Despite the name, a national criminal database search is not a centralized government database. There is no single national repository of all criminal records in the United States. As the PBSA confirms in its industry documentation, there is currently no single government database containing complete and up-to-date criminal history records for every person in the country.
What a "national database search" actually means is a multi-jurisdictional database search — an aggregated collection of criminal record data compiled from a wide variety of sources, including state repositories, county courts that submit records voluntarily, sex offender registries, federal court records, and various public record sources. Private screening companies compile and index this data into searchable databases that can be queried across thousands of jurisdictions simultaneously.
What a national database search does well:
What a national database search doesn't do:
The FTC's guidance on background screening accuracy reinforces why this matters: the FCRA requires screening companies to follow "reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy" before reporting information. A database result that hasn't been verified at the source doesn't meet that standard for a reportable adverse finding.
A county criminal search is a direct search of the criminal court records maintained by a specific county's court system. Because most crimes — felonies and misdemeanors — are prosecuted at the county level in the United States, county courts are where the most complete, current, and accurate criminal records actually live.
There are 3,244 counties in the United States - including D.C. and all U.S. territories - each with its own court system, record-keeping practices, and data availability. A county criminal search retrieves records directly from those systems — either through digital access in counties with electronic court records, or through a court runner who physically pulls records at the courthouse in counties that still operate on paper.
What a county criminal search finds:
What a county criminal search doesn't cover:
Accuracy comparison: County-level searches conducted through direct courthouse access produce significantly more accurate results than national database searches. Research indicates that direct courthouse searches achieve 95%+ accuracy compared to national database searches, which may contain outdated or incorrect information. The reason is straightforward — county court records are the authoritative primary source. A database is a copy of data that was submitted at some point in the past. The courthouse has the actual record.
The most effective background screening programs use national database searches and county criminal searches together — not as alternatives to each other, but as complementary tools with different functions.
The national database search is the pointer. The county search is the verification.
Here's how a well-built screening process uses both:
Step 1: Address history. Before any criminal search runs, we confirm the candidate's identity and surface their address history — every jurisdiction where they've lived. This tells the screening platform where county searches need to run.
Step 2: National database search. A broad scan across thousands of jurisdictions — used to identify potential records in jurisdictions that might not be obvious from address history alone, and to flag anything that warrants follow-up.
Step 3: County criminal searches in relevant jurisdictions. Based on the address history from Step 1, county-level searches run in every jurisdiction where the candidate has lived. If the national database flagged a record in Step 2, the county search verifies it — confirming the current disposition, ensuring the record belongs to the right person, and returning the most current information available.
Step 4: Federal criminal search. A separate search of federal district court records for federal offenses — fraud, tax evasion, immigration violations — that wouldn't appear in county court records.
This layered approach is why screening programs built on database-only results are inferior to those with direct court access. The database flags. The county search confirms. Without the second step, you're making hiring decisions based on unverified data.
False negatives. A candidate who was convicted of a crime in a county that doesn't submit records to national databases — or whose record hasn't been updated in the database since the conviction — will appear clean on a database search. The record exists. It just won't be returned. For employers who believe a database search is a complete background check, this is a systematic blind spot.
False positives. A database may return a record from someone with a similar name or matching demographic information. Without county-level verification confirming the record belongs to the specific candidate — using name, date of birth, SSN, and aliases — the employer is making decisions based on a record that may not be theirs. Acting on an unverified false positive is exactly the scenario that generates FCRA adverse action lawsuits.
Outdated dispositions. A database may show an arrest that was subsequently dismissed, expunged, or resolved through a diversion program — but the update hasn't been reflected in the aggregated data. Reporting an arrest as though it resulted in a conviction, or reporting a charge that was dismissed, is both factually wrong and potentially an FCRA violation.
Missing recent records. Database records are only as current as the last time data was submitted. In counties with slow reporting cycles, a conviction from six months ago may not appear in a national database for weeks or months. A direct county search returns the current courthouse record — including recent activity that hasn't made it into any database yet.
For employers making adverse action decisions based on a background check report, the EEOC's individualized assessment guidance requires complete, accurate disposition information. Incomplete arrest records from a national database — without the corresponding conviction or dismissal — cannot support a legally defensible individualized assessment.
The county vs. national database distinction becomes especially important for candidates with residential history across multiple states — which increasingly describes the remote workforce.
A candidate who has lived in four states over the past seven years has accumulated criminal court records across multiple county jurisdictions, potentially in counties that report inconsistently to national databases. A national database search will catch some of those records. A properly configured screening program will run county searches in every jurisdiction where the candidate has lived.
This is one of the primary reasons multi-state hiring requires more than a national database pull. For more on how location affects screening requirements for remote employees, see Background Checks for Remote Employees: What's Different?.
Bchex Core Screening uses the layered approach described above — national database search as a first-pass pointer, followed by county-level searches in every relevant jurisdiction identified through an address history trace.
For county searches, Bchex uses direct court access across jurisdictions nationwide — going to the courthouse record rather than waiting for database aggregators to update. This is what makes faster and more accurate turnaround possible: the platform isn't queuing a request to a third-party database that was last updated weeks ago. It's pulling the current courthouse record.
When a national database search flags a potential record, human adjudication confirms the match before the result reaches the employer — verifying that the record belongs to the candidate, that the disposition is current and accurate, and that reporting the record is legally appropriate under FCRA and applicable state law.
Bchex is PBSA-accredited, meaning its data sourcing, verification processes, and accuracy standards have been independently audited — not just self-reported. For employers who want to understand what that accreditation actually covers, see What Is PBSA Accreditation? Why It Matters for Employers in 2026.
For a full breakdown of how turnaround time varies between database and county searches, and what realistic timelines look like for each check type, see How Long Does a Background Check Take?
A national database search scans aggregated records compiled from thousands of jurisdictions — broad coverage, fast results, but based on data that may be outdated or incomplete. A county criminal search retrieves records directly from a specific county courthouse — more accurate, more current, and the authoritative primary source for most criminal records. The best background checks use both together: the database as a first-pass pointer, the county search as verification.
For most employment decisions, a national database search alone is not sufficient. Many criminal records exist only at the county level and are never submitted to national databases. A database-only search can miss recent convictions, return outdated dispositions, or produce false positives from name matches that haven't been verified at the source. The FTC's guidance on background screening accuracy requires screening companies to assure maximum possible accuracy — which database-only results don't reliably support for adverse action decisions.
Not all counties submit records to national database aggregators consistently or on a timely basis. As the PBSA notes, there is no single government database containing complete and up-to-date criminal history records. Submission is voluntary for most counties, reporting cycles vary, and some counties simply don't participate. Records from non-reporting jurisdictions will never appear in a national database search regardless of how current or serious they are.
It depends on where the candidate has lived. An address history trace returns every jurisdiction where the candidate has resided — which tells the screening platform which counties to search. A candidate who has lived in one state their entire life may require two or three county searches. A candidate with residential history across five states over seven years may require searches in ten or more jurisdictions. This is why address history results drive the county search scope.
County-level searches conducted through direct courthouse access are significantly more accurate than national database searches. Research indicates direct courthouse searches achieve 95%+ accuracy versus national database searches, which may contain outdated or incorrect information. The difference comes down to source: county court records are the authoritative primary source; a database is a copy of data submitted at some point in the past.
A court runner is an individual who physically visits a courthouse to retrieve records on behalf of a screening company. Court runners are needed in counties that haven't digitized their records — an estimated 30% of U.S. counties still operate on paper or have limited digital access. In these jurisdictions, there's no automated way to retrieve court records; a person has to go to the courthouse in person. This is one of the reasons county criminal searches in manual-search counties take longer than in fully digitized jurisdictions. For a breakdown of how this affects turnaround time, see How Long Does a Background Check Take?
A national database search and a county criminal search are not the same thing — and treating them as equivalent is one of the most common gaps in employer screening programs. The database is broad and fast. The county search is accurate and current. Neither one alone is a complete background check. The employers who get this right use both — database as a first-pass pointer, county court access as the verification layer — and work with a screening provider that has direct courthouse connections rather than just another layer of aggregated data on top of the same incomplete sources.
Ready to run background checks that go to the courthouse — not just the database? Explore Bchex Core Screening — direct court access, county-level verification, and PBSA-accredited accuracy on every order.