a policy around it.
- 1
Voluntary Record Information Check and Volunteer Fee Cap
Wyo. Stat. §§ 7-19-106(c), (k)(ii), 7-19-108(a)
Lets any person obtain a Division of Criminal Investigation fingerprint check of another person with proof of that person’s consent, filed through a Wyoming criminal justice agency. The fee is at most $15, and at most $10 when the applicant is an organization providing volunteer services to youth or victims of family violence and the check is solely to decide whether a prospective volunteer is suitable; DCI says the $10 check covers Wyoming and the Western Identification Network states only, not the FBI.
- 2
Child Care Licensing Background Checks
Wyo. Admin. Rules, Dep’t of Family Services, Child Care Licensing ch. 11, § 3(g)–(h) (effective Apr. 21, 2026)
Owners, directors, adult staff, employees, substitutes and volunteers in the facility during operating hours, and household members 18 and older, must have Wyoming and out-of-state Central Registry checks, national and state sex offender registry checks, an FBI fingerprint check and state criminal history checks for every state lived in for the past five years on file before working. The Wyoming Central Registry and state sex offender registry checks repeat every year; the FBI, state criminal history and national sex offender registry checks every five years. Disqualifying offenses include felonies involving child or vulnerable-adult abuse, sexual offenses, violence, domestic violence, arson or animal cruelty, felony drug or alcohol offenses within 10 years, misdemeanor battery or assault, domestic violence, sexual, or child abuse, neglect or endangerment offenses (no time limit), and misdemeanor drug or DUI offenses within the last five years (a first misdemeanor DUI excluded); a pending deferred prosecution counts as well.
- 3
Community Choices Waiver Volunteer Screening
Wyo. Admin. Rules, Dep’t of Health, Medicaid ch. 34, § 10 (Community Choices Waiver)
Community Choices Waiver providers must screen adult volunteers who may have unsupervised access to participants: a DFS Central Registry screen, an HHS-OIG exclusion search, a national name- and Social Security number-based criminal database search and a National Sex Offender Public Website search, repeated every five years. An individual convicted of a sexual offense may not volunteer, and volunteers under 18 must be directly supervised by someone who passed screening.
Which of your volunteers this reaches
Run your actual roster against this list. The roles below are where Wyoming's requirements apply; everyone else is a risk decision rather than a legal one.
- Volunteers, substitutes and adult staff in DFS-licensed child care facilities during operating hours, plus household members 18 and older (Central Registry, sex offender registry, FBI fingerprint and state criminal history checks before working)
- Volunteers and interns at DFS-certified group homes, residential treatment centers, crisis shelters and child-placing agencies (Central Registry check every year and FBI fingerprint check every five years)
- Adult volunteers who may have unsupervised access to Medicaid Community Choices Waiver participants (screening every five years)
- Volunteers with contact with children at state-funded domestic violence, sexual assault and victim-service programs (child abuse registry check before starting)
- Optional, not required: youth-serving and family-violence volunteer organizations may request a Wyoming fingerprint check of a prospective volunteer for no more than $10
- Optional, not required: any organization whose volunteers may have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults may request a $10 DFS Central Registry screen with the volunteer’s consent
- Optional, not required: fire departments, ambulance services, fire protection districts and the military department may require volunteers to be fingerprinted for state and national checks
Which check, from which agency
Wyoming does not use one check for everything. These are the distinct instruments in play — they search different databases and are not interchangeable.
- Fingerprint-based Wyoming and Western Identification Network (WIN) check through the Division of Criminal Investigation ($15, or up to $10 for youth and family-violence volunteer organizations)
- FBI fingerprint-based national check only where a statute or licensing rule provides for it, such as DFS child care and substitute care
- DFS Central Registry of Abuse and Neglect of Children and Vulnerable Adults screen ($10, with the person’s signed consent)
- National and state sex offender registry checks
- HHS Office of Inspector General exclusion search (Medicaid waiver providers)
Administered by: Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Office of the Attorney General, for fingerprint checks; Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) for child care licensing and the Central Registry; Wyoming Department of Health for Medicaid waiver and facility rules
Typical processing: DCI fingerprint checks are generally completed within 2 weeks but can take 5–6 weeks depending on volume and fingerprint quality; DFS Central Registry screens currently take 6–7 business days
What organizations in Wyoming get wrong
These are the specific, local mistakes — the exemption that gets misapplied, the second database nobody runs, the deadline that arrives before anyone has written a policy.
- 1
Licensed child care: have each volunteer’s Central Registry, sex offender registry, FBI fingerprint and state criminal history checks on file before the volunteer works in the facility, and repeat the Central Registry and state sex offender registry checks every year and the FBI check every five years (DFS Child Care Licensing Rules ch. 11, § 3(g)).
- 2
Youth-serving and family-violence volunteer organizations pay no more than $10 for a DCI fingerprint check of a prospective volunteer (W.S. § 7-19-108(a)(ii)); the check covers Wyoming and the WIN states only, requires the volunteer’s fingerprints and proof of consent satisfactory to DCI, and is filed through a Wyoming criminal justice agency (§ 7-19-106(k)).
- 3
Community Choices Waiver providers must rescreen adult volunteers with unsupervised access every five years and keep the results in employee files for the Department of Health (Medicaid Rules ch. 34, § 10(i), (l)).
- 4
Fire departments, ambulance services and fire protection districts may choose to require volunteers to be fingerprinted for state and national checks; the statute does not require it (W.S. § 7-19-201(a)(vii), (e)).
- 5
We found no Wyoming law limiting criminal-history questions on volunteer applications; for any check bought from a screening company, follow the federal FCRA disclosure and adverse-action steps, because Wyoming has no state consumer-reporting law of its own.
- 6
Train every volunteer that Wyoming requires any person to report suspected child abuse or neglect immediately to DFS or local law enforcement, and that telling a supervisor does not replace that personal duty (W.S. § 14-3-205(a)–(b)).
The order to do it in
- 1
Write the policy before you screen anyone
Decide which roles require a check, who reviews a result, and who makes the final call — in writing, before you have a result to review. Deciding under pressure with a parent on the phone is how organizations end up with a decision they cannot defend. Our free policy generator will draft one you can edit.
- 2
Sort your roster by unsupervised access, not by job title
The statutes above turn on contact and supervision, not on what a role is called. A "greeter" who walks children to the restroom has unsupervised access; a "coach" who is never alone with anyone may not.
- 3
Match each role to the right instrument
Where Wyoming mandates a specific channel — fingerprint, a named registry, an agency portal — use that channel for that role. Use a broad multi-source check as the baseline for everyone else.
- 4
Collect consent correctly the first time
FCRA requires a standalone written disclosure and a separate written authorization. Bundling either into a volunteer application or a waiver is the single most common compliance defect, and it is the one plaintiffs' lawyers look for.
- 5
Run the check, then follow adverse action if anything surfaces
Pre-adverse notice with a copy of the report and a summary of rights, a reasonable window to dispute, then the final notice. Build the waiting period into your start dates rather than discovering it under pressure.
- 6
Set a re-screen interval and let it run
A clearance describes the day it was run. Most organizations use one to two years; some insurers require annual for roles with unsupervised access to children.
Questions Wyoming organizations ask
Does Wyoming require background checks for all volunteers?
Wyoming has no general volunteer-screening law. Volunteers must be checked only in licensed or funded settings: DFS-licensed child care (Central Registry, sex offender registry, FBI fingerprint and state criminal history checks before working), DFS-certified group homes, residential treatment centers and child-placing agencies, the Medicaid Community Choices Waiver, and state-funded victim-service programs. An organization whose volunteers may have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults may request a $10 DFS Central Registry screen with the volunteer’s consent, and youth-serving and family-violence volunteer groups pay no more than $10 for a Division of Criminal Investigation fingerprint check of a prospective volunteer (W.S. §§ 7-19-108(a)(ii), 14-3-214(f), 35-20-116(a)).
Which of my volunteers does Wyoming law actually reach?
Based on the statutes cited on this page: Volunteers, substitutes and adult staff in DFS-licensed child care facilities during operating hours, plus household members 18 and older (Central Registry, sex offender registry, FBI fingerprint and state criminal history checks before working); Volunteers and interns at DFS-certified group homes, residential treatment centers, crisis shelters and child-placing agencies (Central Registry check every year and FBI fingerprint check every five years); Adult volunteers who may have unsupervised access to Medicaid Community Choices Waiver participants (screening every five years); Volunteers with contact with children at state-funded domestic violence, sexual assault and victim-service programs (child abuse registry check before starting); Optional, not required: youth-serving and family-violence volunteer organizations may request a Wyoming fingerprint check of a prospective volunteer for no more than $10; Optional, not required: any organization whose volunteers may have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults may request a $10 DFS Central Registry screen with the volunteer’s consent; Optional, not required: fire departments, ambulance services, fire protection districts and the military department may require volunteers to be fingerprinted for state and national checks. Those categories are where Wyoming's requirements bite. Volunteers outside them are a policy decision for your organization rather than a statutory one — which does not mean the answer is "skip it", only that the reason to screen is risk management rather than a citation.
Who administers the check in Wyoming?
Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Office of the Attorney General, for fingerprint checks; Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) for child care licensing and the Central Registry; Wyoming Department of Health for Medicaid waiver and facility rules. Typical processing is DCI fingerprint checks are generally completed within 2 weeks but can take 5–6 weeks depending on volume and fingerprint quality; DFS Central Registry screens currently take 6–7 business days.
Does a VolunteerBadge check satisfy Wyoming's requirement?
It depends on what your state or licensor mandates, and we would rather be straight with you about it than sell past the question. Our $5 check is a broad multi-source criminal and sex-offender search from an FCRA-regulated consumer reporting agency — an excellent primary screen and, for many volunteer roles, the whole answer. It is not a fingerprint or live-scan check. Where Wyoming specifically mandates a fingerprint-based state or FBI channel for a role, that requirement stands on its own and our check supplements rather than replaces it.
We operate in more than one state. Whose rules apply?
Generally the rules of the state where the volunteer serves, not where your organization is incorporated. Organizations near a border routinely have volunteers under two different regimes at the same event. For Wyoming that most often means Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah. The practical approach is to screen to the strictest standard among the states you operate in, so one process covers all of them.
What happens if we run a check and find something?
That is where federal law takes over from state law. Running background checks makes you a user of consumer reports under the FCRA, so before you decline anyone based on the report you must send a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of rights, allow a reasonable window to dispute, and only then send the final notice. It is not optional, and it is the step organizations most often miss.
Operating across a Wyoming border?
Volunteers are generally governed by the state where they serve. If your programs cross a line, these are the neighbors you are most likely to need.
General information, not legal advice. We are a consumer reporting agency, not a law firm. The statutes cited above are real and current as of August 21, 2026, but they are amended — and a citation is not a substitute for reading how it applies to your specific program. Confirm with Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Office of the Attorney General, for fingerprint checks; Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) for child care licensing and the Central Registry; Wyoming Department of Health for Medicaid waiver and facility rules, your licensor, your insurer, or your own counsel before relying on any of it. Spot an error? Tell us — we would rather fix it.
Screen your Wyoming volunteers for $5
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