Does a criminal history check show outstanding warrants? Published answers disagree. A GCheck guide says warrants can show up as a general rule, while an iProspectCheck guide says standard criminal background checks typically leave out open warrants and bench warrants, which courts usually issue when someone misses a court date. Even GCheck says bench warrants may appear only some of the time. This article explains what each search covers and which records each one misses.
The difference matters because the two searches miss different things. A criminal history check searches the criminal records a vendor can reach, such as arrests, charges, and court outcomes, and coverage varies by provider. It can come back clean while a court order that lets police arrest the person is still open, so a company that hires, signs, or pays on that result can end up with an employee or business partner in custody. A warrants search lists open orders held by the court or sheriff that issued them, so it can come back empty for a person with a conviction.
Criminal History Check vs Warrants Search: Same Person, Four Dates
Consider a hypothetical medical device manufacturer that approves a new distributor on June 1 for a $40 million, three-year supply agreement. The table shows what each search would return for the distributor’s managing director on four dates, with the warrants search covering both the home county and the neighboring county where the warrant is issued.
| Date | What happens | Criminal history check would show | Warrants search would show |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 1 2026 | The team screens the managing director | One closed misdemeanor from 2019 | Nothing |
| June 24 2026 | A court in the neighboring county issues an arrest warrant on a fraud charge | The same 2019 misdemeanor | An open arrest warrant |
| July 1 2026 | The team repeats the home-county criminal history check and signs | The same 2019 misdemeanor | Not run (would have shown the open arrest warrant) |
| July 10 2026 | Police arrested him on July 9 on that warrant | The fraud case, if the search covers that county | Nothing open |
Both June 1 results were accurate when they ran, since the warrant came on June 24. Police arrested him on July 9, leaving the manufacturer with a signed agreement and a $4 million advance payment due July 15 to a distributor whose managing director is in custody. After an arrest the warrant closes and the case reaches a criminal history report only once the county court posts it and only if the search covers that county, so the contract file should record the date of every search.
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Clean Criminal Records Check, Open Warrant: Three Ways It Happens
A clear criminal background check shows only what the vendor looked at, and those three gaps in reporting allow an active warrant to hide behind one.
The first gap lies in that an active arrest warrant is simply a pending court order prior to any arrest or decision. Therefore, the criminal history report based upon historical cases will provide very few details about this pending case. The second gap is found in that while a county level search limits results to only one county; the fraud warrant was generated by the adjacent county. These two gaps are why the fraud warrant did not appear during the July 1 criminal history check.
Lastly, the sealing law removes eligible older convictions from the criminal history report. As such, a report may be able to show no prior crimes committed against someone who also has an active warrant.
Why Can’t a Private Warrant Check See What Police See?
Police query the FBI’s wanted-person file, part of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which is open to authorised criminal justice agencies, so a private warrant check draws on public sources such as court records and published wanted lists.
Local warrants reach national databases only in part, which is how a nationwide search can miss a county warrant. Commercial warrant records reflect what each county and country publishes, so ask a vendor which counties and countries it covers and how it treats warrants a court has withdrawn.
How Often Should You Rerun a Warrants Search?
Run the criminal history check at hire and again when someone moves into a role with cash, data, or vulnerable people. Rerun the warrants search on a fixed schedule, because a warrant enters the open list when a court issues it and leaves when police arrest on it or a court withdraws it. Choose a vendor whose data updates at least as often as that schedule, since a rerun against stale data finds nothing new.
A Hit Came Back: What Do You Do First?
Confirm identity before anything else. Common names produce false matches, so check date of birth and one more identifier, such as a middle name or last known address, before acting on a result. Then read the record type, because a bench warrant on a minor matter and an arrest warrant for a fraud charge describe different conduct. If the manufacturer’s procurement team saw this result before July 15, it would pause the advance payment and send the confirmed fraud case to the company’s lawyer before anyone contacts the distributor.
In US hiring, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires an employer that plans to reject a candidate over a criminal background check report to send the candidate a copy of the report and a summary of rights first, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance tells employers to weigh the offense, the time passed, and the nature of the job. These rules cover hiring, so a lawyer should confirm which ones apply to supplier and partner checks.
Where Do Companies Get Warrants and Criminal Entities Data?
Organisations appear in court records and on wanted lists too, so a team onboarding a company such as the distributor can search the company name and its directors together. Records on individuals and organisations linked to crime are part of SanctionsDatabase’s Warrants & Criminal Entities data, and the SanctionsDatabase data overview has further detail on its datasets.
Public office holders and their close associates appear on a politically exposed persons list and parties under economic sanctions appear on a global sanctions list, and both complement a warrants search in one onboarding review.
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So Does a Criminal History Check Show Warrants?
Sometimes. It depends on whether the vendor also searched court records or warrant sources, and a standard criminal records check on its own can miss an open order. That accounts for the opposite answers at the top of this article. The manufacturer’s team could have found the fraud warrant on July 1 by adding a warrants search that covered the neighboring county.
What Should You Do Before the Next Signature or Payment?
Three steps come out of the distributor example.
- Rerun both searches the week before each large payment, because the warrant shows up in the warrants search while it is open and may reach the criminal history report after the arrest.
- Ask a lawyer whether the contract should require the other party to report an arrest or charge against its owners or executives within a set number of days.
- Spend any extra search budget on the counties next to the person’s home and business addresses, and ask any vendor, including Sanctions Database, whether its warrant and wanted-person coverage reaches them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. Are search warrants typically included in a background check?
No. Search Warrants allow law enforcement to conduct a search of either a physical location or specific items related to an ongoing investigation. Background checks are concerned with arrest warrants/bench warrants issued against a known individual.
2. Do traffic and civil warrants appear on a criminal records report?
Very rarely. Civil warrants are issued during a civil proceeding (not a criminal proceeding) and may be omitted from most criminal records reports. However, if you want to find them, you would need to run a county court record report. Traffic warrants are less likely to be reported unless you have run a broad-based report.
3. Will an applicant’s criminal record include all of his/her arrests that did not result in a conviction?
Possibly, depending upon the type of search being conducted and the state in which the applicant resides. The Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibits consumer reporting agencies from reporting arrest information that has resulted in no conviction after seven years. This applies to applicants applying for employment in positions that pay under seventy-five thousand dollars per year; certain states also impose their own time limitations on such information.
4. Can an outstanding warrant affect an employment background check?
Yes, an outstanding warrant may appear in an employment background check, depending on the type of warrant, the records searched, and applicable state laws.
5. What is the difference between a criminal history check and a warrants search?
A criminal history check lists past arrests, charges, and court outcomes, while a warrants search lists arrest and bench warrants that remain open, so the first answers what happened and the second answers whether police can arrest the person today.
Need Warrants and Criminal Entities Data for Your Screening?
To add open warrant coverage to your screening, see what each dataset costs, send coverage questions to the data team, or browse the full Sanctions Database range.