Two different questions hide behind this phrase, and they have different answers. How far back a check reports is governed by the FCRA and, more strictly in several states, by state law. How long a completed check remains useful is not governed by anything, and the honest answer is that it started going out of date the day it was run. This page separates them.
How far back do criminal background checks go under the federal seven year rule?
The FCRA restricts a consumer reporting agency from reporting most adverse items older than seven years: civil suits and judgments, paid tax liens, accounts placed for collection, arrests that did not lead to conviction, and other adverse information. Criminal convictions are the significant exception and may be reported without any time limit. Furthermore, the seven-year restriction lifts entirely for positions with an annual salary that meets or exceeds a federal threshold set in the statute. So the widely repeated rule that background checks go back seven years is wrong about the item employers care about most.
Where states are stricter
Several states impose their own caps that do apply to convictions. California's Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act bars reporting convictions older than seven years with no salary exception at all, which is the clearest example and applies to a very large share of hiring. Other states have their own variations on lookback periods and on what may be reported at all. A national provider running default settings can therefore return more than a California employer may lawfully receive, which is a question to put to any provider explicitly rather than assuming it is handled.
How far back does a criminal background check go in practice?
Separately from what may be reported, there is what was searched. County criminal searches are usually run across the addresses the identity trace returns for a defined period, commonly seven years, so a conviction from a county the applicant left nine years ago may simply never be looked for. That is a scope decision you are buying, not a legal limit, and it is worth being explicit about with a provider: a seven-year address scope and a lifetime conviction reporting rule are not the same constraint.
How long are background checks good for once they are run?
There is no expiry date in law. A report is accurate as at the day it was run and progressively less so afterwards, and nobody notifies you of a conviction, a license suspension or an exclusion that happens next month. Employers commonly re-run checks annually for some roles, and regulated sectors have their own required cadences: annual MVR review for commercial drivers, monthly exclusion screening in healthcare. Continuous monitoring products exist precisely because the point-in-time check has this weakness, and for driving and healthcare roles they are usually the better answer than a longer lookback.
10-year background check states, and where the seven year limit stops applying
The federal seven year limit does not apply to convictions at all, and it stops applying to the other reportable items once the annual salary for the role reaches the threshold the FCRA sets. That is the source of most ten year claims: at or above that salary a consumer reporting agency may report the older items the limit would otherwise have suppressed. Several states then go the other way and impose their own seven year limit including on convictions, with no salary exception, which means the same candidate produces a different report depending on where the role is. The practical rule is that state law can only make the window shorter than the federal one, never longer, so check the state of the role before you assume a ten year search is available.
How far back does a federal background check go, and why federal is a separate search
Federal here means the United States district courts, which are a separate court system from the state and county courts, and a case heard in one does not appear in the other. A federal search covers the districts a provider queries and reaches back as far as the electronic case records go for each district, which is not uniform. What ends up on the report is then governed by the same reporting rules as any other item: convictions without a time limit, the other categories subject to the seven year window and the salary threshold. The reason to buy it separately is subject matter rather than depth, because the offences that are usually federal, fraud, embezzlement, trafficking and the regulatory offences, are exactly the ones a county search will never find.
Other questions people ask
Do background checks only go back seven years?
Not for convictions. The FCRA caps most other adverse information at seven years but places no time limit on reporting criminal convictions, and the cap lifts entirely above a federal salary threshold.
Which states limit conviction reporting?
California is the clearest, barring reporting of convictions older than seven years with no salary exception. Several other states have their own restrictions, so a national default configuration is not safe everywhere.
How long is a background check good for?
There is no legal expiry. It is accurate on the day it was run and less so afterwards. Regulated sectors set their own cadences, and continuous monitoring exists because a point-in-time check goes stale.
Why did an old conviction not appear?
Often because the county was outside the searched address history rather than because of a reporting limit. Search scope and reporting rules are two different constraints and they are easy to confuse.
How far does a background check go when a candidate has moved a lot?
As far as the address history you give the provider, which is why the address history is the input that decides the quality of the search. Criminal records sit in the courts of the counties a person lived in, so a county missed is a county not searched, and a provider cannot find what it was never pointed at. Collect the full address history for the period you are searching and expect the per-county fees to scale with it.
How long does a background check last before it should be re-run?
Nothing sets a shelf life, so the honest answer is that it started going out of date the day it was run. What matters is the role: for driving roles the record can change without anyone telling you, which is the case for continuous monitoring, and for healthcare the exclusion lists are checked monthly because the exposure is per claim. For everyone else, decide a re-screening cadence in writing and apply it consistently rather than re-screening people ad hoc.