What is FBI background check full service in the USA?

Full service means you attend one fingerprint appointment in the United States and we handle everything after it: electronic submission to the FBI through an approved Channeler, retrieval of your Identity History Summary, and hand-delivery to the U.S. Department of State in Washington DC for the federal apostille. Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive.

The document you are getting is formally called the FBI Identity History Summary, produced by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division from the fingerprint submissions it retains. Most people call it an FBI background check or a police clearance. Foreign immigration offices, residency programmes, teaching schemes and employers ask for it constantly, and they almost always ask for it with an apostille attached.

Why is the FBI the fast part and the apostille the slow part?

Applicants expect the opposite. They brace for a long wait at the FBI and assume the apostille is a rubber stamp. In practice the federal government’s own published timings say otherwise.

On the FBI side, an electronic submission through an FBI-approved Channeler moves quickly — days rather than weeks. The FBI is explicit that it does not expedite Identity History Summary requests and processes them in the order received, so there is no rush option to buy. Speed comes from how you submit, not from paying for priority. Electronic submission is simply faster than mailing a fingerprint card into the queue.

On the apostille side, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications publishes two service channels with very different clocks. A mailed request is processed within five weeks of the date it is received. A document presented in person at the public window is processed in seven business days, which makes the drop-off and pick-up cycle roughly two to three weeks. That gap — five weeks in the mail against seven business days at the counter — is the entire argument for hand-delivery.

If your FBI report goes into the Department of State’s mail queue, you lose weeks you cannot buy back. The FBI will not expedite, and the Department of State does not sell a faster lane — the only lever anyone has is presenting the document in person instead of mailing it.

How does it work when you are inside the United States?

This page describes the domestic route. Applicants fingerprinted abroad follow a different sequence — see our guide to FBI fingerprinting from Bogotá, Colombia if you are outside the country.

1. Start the order online. Tell us your city, your destination country, and when you need the apostilled report in hand. We identify an approved live-scan fingerprinting location near you and confirm what to bring. Our walkthrough on how to submit an apostille order online covers the form itself.
2. Walk in and get fingerprinted. One appointment, usually under twenty minutes. Bring unexpired government-issued photo identification that matches the name on your order exactly. The site captures your prints digitally — no ink, no FD-258 card to mail.
3. Electronic FBI submission. The fingerprinting location transmits your prints and application data to CJIS through an FBI-approved Channeler. The Channeler is a private business under contract with the FBI to collect prints and fees and pass the file to the FBI; it transmits and delivers only. CJIS runs the search and produces the summary. No Channeler edits, interprets or filters what the record says.
4. We collect the issued report. You receive your Identity History Summary, and we confirm the format we need for the federal apostille stage before anything travels to Washington. Confirm with us at order time which delivery format you have selected — this is the one detail that decides whether your document is apostille-ready on arrival.
5. Hand-delivered in Washington DC. The report is presented in person at the Office of Authentications rather than posted into the mail queue, and the issued apostille is returned to you by tracked delivery, in the United States or abroad.

Which route applies to your document?

If your destination is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, the Office of Authentications issues an authentication certificate instead of an apostille, and the document then goes to that country’s embassy or consulate for legalisation. Confirm your destination’s current status against the HCCH Apostille Convention status table before you order — accessions and objection periods change the answer, and the receiving authority always has the final say on what it will accept.

How long does each stage take?

Timing depends on your fingerprint quality, the FBI’s queue on the day, and current conditions at the Office of Authentications. Treat the table as the published baseline, not a guarantee.

What is included, and the one charge we do not collect

Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive. There is no separate government-fee surcharge and no per-page add-on. The FBI charges a processing fee for a Departmental Order request and the Department of State charges a filing fee at the apostille stage — both are covered by our flat price, so you never see them as line items.

One charge we do not collect: the fingerprint-capture fee at the site. The physical live-scan location charges its own capture fee and collects it directly from you on the day of your appointment. It varies by location, it goes to that business and not to us, and it is the only out-of-pocket item in the whole process that sits outside our flat price. We tell you it is coming before you walk in, so it is never a surprise at the counter.

At a glance: what you need before you order

• Unexpired government-issued photo ID, with your name matching your order exactly.
• Your current mailing address and, if applicable, the overseas address for final delivery.
• The destination country — this decides apostille versus authentication-plus-legalisation.
• Your immigration status: US citizen, lawful permanent resident, or neither (this changes the route — see below).
• Any name variations or prior names you have used, so the FBI record matches your identification.
• Your deadline, including any date the receiving authority has imposed on document age.

Who can use the Channeler fast lane?

This is the eligibility rule that catches people out. FBI-approved Channelers may process Departmental Order requests for US citizens and for non-US citizens holding lawful permanent resident status. If you are a non-US citizen without permanent residence, you must submit your request directly to the FBI rather than through a Channeler — which means the slower route, not the electronic fast lane.

A second rule matters just as much: the request must be made by the individual applicant, and the FBI sends the result to the applicant or the applicant’s attorney. No service provider can order your FBI background check as if they were you. What full service means in practice is that we book the appointment, coordinate the Channeler submission, confirm the output is apostille-ready, and carry the document to the Department of State counter. Your name stays on the request throughout — that is a federal requirement, not a limitation of our service.

Common reasons an apostille request is rejected

Rejections at this stage are almost always procedural, and almost always avoidable. These are the ones we see:

• Sent to the wrong authority. An FBI report mailed to a state Secretary of State is returned unprocessed. The FBI is federal; only Washington DC can apostille it. Equally, a state police or state DOJ background check cannot be apostilled in DC — it belongs to that state’s Secretary of State.
• Breaching the walk-in limits. The Office of Authentications permits one request per customer per day and 15 documents per customer or company. Exceeding either is a same-day refusal at the window.
• Using a Channeler without eligible status. A non-US citizen without lawful permanent resident status cannot go through a Channeler and must apply directly to the FBI. Submitting the wrong way wastes the appointment.
• Results directed to a third party. The FBI releases the summary to the applicant or the applicant’s attorney. Requests structured to deliver to anyone else fail.
• Expecting an FBI expedite. There is none. Building a plan around a rush that does not exist is a scheduling failure, not a government delay.
• Rejected fingerprints. Poor ridge detail — from manual work, certain medications, or age — can cause the FBI to reject the submission and require recapture, which restarts the clock on that stage.
• Name mismatch. The name on your identification, your application and your report must line up. Hyphenated surnames, maiden names and transliterated spellings are the usual culprits.
• Untranslated supporting documents. Where the FBI requires supporting paperwork, documents in a foreign language must be accompanied by an official translation.
• Document age at the destination. The Department of State does not impose an expiry on an FBI report, but many foreign authorities do — commonly three or six months from issue. The apostille is valid; the underlying report may be considered stale on arrival. Check the receiving authority’s rule before you order.
• Expecting blue security paper. The FBI automated its mailing process and no longer issues results on blue security paper. Every response is produced on standard white paper. A white-paper report is correct and current — do not reject your own document or request a reprint over it.

One structural point worth internalising: the Department of State verifies the authenticity of the signature and seal of the federal official who issued the document. It does not review the content, correct errors, or vouch for what the report says. An error in the underlying record has to be resolved with the FBI, not at the apostille window.

What about a report you already have?

If you have already been fingerprinted and hold an issued Identity History Summary, you do not need to start over — you need the apostille stage only. The provider you used affects the format and delivery of what you are holding, so read the guide that matches yours: apostille an FBI background check obtained through IdentoGO by IDEMIA or apostille an FBI report issued through ScreenID.

Federal documents do not take the notary route. There is no notarisation and no county clerk certification before a federal apostille — the Department of State authenticates the federal official’s signature and seal directly. If anyone tells you to have your FBI report notarised first, they are applying the state-document process to a federal document.

Country-specific requirements

The apostille is standardised; what the receiving country does with it is not. Spain, for example, has well-established expectations around FBI report age and sworn translation for residency applications — our FBI background check apostille requirements for Spain guide covers the detail. Several Latin American destinations, Colombia among them, add their own translation and submission conditions on top of the apostille.

Before you order, get two answers from the authority that will receive the document: how old the report may be on the day you file it, and whether a translation is required and in what form. Those two questions decide your sequencing. Requirements vary by country and by programme, and the receiving authority has the final say on what it accepts.

One appointment, and we take it from there

Start the order with your city, your destination country and your deadline. We will confirm the nearest approved fingerprinting location, tell you exactly what identification to bring and what the site will charge you at the counter, and schedule the Washington DC hand-delivery around when your FBI report lands. Everything after you walk out of that appointment is ours — $120 per apostille, all-inclusive.