A free background check API to start: 25 calls, no card.
A free background check API key in a minute: 25 calls against real data — 58 US sex offender registries and criminal records across more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions — with no card and no sales call. After that it is $0.15 a call, with no minimum on search.
25 free calls · No card · $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month
curl https://api.offendersearch.app/v1/search \
-H "X-API-Key: $OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"query": {
"firstName": "John",
"lastName": "Doe",
"dob": "1980-04-12"
}
}'Is there a free background check API?
There is no background check API that is free without limit, from us or from anyone else — the data costs money to maintain, and an unlimited free endpoint would be drained in a day. What exists are three honest kinds of “free”: free trials on paid APIs, free government websites that are not APIs, and open-source wrappers that you run and maintain yourself.
Ours is the first kind. Every new account gets 25 free calls on the full API with real records, and the key works the moment you create it.
What the 25 free calls include
| Free trial | After you add a card | |
|---|---|---|
| Calls | 25 in total, one time | Unlimited, metered |
| Price | $0.00 | $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month |
| Data | The same registry and criminal data | The same |
| Records per response | Up to 50 | Up to the standard response size |
| Query shape | Must include a name | Name, date of birth, age, city, ZIP or radius |
| Verification PDFs and paid add-ons | Not included | Available, priced per use |
| API key | Works at once | The same key — nothing to change in your code |
Why the free calls need a name in the query
The trial is for evaluating a lookup about a person, which is what every real integration does. A name is what makes a request a lookup. Searching by age, city, ZIP or state alone opens up once a payment method is on file.
Nothing else is held back. The trial is not a sandbox with invented people: the scores, citations and per-source status you see are what production returns.
How to get a free background check API key
- Sign up with an email address. No card, no call, no approval queue.
- Create a key in the dashboard and export it as
OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY. - Run the request at the top of this page. A registry search is
POST /v1/search; a criminal search isPOST /v1/criminal/search. - Read
matchStateandsourceStatusin the response — they are the two fields that make a result usable. - When the 25 calls are used, add a card to keep going. Same key, same code.
Other free options, and what each one is
All three are legitimate. None of them is the same thing as an API you can ship on.
Government search websites
State registries, court portals and inmate locators are free to use in a browser. They are built for one person searching one jurisdiction, with no JSON, no scoring and no way to search across state lines in one request.
Open-source wrappers
Community libraries cover one jurisdiction each. They cost nothing to download, and the upkeep is yours; you also take on the job of joining and de-duplicating results across jurisdictions.
Free trials on paid APIs
A fixed number of real calls so you can judge the data before paying. This page is one of those. Compare trial size, whether a card is required, and whether the trial data is real.
What it costs once the free calls are used
Pay as you go: $0.15 a call, $0.11 for each call past 2,000 in a month. No subscription and no minimum on search.
| Calls / month | Monthly cost | Effective per call |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | $15.00 | $0.1500 |
| 1,000 | $150.00 | $0.1500 |
| 5,000 | $630.00 | $0.1260 |
| 20,000 | $2,280.00 | $0.1140 |
A proof of concept with a few hundred calls costs less than a team lunch. More detail on the pay-as-you-go background check API page and in background check API pricing.
What you can and cannot do with a free background check API
The free calls run on the standard API, which is a public-records lookup and not a consumer report. It suits building and testing an integration, safety and trust-and-safety checks, research and due diligence.
It must not be used to decide whether to hire someone or rent to them. Those decisions run as FCRA workflows through FCRA Partner Access, which is not part of the free trial. The line is explained on the non-FCRA background check API page.
From a free key to a working integration
The background check API in Python tutorial takes a free key from the first request to batch and error handling. The background check API integration guide covers the same ground language-neutrally, and the background check API page describes the whole product. For a side-by-side with other vendors, see the best background check APIs in 2026.
Free background check API questions
Is the free background check API really free?
The first 25 calls are free, with no card on file. There is no permanent free tier; after the trial each call is $0.15, dropping to $0.11 past 2,000 a month.
Do I need a credit card to get a key?
No. You sign up, create a key and call the API. A card is only needed to continue past 25 calls.
Do the free calls renew every month?
No. The 25 calls are a one-time allowance for evaluating the API, not a monthly quota.
Is the free trial data real?
Yes. Trial calls run against the same registry and criminal data as paid calls, with the same scoring and citations. A trial response carries up to 50 records.
Is there an open-source or public free background check API?
There are open-source wrappers around individual government sites, and the sites themselves are free to use in a browser. Neither gives you one schema, cross-jurisdiction de-duplication or match scoring.
Can I use the free calls for a tenant or employee decision?
No. The standard API is not a consumer report. Hiring and tenant decisions run as FCRA workflows through FCRA Partner Access.
What happens when I run out of free calls?
The API asks for a payment method. Add a card and the same key continues at the metered rate; nothing in your code changes.
Is there a minimum spend after the trial?
No. Search has no monthly minimum, no seat licence and no contract. A month with ten calls costs $1.50. The Map API is a separate product with its own monthly minimum.
Make your first 25 calls free
Real data, no card, no sales call. The key you create now is the key you ship with.
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.
- Employment screening API — The stages of a hiring pipeline, and where criminal and registry checks sit in it.
- 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.
- 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.