Nanny & In-Home Caregiver Background Check Questions

What to check, in what order, with what legal cover. The field manual for parents and adult children hiring in-home help in 2026, not a vendor pitch, not a screening-company brochure.

You are not just hiring help, you are becoming a household employer. A nanny background check is the single most important hire-stage protection a family has, but it sits inside a larger compliance picture that includes the IRS, the Department of Labor, the EEOC, the FCRA, your state's caregiver registry, and your homeowners liability insurer. This guide is the household employer's field manual: what to check, in what order, with what legal cover, and what the 2026 numbers actually are.

The in-home care labor market is massive, fragmented, and lightly regulated at the federal level. Household employers shoulder almost all of the screening and tax-compliance burden themselves, and the 2026 dollar thresholds for nearly every rule have shifted.

Cash wages that trigger the nanny tax

$3,0002026 threshold, up from $2,800, IRS Publication 926

Home health and personal care aide jobs

4.7 million2025, BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook

FBI fee for an Identity History Summary

$18The candidate requests it and shares it with you

Time to investigate a dispute

30 daysFCRA, 15 U.S.C. §1681i

Three structural facts make household employment unlike any other employer-employee relationship in the United States. First, the family typically has no HR department, no in-house counsel, no compliance officer, and no insurance bench, one or two people are doing all of it themselves. Second, the labor market is enormous: BLS counts about 4.7 million home health and personal care aide jobs in 2025, and childcare workers held about 1.0 million more, with about 150,300 childcare openings projected each year from 2025 to 2035. Third, the regulatory framework that protects both sides, the FCRA, the FLSA, EEOC guidance, IRS payroll rules, applies to private households exactly the way it applies to corporate employers, and most families do not realize this until something goes wrong.

The good news in 2026: the screening tools available to ordinary families are dramatically better than they were a decade ago. Fingerprint-based national checks, state caregiver registries, multi-jurisdictional databases, automated motor-vehicle-record (MVR) pulls, and continuous monitoring are now affordable for a family budget. The discipline is using them correctly, in the right order, with proper consent. The rest of this guide walks through that discipline.

Most parents focus only on the background check and miss that the same act of hiring a nanny triggers four parallel legal regimes, tax, labor, civil-rights, and consumer-reporting. Compliance gaps in any one of them survive a clean background check.

The single most common mistake we see is treating the hire as a one-step decision: run the check, decide yes or no. The actual hire triggers four independent legal regimes:

A clean background check confirms nothing about whether you have correctly set up payroll, correctly classified the worker (the IRS is explicit that nannies are employees, not 1099 contractors), correctly handled overtime, or correctly run the FCRA's two-step adverse-action process if you decided not to hire someone after seeing the report. The four regimes operate independently and each generates its own liability.

Common mistake: Paying cash to avoid the nanny tax. Back payroll taxes, interest, and penalties almost always exceed the amount the family thought it was saving.

A real nanny check is six separate searches stitched together. The $19 "instant check" you see advertised does one of them and calls it a background check. Skip any layer and you have a partial picture.

Layer 1, Identity verification (SSN trace)

Full legal name, all known aliases, current and prior addresses for 7 to 10 years, date of birth, Social Security number trace. This is the foundation; without it you cannot trust any of the criminal layers because of common-name false matches. A proper SSN trace returns every address ever associated with the SSN and flags any address the candidate failed to disclose on the application.

Layer 2, County-level criminal records

The gold standard. A direct search at the courthouse in every county where the candidate has lived or worked in the past seven years. County records are the freshest; state repositories and commercial "national" databases lag county dockets by weeks or months. For a candidate with residence in three counties over the past seven years, you need three separate county searches.

Layer 3, Multi-jurisdictional database scan

A search of a national criminal database compiled from state repositories, prison records, terrorist watch lists, and the OFAC SDN list. This catches out-of-county records the county searches miss. It is a complement, not a substitute, for county-level work. The HHS OIG List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE) is usually rolled in for healthcare-adjacent roles.

Layer 4, Sex offender registry

A 50-state search of the Department of Justice's National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW). This is free; any vendor that charges a separate fee for it is padding the invoice. NSOPW covers U.S. registries only; for time abroad, ask for a police certificate from each country (see International Candidates below).

Layer 5, Motor vehicle record (MVR)

Pulled from each state DMV where the candidate has held a license in the past seven years. Shows license status (valid, suspended, revoked, expired), violations, accidents, DUI history. If the nanny will drive children, carpool, after-school activities, errands, this is the single most predictive check for the highest-stakes scenario. The CDC reports that motor vehicle injuries are a leading cause of death among U.S. children.

Layer 6, Reference and employment verification

Direct contact with the past two or three families. Most reference calls produce nothing because the questions are wrong; the questions that produce real information are in Step 2 of the hire sequence below. Verify dates of employment and reason for separation. Resume-fraud rates among in-home caregivers are higher than the candidate-volunteered version usually implies.

Action step: When you buy a "nanny package" from a screening vendor, ask for the explicit list of counties their county-level layer will search, and the cut-off date of their multi-jurisdictional database. If they cannot list the counties or give you a refresh date within the last 30 days, the package is database-only and is not a substitute for county-level work.

Fingerprint checks are dramatically more accurate, but the FBI cannot release a third party's record directly to a family. Most families end up with a hybrid: a commercial name-based check plus a candidate-supplied FBI Identity History Summary.

Every commercial name-based check has the same structural weakness: a record gets matched to a candidate using name, date of birth, and (sometimes) partial Social Security number. Common-name false matches are an inherent feature of the design. The CFPB's 2021 advisory opinion against name-only matching was withdrawn on May 12, 2025, but the FCRA still requires reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy (15 U.S.C. §1681e(b)).

Fingerprint checks against the FBI's Identity History Summary use ten-point biometrics, eliminating false-match risk and surfacing records filed under different name spellings or aliases. Three access paths:

Candidate self-request through an FBI channeler: The candidate goes to an IdentoGo location, submits fingerprints, pays $18 to the FBI plus the channeler fee (typically $25 to $50), and receives the summary by email in 3 to 5 business days. Then forwards it to you. This is the cleanest path for a private family.

State caregiver registry: California's TrustLine is the best known example, covered in detail below. Other states run their own caregiver checks instead; Step 5 of the hire sequence below lists them.

FBI-approved channeler hired by you directly: Used when you have a documented permissible purpose under 28 CFR Part 16. Rare for private households.

Researcher's note: The pragmatic 2026 standard for a private family is an FCRA-compliant commercial package plus a candidate-supplied FBI Identity History Summary as a cross-check. Combined cost: $93 to $218. Time: 5 to 10 business days. Insist on the FBI cross-check for any candidate whose name is common (think "Maria Garcia" or "John Smith"), who has lived in more than two states, or who has any gap of more than six months in their stated history.

Per the California Department of Social Services, TrustLine is California's registry of nannies, babysitters and other license-exempt child care providers who have passed a fingerprint background check. It checks California Department of Justice records, FBI records and the California Child Abuse Central Index. The TrustLine application page puts the one-time cost at about $143.

The Trustline registry is operated by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and is mandatory for any in-home child care provider paid through state subsidies (CalWORKs, alternative payment programs). Nannies and babysitters placed through an employment agency must be listed on TrustLine or be current applicants; for families who hire directly it is voluntary.

What Trustline actually checks

California Department of Justice criminal history: statewide records, including arrests and convictions reported to DOJ by every California law-enforcement agency.

FBI Identity History Summary: nationwide federal criminal records via fingerprint submission.

California Child Abuse Central Index (CACI): substantiated child-abuse reports, accessible only through Trustline or licensed-provider workflows.

Subsequent-arrest monitoring: once registered, the candidate's record is monitored continuously; new arrests automatically generate an alert.

Cost and timeline (2026)

$43 CDSS application/processing fee, paid by the candidate or family.

$64 California DOJ live-scan fingerprint fee, paid at any Live Scan location.

About $143 total, one-time, because each Live Scan site adds its own fingerprint scanning fee.

6 to 12 weeks typical processing, although a clean submission can clear in 4 to 6 weeks. Status can be checked at the Trustline registry by phone (800-822-8490) or email.

What Trustline does NOT check

Trustline is California-centric. It does not include out-of-state criminal records unless they have flowed up through the FBI Identity History Summary, which depends on whether the originating state reports to the federal repository. It does not include motor-vehicle records, civil-court records, or sex-offender registries in other states. It does not verify employment, education, or references. A Trustline clearance is necessary but not sufficient, pair it with a commercial multi-jurisdictional scan, NSOPW sex-offender check, and MVR.

Privacy note: A Trustline registration is part of CDSS's public-records system. Parents can verify a candidate's clearance status by calling 800-822-8490 with the candidate's full name and date of birth. The actual underlying records (the fingerprint hits, the CACI matches) are not public, only the cleared-or-not status. If a candidate offers their Trustline number proactively, that is usually a strong positive signal.

The same act that triggers the need for a background check, hiring a nanny, triggers federal payroll-tax obligations. IRS Publication 926 sets the rules. The 2026 thresholds shifted up from 2025.

IRS Publication 926, the Household Employer's Tax Guide, controls federal tax treatment of nannies, in-home caregivers, housekeepers, and similar workers. The headline 2026 figures:

$3,000 in cash wages to any one household employee in 2026 triggers Social Security and Medicare withholding (the "nanny tax"). Combined FICA rate is 15.3%, 7.65% withheld from the employee (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare) and a matching 7.65% paid by the employer. Up from the $2,800 2025 threshold.

$1,000 in any single calendar quarter triggers Federal Unemployment (FUTA) liability. FUTA is 6.0% on the first $7,000 of cash wages per employee, with a credit of up to 5.4% for state unemployment taxes paid, effective net rate often 0.6%.

Social Security wage base in 2026: $184,500. Wages above that ceiling are not subject to Social Security tax (Medicare has no ceiling).

State unemployment thresholds vary, California, New York, and Massachusetts have lower thresholds than the federal one and may apply before FUTA kicks in.

Schedule H is filed with the family's Form 1040 each April to report household-employment taxes. Form W-2 is issued to the worker each January; Form W-3 transmits the W-2 to the Social Security Administration.

Employee, not independent contractor

The IRS is explicit: a nanny is an employee, not a 1099 contractor. The classification test looks at who controls schedule, methods, location, tools, and termination. In a household setting the family controls all of it. Misclassifying as a 1099 is one of the most common, and most costly, mistakes family employers make. When the worker later files for unemployment, the state agency's referral to the IRS routinely triggers a federal lookback covering all prior years.

Action step before the first paycheck: Get an EIN from the IRS online (free, 10 minutes). Have the worker complete Form W-4 and Form I-9. Register for state unemployment insurance. File the new-hire report with your state directory of new hires (a 1996 federal requirement).

The Fair Labor Standards Act covers domestic workers for minimum wage in nearly all cases. Overtime depends on whether the nanny is live-out or live-in, and what state you are in. The 2025 DOL rulemaking may shift the federal exemptions.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, codified at 29 U.S.C. §201 et seq., applies federal minimum wage and overtime rules to domestic service workers, with two narrow exemptions:

29 U.S.C. §213(a)(15): companionship services exemption. Employees providing "companionship services" to elderly or disabled individuals can be exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime if the care is informal (not skilled nursing) and meets the 20%-of-time test for incidental care duties. Third-party employers (home-care agencies) were excluded from this exemption by a 2013 DOL rule, but a July 2025 proposed rule would partially reinstate it.

29 U.S.C. §213(b)(21): live-in domestic service overtime exemption. Domestic service workers who reside in the employer's home are exempt from federal overtime but still entitled to minimum wage for all hours actually worked. See DOL Fact Sheet #79B.

State overlays

State law often overrides the federal exemptions and pushes domestic workers into full overtime protection:

California: the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (AB 241) requires overtime after 9 hours per day or 45 hours per week for personal-attendant work in private households.

New York: the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights requires overtime at 1.5x after 40 hours per week (44 hours for live-in workers).

Massachusetts: the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights extends overtime, rest breaks, and written-agreement requirements.

Oregon, Illinois, Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Virginia, varying state-level domestic-worker protections, generally tighter than federal.

Common mistake: Assuming the federal live-in exemption applies in your state. It almost certainly does not in California, New York, Massachusetts, or Oregon. Treat the federal rule as a floor, then check the state attorney general or labor department for the overlay. The DOL lists every state labor office, where each state posts its domestic worker rules.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to private families exactly the way it applies to corporate HR departments. Skipping the paperwork creates personal liability that no screening company can indemnify you for.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., applies the moment you ask a third-party screening company (a "consumer reporting agency" or CRA) to prepare a report for employment purposes. As the end user, you must:

1. Standalone written disclosure. Before requesting the report, give the candidate a clear, conspicuous, standalone written notice that a consumer report may be obtained for employment purposes. It cannot be embedded in the employment application or buried inside other paperwork, courts have ruled this is itself an FCRA violation.
2. Written authorization. Get the candidate's signed authorization before requesting the report. Verbal consent is not enough.
3. Certification to the CRA. Most reputable CRAs will require you to certify that you have a permissible purpose and have given the disclosure-and-authorization paperwork.
4. Two-step adverse action. If you intend not to hire based even in part on the report, follow the pre-adverse / final-adverse process: send a pre-adverse-action notice with a copy of the report and the CFPB Summary of Rights, wait a reasonable time (typically 5 business days), then send the final adverse-action notice.
5. 30-day dispute window. If the candidate disputes any item, the CRA has 30 days to investigate (up to 45 if the candidate sends the screening company more information during those 30 days). Pause your hiring decision during the dispute.

EEOC overlay on conviction records

The EEOC's 2012 Enforcement Guidance on Arrest and Conviction Records remains the controlling federal framework. The two rules for household employers:

Do not consider arrests that did not lead to conviction. Arrest rates differ measurably by race; arrest-only decisions create disparate-impact exposure.

If a conviction surfaces, do an individualized assessment: nature and gravity of the offense, time elapsed, relationship to the job. Do not apply a blanket "any felony = no hire" rule.

Privacy note: The candidate has a right to a free copy of any report you obtained that affected your hiring decision, for 60 days after the adverse-action notice. Keep your copy of the report, the consent paperwork, and your adverse-action notices for at least 1 year; that is the EEOC record keeping rule for hiring records (29 CFR 1602.14).

Hiring an in-home caregiver for an aging parent uses the same FCRA, EEOC, and IRS-Pub-926 framework as hiring a nanny, but three additional screening layers matter because the risks are different.

Layer A, Adult Protective Services / elder-abuse registries

Many states maintain registries of substantiated reports of elder abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation. Access varies dramatically. Some states (Illinois, Texas, Florida) allow private parties limited access through a state portal; others restrict it to licensed providers. Where private access is available, this is the single highest-yield check for elder-care hires, it catches a category of misconduct (financial exploitation, neglect) that does not show up on standard criminal records.

Layer B, Healthcare credentials and the HHS OIG LEIE

If the candidate claims a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), Home Health Aide (HHA), or LPN/RN credential, verify it directly with the state nurse-aide registry or board of nursing. The Nursys system covers most state nursing licenses nationwide. For higher-level practitioners, the National Practitioner Data Bank tracks adverse actions and malpractice settlements.

Critically: if any care is billed to Medicare, Medicaid, or a long-term-care insurance policy, check the HHS Office of Inspector General List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE). Billing for care by a listed individual can bring federal civil money penalties of up to $20,000 per item or service, plus up to three times the amount claimed, under 42 U.S.C. §1320a-7a.

Layer C, Medication handling and skills certification

For caregivers handling complex medication regimens, transfer/lift work, dementia care, or wound care, verify any claimed certifications: Certified Home Health Aide (CHHA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), CPR/AED, first aid. State-specific home-care aide training requirements vary widely. The federal minimum for Medicare-funded home health aides is 75 hours of training under CMS rules, but private-pay caregivers are often less trained.

U.S. criminal databases do not include foreign records. For a candidate who lived abroad for the past 7 to 10 years, a Police Certificate of Good Conduct from each prior country is the only way to verify the overseas portion of their history.

An au pair from Brazil, a nanny from the Philippines, an elder caregiver from Mexico, none of their pre-U.S. history shows up on FBI Identity History Summary or any commercial database. The standard mechanism is the country's national police certificate.

Country-by-country police certificate examples

Mexico: Carta de Antecedentes No Penales, issued by the state-level Fiscalía (each state separately). Free to inexpensive; same-day to one week.

Philippines: NBI Clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation. Approximately $5 to $15 USD; one to three weeks. Apply online at the official NBI clearance site.

UK: ACRO Police Certificate from the ACRO Criminal Records Office. £87 (about $112 USD); ten business days standard, premium service available.

France: Bulletin N°3 from the Casier Judiciaire National. Free; one to two weeks. In French; translation needed for U.S. use.

India: Police Clearance Certificate from the local passport office. Approximately $15 USD; one to four weeks.

Brazil: Federal Police Clearance Certificate (Certidão de Antecedentes Criminais). Free online; usually issued same day in Portuguese.

The U.S. State Department's criminal records checks page explains how a U.S. resident gets an FBI or local police record for use abroad and has it authenticated.

Work authorization

Background check is separate from work authorization. Even with the cleanest international record, the candidate must be authorized to work in the U.S., verified through Form I-9 documentation. E-Verify is optional for most private households and required in only a handful of states for employers above certain thresholds. E-Verify does not replace Form I-9; the I-9 is mandatory regardless.

Researcher's note: For an au pair coming through a State Department-designated sponsor program (Au Pair in America, Cultural Care, EurAupair, etc.), the sponsor has already run a vetting process that typically includes a country-of-origin police certificate, references, and an in-person interview. Ask for the sponsor's vetting file. It does not replace your own check but provides a useful baseline.

Looking at a candidate's public social media is legal almost everywhere. Asking for passwords is illegal in many states. And seeing protected-class information before you make a hiring decision creates discrimination exposure even if you would never use it intentionally.

Public social-media review is a legitimate research tool for family employers. Two legal landmines:

Trap 1, Password / credential requests

These states prohibit employers from requesting, requiring, or coercing employees or applicants to disclose social-media usernames, passwords, or other login credentials. The list (as of 2026): Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York (effective March 2024), Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin. The New York law (N.Y. Labor Law Art. 6-A) is one of the broadest; it bars not just direct password requests but also "shoulder surfing" demands and "friend or follow" requests for the purpose of evaluating an employee.

Trap 2, Seeing protected-class information

A public profile may reveal pregnancy, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, disability, or political affiliation, all of which are protected classes under Title VII, ADA, ADEA, or state equivalents. The EEOC has warned in technical assistance documents that social-media review by the hiring decisionmaker creates evidentiary problems: once you have seen the protected-class information, the candidate can later argue your decision was tainted by it, even if you sincerely based it on something else.

The best practice

Have a third party (a friend, your spouse, a vetting service) review public social media and report only job-related findings to you in writing: "no concerning content," or "posts indicating heavy alcohol use on weekdays," or "posts disparaging prior employers." This keeps protected-class information out of your decision-making record.

Common mistake: Doing the social-media review yourself, seeing a fact about religion or pregnancy, deciding not to hire, then claiming the decision was based on something else. If the candidate files an EEOC charge, your browser history and the timeline become discoverable, and the case becomes the timeline.

A competent nanny-hiring check costs $80 on the low end (DIY plus one good commercial package) to $200 on the high end (commercial package, FBI cross-check, Trustline if California). Here is the realistic step-by-step.

1. Step 1, Application + FCRA paperwork ($0). Use a written application that captures full legal name, all aliases, DOB, SSN, prior addresses for 7 years, prior employment for 5 years, education claims, professional certifications, references. Provide the standalone FCRA disclosure and authorization. Have the candidate sign both.
2. Step 2, Reference calls ($0). Call the last two or three families directly. The three questions that actually produce information: "Were there any incidents, disputes, or concerns during the engagement?" / "How did the engagement end and on whose initiative?" / "Would you hire them again for a similar role with your own children?" Long pause after the third question is the highest-yield moment in the entire process.
3. Step 3, Commercial pre-employment package ($75 to $125). Should include SSN trace, county-level criminal records in every county of residence over 7 years, national multi-jurisdictional database, NSOPW sex offender, and MVR.
4. Step 4, FBI Identity History Summary cross-check ($43 to $68). Have the candidate self-request through IdentoGo, $18 FBI fee plus channeler. Especially important for common-name candidates, multi-state history, or anyone you have any reason to verify twice.
5. Step 5, State caregiver registry if applicable ($0 to about $143). Trustline if California, Child Abuse History Clearance if Pennsylvania, Statewide Central Register if New York, CANTS if Illinois, Level 2 screening if Florida, WATCH if Washington. Costs and timelines vary by state.
6. Step 6, Third-party social-media review ($0 to $30). Friend or vetting service reports job-related findings only. Avoid doing it yourself.
7. Step 7, Trial period and continuous monitoring ($10 to $25/month). Two to four week paid trial. Continuous-monitoring service from your background-check vendor for the duration of employment, daily re-scan of criminal records, NSOPW, OIG LEIE, OFAC. Catches the post-hire event you would otherwise miss for years.

The minimum competent budget: outside California, for child care, plan on a commercial package plus the candidate's own FBI Identity History Summary ($18 FBI fee plus the channeler fee); reference calls and the NSOPW search are free. In California, add TrustLine at about $143. For elder care, add the state adult protective services check where available, credential checks and the HHS OIG exclusion list.

• 29 U.S.C. §213, FLSA exemptions (companionship and live-in)

Last reviewed: June 2026.