Arizona Employment Background Check: Notices, Records, and Remedies

Arizona employment background check laws combine the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act with state-specific rules that ban credit checks outright, limit how criminal history can be used, and give medical marijuana cardholders real protection against being fired over a positive test. If you’re applying for a job in Arizona, an employer who wants to run a background check has to tell you first, get your written permission, show you the report before rejecting you over it, and follow through with a second notice if the decision goes against you. Miss any of those steps, and you may have a claim.

What the Employer Must Do Before Pulling Your Report

Any time an Arizona employer uses an outside screening company to compile a background report, that report is a “consumer report” under the FCRA and triggers a specific sequence.¹

Before ordering anything, the employer has to give you a written notice explaining that a background check may be pulled for employment purposes. That notice must be a standalone document. It cannot be buried inside the job application or stapled to a stack of other onboarding paperwork.² You then have to give written consent before the report can be pulled.

If the employer also plans to order what’s called an investigative consumer report, meaning one that includes personal interviews about your character, reputation, or lifestyle, you’re entitled to extra written notice, a statement of your right to ask for details about the scope, and a summary of what the report covers.³

The Two Notices You Should Get Before a Rejection

If something in your background report might cost you the job, the employer cannot just send a rejection email. Federal law requires two separate notices, spaced apart so you have a real chance to respond.

The first is a pre-adverse action notice. Before making a final decision, the employer must send you a copy of the full report and a written summary of your rights under the FCRA.² The purpose is to let you look at what the employer is seeing and flag any inaccuracy before it becomes the reason you don’t get hired. The FCRA does not set a fixed waiting period, though the FTC has said at least five business days is reasonable.

If the employer goes ahead with the denial, a second notice is required. This final adverse action notice must include the name, address, and phone number of the screening company, a statement that the screening company did not make the hiring decision, and notice that you can request a free copy of the report within 60 days and dispute any errors.⁴

Credit History Is Off-Limits in Arizona

This is one of the strongest protections Arizona offers, and many applicants don’t know it exists. Under ARS 23-207, an Arizona employer cannot refuse to hire you, fire you, or otherwise discriminate against you based on your credit background, and cannot even ask about it.⁵ The rule applies broadly, including to state and local government.

“Credit history” is defined broadly. It covers information about your borrowing and repayment behavior, debts, payment history, and even bank account balances pulled from a third party. If an interviewer asks about your credit score, past bankruptcies, or unpaid medical bills, that question itself violates the statute. Violating the prohibition is classified as a class 3 misdemeanor.⁵

Arizona’s consumer reporting statute also governs when a screening company can furnish a report for employment purposes at all, so both the employer and the screening company face exposure if credit information is pulled without a proper basis.⁶

How Criminal History Can and Can’t Be Used

Arizona has a partial ban-the-box rule, but it’s narrow. Under Executive Order 2017-07, state agencies cannot ask about your criminal history on the initial job application, and a criminal record alone cannot disqualify you from getting an interview. State employers may look into your criminal background only after you’ve submitted your application and completed an initial interview.⁷

That order applies only to Arizona state government agencies. Private employers in Arizona are not covered by a statewide ban-the-box law, though some Arizona cities have adopted their own local ordinances.

Private employers still face federal limits. The EEOC’s enforcement guidance treats a blanket policy of rejecting every applicant with a conviction as likely to violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, because such a policy disproportionately affects certain racial and ethnic groups.⁸ Employers are expected to weigh criminal history individually using three factors: the nature and seriousness of the offense, how much time has passed since the conviction or completion of the sentence, and the duties and responsibilities of the job you’re applying for.⁹ A ten-year-old theft conviction carries different weight for a warehouse job than for a position managing client bank accounts.

Arrest records get special treatment. An arrest by itself doesn’t prove anything happened, and rejecting you purely because of an arrest record is not considered job-related or consistent with business necessity. Employers can look at the conduct behind the arrest and decide whether that conduct makes you unfit for the specific position, but they cannot treat the arrest itself as proof of wrongdoing.⁸

Marijuana and Drug Testing

Arizona’s marijuana rules split sharply depending on whether you use recreationally or hold a medical card.

Recreational users have no employment protection. Proposition 207, the Smart and Safe Arizona Act, legalized adult recreational use but explicitly preserved every employer’s right to maintain a drug-free workplace. Employers can enforce zero-tolerance policies, test for marijuana, and refuse to hire or fire anyone who tests positive, even if the use happened off-duty and off-site.¹⁰

Medical marijuana cardholders get real protection. Under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, employers generally cannot suspend, fire, or refuse to hire someone solely because they hold a valid registry card or because they test positive for marijuana metabolites. The exception is impairment at work: if you used, possessed, or were actually impaired during work hours, the employer can act. A low level of metabolites in a drug test does not, by itself, prove impairment during work hours, and Arizona courts have held that an employer needs evidence of metabolite levels high enough to cause impairment before terminating a cardholder.

Sealing Records So They Stop Showing Up

Arizona allows you to petition to seal arrest, conviction, and sentencing records under ARS 13-911, which directly affects what appears on future background checks. If your charges were dismissed, you were found not guilty, or you were arrested but never charged, you can petition immediately with no waiting period.¹¹

For convictions, you must complete all non-monetary terms of your sentence, pay all fines, fees, and restitution, and then wait a period tied to the offense class:

Class 2 or 3 felony: ten years after completing your sentence
Class 4, 5, or 6 felony: five years
Class 1 misdemeanor: three years
Class 2 or 3 misdemeanor: two years

Some offenses are permanently ineligible. Dangerous offenses, dangerous crimes against children, serious or violent felonies, sex trafficking, and offenses involving a deadly weapon or the knowing infliction of serious physical injury cannot be sealed.¹¹

Fixing Errors in Your Report

Errors on background reports are more common than most people expect, and the pre-adverse action notice is your best chance to catch them. Once you have the report, look at everything: name, dates of birth, addresses, case dispositions. Records get mixed up between people with similar names all the time.

To fix an error, file a dispute directly with the screening company that produced the report. That company must investigate the disputed items, typically within 30 days, by going back to the underlying data source with whatever evidence you submitted.¹² If the investigation changes anything, you get an updated report. Information that cannot be verified has to come off.

If you receive a final adverse action notice, you have 60 days to request another free copy of your report from the screening company.⁴ The employer only has to tell you which company produced the report, not hand you a second copy. Use that 60-day window.

Deadlines and Damages If Your Rights Were Violated

A willful FCRA violation entitles you to statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per violation, even without proof of actual financial harm. Courts can also award punitive damages and require the violator to pay your attorney’s fees.¹³ Because these violations tend to affect large numbers of applicants at the same employer, class-action settlements regularly reach into the millions.

You have two years from the date you discovered the violation to file suit, with an absolute outer limit of five years from the date the violation occurred.¹⁴ The discovery clock is usually the one that matters, because applicants rarely learn about a skipped notice or a screening-company error right when it happens. Keep every notice, authorization form, and report you get during a job search. Months later, those documents may be what proves your case.

1
Federal Trade Commission. Background Checks What Employers Need to Know
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
3
Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports
5
Arizona Legislature. SB 1360 – Employment Practices Consumer Reports Limitation
6
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1692 – Permissible Use of Consumer Reports
7
Arizona Legislature. Fact Sheet for SB 1434 – Criminal History Required Disclosure Limitations
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions
9
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Criminal Records
10
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 36-2851 – Employers; Driving; Minors; Control of Property
11
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 13 Section 13-911 – Sealing of Arrest, Conviction and Sentencing Records
12
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681p – Jurisdiction of Courts; Limitation of Actions