Here's the answer, before anything else. Under federal law, a background check company can only report most negative information going back seven years. But that rule has a big hole in it. If the job pays $75,000 a year or more, the seven-year limit disappears entirely. And criminal convictions were never covered by the seven-year rule in the first place. No cap. Not now, not ever, under federal law.
One thing first, because every sentence above hides a detail. I'm talking about federal law only here, specifically the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA. That's the law covering "consumer reports," the legal name for the report a screening company sells an employer. States add their own, stricter rules on top of this. I'll get to that further down. For now, this is the federal floor, precisely, so you know what's required everywhere before you go check your own state's rule.
| Type of record | Federal reporting limit |
|---|---|
| Arrests that didn't lead to conviction, civil suits, civil judgments, paid tax liens, collections | 7 years |
| Bankruptcies | 10 years |
| Any of the above, for a job paying $75,000/year or more | No cap |
| Criminal convictions | No cap, ever, regardless of salary |
That table is the whole rule. Everything below is just me explaining why it works that way, because the "why" is what keeps you from misapplying it later.
The seven-year limit comes from one specific part of the FCRA, a section of the U.S. Code that lists exactly what a screening company has to leave off a report once it's old enough. In plain terms: arrests that didn't lead to conviction, civil lawsuits, civil judgments, paid tax liens, and collection accounts all age out at seven years.
Here's the part people miss. This rule is aimed at the background check company, not at you as the employer. It tells the company what it can't put on the report it sells you.
It says nothing about what you're allowed to think about or ask a candidate. Mixing those two up is one of the most common mistakes I see.
So to say that a different way: the seven-year clock is about what shows up on paper, not about what you're legally permitted to consider. Keep those separate and a lot of this gets easier.
Here's the exception that trips people up the most. The same law that sets the seven-year cap also says that cap doesn't apply once the job pays $75,000 a year or more, or is reasonably expected to.
Above that line, a screening company is federally permitted to report old arrests, old civil judgments, old tax liens, all of it, no matter how far back they go.
Notice what that phrase actually says. Not "salary the person ends up earning." Salary the role is expected to pay when you're hiring for it. That's a real distinction, and it's one spot where I'd want a lawyer's read before building a policy around an edge case. "Reasonably expected" isn't a bright line the statute spells out further.
This exception runs on salary, not title. A $75,000 individual contributor role qualifies just as much as a director role. A $60,000 manager title does not. The number is what matters, not the org chart.
People use "background check" to mean two different things, and that's where a lot of the confusion online comes from. One is the criminal history and public record check most employers run. The other is an actual credit report, pulled separately for finance or fiduciary roles.
Both live under the same law. They don't share the exact same numbers.
Bankruptcies get their own window: ten years, not seven. Judgments, collections, and paid tax liens on a credit report follow the same seven-year rule as everything else.
And yes, the same $75,000 salary exception removes the cap on credit history items too. It's one exception clause covering the whole section of the law, not a separate rule with its own number for credit data.
There's also a second dollar figure in this same part of the law, $150,000, and it gets confused with $75,000 constantly. That higher threshold applies to credit transactions and life insurance underwriting, not employment. If you're hiring, $75,000 is your number. Don't let a source quoting $150,000 for a job posting throw you off. And a credit report needs its own separate disclosure and authorization, on top of whatever you've already signed for the criminal check.
This is the part that surprises people most. A criminal conviction has no federal reporting-age limit at all. A twenty-year-old felony conviction can legally show up on a federally compliant background check report today, regardless of what the job pays.
Compare that to an arrest that never turned into a conviction. That one is capped at seven years, unless the salary exception applies. A conviction of any age isn't capped at all.
That gap is, in my experience, the single most confused point in this whole topic. People assume "seven years" applies to criminal records generally. It doesn't. It applies to the specific bucket of non-conviction items.
Now, federal law not capping convictions doesn't mean anything goes. Some states cap conviction reporting on their own, regardless of salary. And separately, the EEOC expects employers to look at how relevant an old conviction is to the job before acting on it, not reject on sight because a record showed up.
A screening company being allowed to report something is not the same as you being in the clear to automatically act on it. That part's not optional.
Most "how far back does a background check go" articles blend federal and state rules together without telling you which is which. A state might cap conviction reporting at seven years flat, no salary exception at all. Another might ban non-conviction arrests entirely.
Neither of those is the federal rule. Both are real, and both can apply to you depending on where you're hiring.
This article is the federal floor only, on purpose, so it stays accurate as a reference. State law can only make these rules stricter, never looser. So once you know the federal baseline, go check your state's rule on top of it before you finalize a policy.
Does the seven-year rule apply to criminal convictions? No. It only applies to non-conviction items like arrests, civil judgments, and collections. Convictions have no federal reporting-age limit.
What salary triggers the exception to the seven-year rule? A role expected to pay $75,000 a year or more removes the federal age caps entirely, for both criminal and credit history items.
Is bankruptcy covered by the seven-year rule? No. Bankruptcies get their own ten-year window under federal law, separate from the seven-year cap on judgments, collections, and tax liens.
Can my state have a different rule than federal law? Yes, and it often does. States can only add stricter limits on top of the FCRA, never looser ones. Always check your specific state before you set a hiring policy.
So here's where that leaves you. Seven years for most non-conviction items. Ten years for bankruptcies. No cap at all above $75,000 a year. No cap on convictions, period. A background check company that actually knows this business should already be applying every one of those rules correctly on your reports, so you're not the one parsing federal code before you can make a hiring decision.