A tenant screening API for the registry and criminal layer.
The tenant screening API property platforms build on for two of the checks an application needs: 58 US sex offender registries and criminal records across more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions. One key, one schema, $0.15 a call — and an FCRA workflow for the checks that feed a rental decision.
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"
}
}'What is a tenant screening API?
A tenant screening API lets rental software request applicant checks from code instead of sending a landlord to a separate website. The application flow collects a name and date of birth, your backend calls the API, and structured results come back to show in your own interface.
“Tenant screening” is a bundle, though, and no single dataset covers it. A full report usually joins four things: a credit report, eviction history, income or employment verification, and criminal and sex offender registry records. Each comes from a different kind of provider. This API is the last of the four — the public-records layer — and it is deliberately only that.
What this tenant screening API covers, and what it does not
Thirty seconds to decide whether it fits the gap in your stack.
| Check | Covered here | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sex offender registry | Yes | 58 US registries — the 50 states, DC and 5 territories — in one call |
| Criminal records | Yes | Jail, prison, court and warrant records across more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions |
| Ongoing monitoring | Yes | A standing watch on a person or an address, with email alerts |
| Credit report | No | Comes from a credit bureau or a reseller |
| Eviction history | No | A separate court-filing product |
| Income and employment | No | Payroll or bank-data verification providers |
| Identity verification | No | Document and selfie checks are a different vendor category |
Deciding whether to rent to someone? Use an FCRA workflow.
FCRA workflows are built primarily for tenant screening and hiring decisions. If a result will help decide whether to rent to 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.
Rental decisions and the FCRA: which path a check takes
Standard API — not a consumer report
Instant, self-serve, $0.15 a call. Suited to safety and operational uses that are not an eligibility decision about a person: checking who is registered near a property, vetting a vendor entering units, building a research or trust-and-safety tool. Its results must not be used to approve or deny an applicant.
FCRA workflow — for the rental decision
When a result will help decide whether to rent to someone, the check runs as an FCRA-regulated consumer report through FCRA Partner Access: permissible purpose, consent, accuracy controls and a dispute path. It is asynchronous, and priced by quote.
The longer explanation for landlords and property managers is on the tenant background check page.
How a tenant screening API call works
- Your application form collects first name, last name and a full date of birth.
- Your backend sends
POST /v1/searchfor registries andPOST /v1/criminal/searchfor criminal records, with the same key. - Each record comes back with a
matchState, amatchConfidencescore and thematchBasisthat explains it. sourceStatuslists which jurisdictions answered, so an empty result is never mistaken for a clear one.- You store the record citations with the file and show a reviewer anything weaker than a full date-of-birth match.
What the API returns for an applicant
| Field | What it tells your reviewer |
|---|---|
matchState | Whether the record matched on full date of birth, birth year, age, or name only |
matchConfidence | A score you can set an auto-review threshold on |
matchBasis | Exactly which identifiers agreed |
sources[] | The jurisdiction that holds the record, with a link to the official entry |
sourceStatus[] | Which jurisdictions answered this search and which did not |
| Registry detail | Offense, tier or risk level where published, photographs, registered addresses |
| Criminal detail | Record type — booking, custody, court case or warrant — with charges and dispositions where published |
Why common names are the real tenant screening problem
Public records are filed under names, and applicants share names. The costly failure in tenant screening is rarely a missed record; it is someone else’s record attached to your applicant. That is why every result here is labelled by how it matched rather than returned as a flat “hit”.
Send a full date of birth, act automatically only on dob_match, and route birth-year, age and name-only matches to a person. Where a registry publishes a photograph, show it to the reviewer. The matching reference defines each level.
Screening a whole rent roll, and watching it afterwards
Batch
POST /v1/batch accepts a JSON array or a CSV of names and returns one result per row, billed per row. See bulk sex offender search and bulk criminal record search.
Monitoring
POST /v1/monitors keeps a watch on a person ($3 a month) or an address and radius ($10 a month) and emails an alert when a matching record appears or changes. See sex offender monitoring.
Tenant screening API pricing
$0.15 a call, $0.11 for each call past 2,000 in a month. No setup fee, no seats, no minimum on search. 25 free searches on sign-up, no card.
| Applicant checks / month | Monthly cost | Effective per call |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $75.00 | $0.1500 |
| 2,000 | $300.00 | $0.1500 |
| 10,000 | $1,180.00 | $0.1180 |
| 50,000 | $5,580.00 | $0.1116 |
A registry search and a criminal search are separate calls. FCRA workflows are quoted per partner. Full schedule: background check API pricing.
Adding it to a property management platform
Most teams put the call behind their existing application step: the applicant submits, a job runs both searches, and the result is attached to the application record with its citations. For a long search use POST /v1/searches with a webhookUrl and fetch the result when the notification arrives.
The background check API integration guide covers keys, the first call, async, batch and errors. The wider product is described on the background check API page, and hiring-side teams should read the employment screening API page.
Tenant screening API questions
Is this a complete tenant screening API?
No. It covers sex offender registry and criminal records. Credit, eviction history and income verification come from other providers, and most rental platforms combine several.
Can I use the results to approve or deny a rental application?
Not from the standard API — its results are not a consumer report. A check that feeds a rental decision runs as an FCRA workflow through FCRA Partner Access, which is for background check companies and screening platforms under a written FCRA agreement.
How fast does a tenant screening API call return?
The standard search answers in the same request, and each response reports its own elapsedMs. FCRA workflows are asynchronous and return when the order completes.
What does an applicant need to provide?
A first and last name at minimum. A full date of birth is what separates an identification from a name coincidence, so collect it on the application.
Do you check all US states for sex offenders?
A registry search reaches 58 US registries — the 50 states, DC and 5 territories — and every response lists which of them answered.
How much does a tenant screening API cost per applicant?
$0.15 per call on the standard API, $0.11 past 2,000 calls a month. An applicant checked against registries and criminal records is two calls. FCRA workflow pricing is quoted.
Can I re-screen existing residents?
Yes, with a batch for a one-off pass or a monitor for an ongoing watch. Check your lease terms and local law before acting on a result for a current resident.
Is there a free trial?
Every new account gets 25 free searches with no card. The key that runs the trial is the same key you use in production.
Add the registry and criminal layer to your rental product
25 free searches, no card, and the same key in production. FCRA workflows 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Non-FCRA background check API — What a public-records lookup may be used for, and when a decision needs FCRA instead.