An employment screening API for criminal and registry checks.
The employment screening API for the public-records stage of a hiring pipeline: criminal records across more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions and 58 US sex offender registries, returned as scored, cited records. Hiring decisions run as FCRA workflows on the same data.
25 free calls · No card · $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month
curl -X POST \
https://api.offendersearch.app/v1/criminal/search \
-H "X-API-Key: $OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"query": {
"firstName": "Morgan",
"lastName": "Okafor",
"dob": "1990-06-18",
"state": "OK"
},
"page": 1,
"perPage": 50
}'What is an employment screening API?
An employment screening API lets an applicant tracking system, HR platform or staffing tool order and receive candidate checks from code. Instead of a recruiter logging into a vendor portal, the offer stage triggers a request and the result lands back on the candidate record.
The term covers a pipeline, not one dataset: identity, criminal history, sex offender registry, employment and education verification, licences, driving records and drug testing. This API serves two of those stages — criminal records and registries — and is built to be the piece of the pipeline that reaches across jurisdictions.
The stages of employment screening, and where this API sits
| Stage | Served by this API | Typical provider |
|---|---|---|
| Sex offender registry search | Yes | This API — 58 US registries in one call |
| Criminal record search | Yes | This API — jail, prison, court and warrant records |
| Ongoing workforce monitoring | Yes | This API — person monitors with alerts |
| Identity verification | No | ID document and SSN-trace vendors |
| Employment and education verification | No | Verification services and payroll networks |
| Motor vehicle records | No | State DMV resellers |
| Drug testing | No | Lab networks |
| Consent, adverse action, disputes | Through FCRA workflows | A consumer reporting agency |
Hiring decisions run as FCRA workflows
A check used to decide whether to hire, promote or retain someone is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. That brings disclosure and written consent before the check, a permissible purpose, a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report, and a route for the candidate to dispute a record.
The standard API is not a consumer report and must not be used for those decisions. FCRA Partner Access is the regulated path on the same data, for background check companies and screening platforms under a written FCRA agreement. It is asynchronous and priced by quote. The detail of what consumer reporting agencies receive is on the FCRA-compliant background check data page.
Making a hiring decision? Use an FCRA workflow.
FCRA workflows are built primarily for tenant screening and hiring decisions. If a result will help decide whether to hire someone, the check has to run as an FCRA-regulated consumer report, with a permissible purpose, consent, accuracy controls and a dispute path for the person. Our standard search and API are not a consumer report. FCRA workflows run through FCRA Partner Access, for background check companies and screening platforms under a written FCRA agreement.
FCRA pricing is quoted per partner, so contact us for pricing.
What teams use the standard employment screening API for
Operational and safety uses that are not an eligibility decision about a candidate.
Screening platforms
A consumer reporting agency or screening platform adds registry and criminal data to its own product and runs the regulated process around it.
Trust and safety
A marketplace or community platform checks an account holder against registries as part of abuse prevention, with a person reviewing every weak match.
Research and due diligence
Investigators, journalists and compliance teams look up public records with a citation they can put in a file.
How an employment screening API request works
- Send
POST /v1/criminal/searchwith a last name (required), first name, date of birth and, if known, a state. - Send
POST /v1/searchwith the same identifiers for the registry check. - Read
matchStateon every record — a full date-of-birth match is an identification, anything weaker is a lead for a reviewer. - Read the record type: a jail booking is arrest-stage, a court record carries the disposition that says how the case ended.
- Check
sourceStatusbefore recording a clear result; an unanswered source means the search is not complete.
Why record type matters more in employment than anywhere else
An arrest is not a conviction, and many states and cities restrict how either may be weighed in hiring. An employment screening API that returns a flat list of “criminal records” pushes that distinction onto your reviewer; one that labels every record lets your rules engine apply it.
Each criminal record here states what it is — booking, custody, court case or warrant — and court records carry the charge level and disposition where the court publishes them. The criminal record reference lists every field, and what shows up on a background check explains the layers in plain language.
Batch screening and continuous monitoring for a workforce
Batch a roster
POST /v1/batch takes a JSON array or a CSV and returns one result per row. Useful for onboarding a cohort or re-checking a contractor pool. See bulk criminal record search.
Monitor after hire
A person monitor ($3 a month) watches for a new or changed record and emails an alert. Monitoring is not a consumer report either; an employment action on an alert goes through an FCRA workflow.
Employment screening API pricing
$0.15 a call and $0.11 past 2,000 calls a month on the standard API. No seats, no setup fee, no minimum on search. 25 free searches on sign-up.
| Searches / month | Monthly cost | Effective per call |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $150.00 | $0.1500 |
| 5,000 | $630.00 | $0.1260 |
| 25,000 | $2,830.00 | $0.1132 |
| 100,000 | $11,080.00 | $0.1108 |
FCRA workflows are quoted per partner — contact us for FCRA pricing. The standard schedule is worked out by volume on the background check API pricing page.
Where to go next
The data itself is described on the employment background check API page. The combined product is the background check API; the criminal side alone is the criminal records API. Property platforms should read the tenant screening API page, and the background check API integration guide has the step-by-step build.
Employment screening API questions
Can I use this employment screening API to make hiring decisions?
Not with the standard API. Its results are not a consumer report. Hiring decisions run as FCRA workflows through FCRA Partner Access, which is for background check companies and screening platforms under a written FCRA agreement.
What does an employment screening API check?
The category covers identity, criminal history, registries, verifications, driving records and drug tests. This API covers criminal records and sex offender registries.
Does it integrate with an ATS?
It is a REST API with JSON in and out, so any ATS or HR platform that can make an HTTPS request can call it. There is no vendor-specific connector to install.
How long does an employment screening API take to return?
The standard search answers in the same request. FCRA workflows are asynchronous; your system is notified when the order completes.
Does it show arrests that did not lead to a conviction?
Records are labelled by type. A jail booking is arrest-stage; a court record carries a disposition where the court publishes one. Your rules decide what a reviewer sees.
How is a common name handled?
Every record carries a match state. Send a full date of birth and treat only full date-of-birth matches as identifications; route the rest to a person.
What does it cost per candidate?
$0.15 per call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month. A candidate checked against criminal records and registries is two calls. FCRA workflows are quoted.
Is there a sandbox?
New accounts get 25 free searches with no card, on real data, using the same key you will use in production.
Put criminal and registry checks into your hiring pipeline
25 free searches, no card. FCRA workflows for hiring decisions, priced by quote.
The Offendersearch APIs
One account, one key, one bill — the sex offender registry and criminal records, side by side.
Sex offender registry
- Sex offender API — One call across 58 US sex offender registries, with scored matches and a citation on every record.
- Sex offender search API — Endpoints, request shapes, record fields, matching and batch, in detail.
- Sex offender database — The national registry data in one schema — photos, aliases, offenses, addresses.
- Registered offender database — What a registered offender record holds, and how its accuracy is measured.
- Bulk sex offender search — Screen a whole list of names in one upload or one API call.
- Sex offender registry API — Choose which of the 58 registries a search covers, and see which ones answered.
- Offender search API — The registry search and the criminal search side by side, on one key.
Criminal records
- Criminal records API — County, state and federal records — jail, prison, court and warrant — through one API.
- Criminal background check API — One cited answer per person for onboarding and screening flows.
- Criminal search API — The search endpoint itself: parameters, record types and coverage, call by call.
- Court records API — Criminal court cases with charges and a disposition on each charge.
- Arrest records API — County jail bookings: booking date, custody status, facility and photo link.
- Inmate search API — State prison and county jail custody, with sentence, release and parole dates.
- Background check API — The registry and criminal layers together, on one key and one bill.
- Employment background check API — The registry and criminal data layer for HR, ATS and screening platforms.
- Bulk criminal record search — Run a list of names against criminal records in one call.
- Statewide criminal search — One state at a time: prison, court and warrant systems that cover the whole state.
- Federal criminal records — Federal criminal records through the same API, and what a federal search covers.
Build with it
- API documentation — Quickstart, every endpoint, the record object and the OpenAPI spec.
- Sex offender map API — Clusters, pins and names for your own map, and the full record when one is opened.
- Background check API pricing — $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month, 25 free calls to start — worked out by volume.
- Background check API integration — Keys, the first call, async and webhooks, batch, monitoring and errors, step by step.
- Free background check API — 25 free calls on real data, no card — what is included and what comes after.
- Pay-as-you-go background check API — Per call, per report or subscription: the pricing models, with costs by volume.
- Background check API in Python — A working tutorial with requests: search, batch, async, errors and retries.
- Background check API in Node.js — A fetch client, response types, an Express webhook handler and retries.
- NSOPW API — Is there one? What exists, and a developer API for searching US registries.
- MCP server for offender search — Give Claude and other AI agents the same search as a tool.
- Integrations — Screening inside referral software — CarePort, ExtendedCare, Ensocare and Aidin.
- AI integration — Offender safety checks for AI agents and chatbots, with cited answers.
- Offendersearch vs offenders.io — A side-by-side comparison of the two registry APIs.
Screening and compliance
- Tenant background check — Screening applicants for a rental, and where an FCRA workflow is required.
- FCRA Partner Access — The FCRA workflow for hiring and tenant decisions — pricing by quote.
- FCRA-compliant background check data — Accuracy, disputes and permissible purpose for consumer reporting agencies.
- FCRA disputes API — Open, track and resolve a consumer dispute against a record.
- Sex offender monitoring — Watch a person or an address and get an alert when the registry changes.
- Tenant screening API — The registry and criminal layer for property software, with FCRA workflows for rental decisions.
- Non-FCRA background check API — What a public-records lookup may be used for, and when a decision needs FCRA instead.