Utah Background Check Laws for Employers

For private employers with 150 or more employees, yes. The Private Employer Verification Act, Utah Code § 13-47-201, requires them to use E-Verify or an equivalent status verification system for each new hire. The Act carries no penalty of its own, but federal I-9 rules still apply. Public employers and their contractors must verify under § 63G-12-302. A 2025 bill to lower the threshold, HB 214, was held in committee.

For public employers only. Utah Code § 34-52-201 (HB 156, 2017) bars state and local government employers from requiring applicants to disclose a conviction, an expunged conviction or a juvenile adjudication before an initial interview or, if there is no interview, a conditional offer, with exemptions for law enforcement and criminal justice, law-required checks, volunteers, employers serving children or vulnerable adults, financial and fiduciary employers and listed agencies. No statute or ordinance covers private employers. Title VII, enforced by the EEOC, and the Utah Antidiscrimination Act, enforced by the Labor Commission’s Antidiscrimination and Labor Division, still require job-related decisions.

Utah has no lookback statute, so the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act governs. Consumer reporting agencies may not report arrests and other non-convictions older than seven years for positions paying under $75,000; convictions carry no federal age limit. Records expunged under Utah’s Clean Slate law may not be reported at any age. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission enforce the FCRA.

Utah Code Title 77, Chapter 40a provides automatic expungement of eligible records: acquittals and dismissals, infractions and Class C misdemeanors after five years, Class B misdemeanors after six, and misdemeanor drug possession after seven, for people with no pending case and no disqualifying history. Under § 77-40a-401(5) the person may answer any inquiry as though the record never existed. The district and justice courts enter the orders and the Bureau of Criminal Identification carries them out.

Utah Code § 34-38-1 et seq. lets private employers test if they adopt a written policy distributed to employees and available to prospective employees, collect samples with regard for privacy, use a certified laboratory for urine confirmations and confirm positives by a reliable analytical method. Employers that follow the Act are protected from liability for actions taken on the results. Private employers need not accommodate medical cannabis; the Medical Cannabis Act protects cardholders in government employment only, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.

No. The Internet Employment Privacy Act, Utah Code § 34-48-201, bars employers from requesting a username or password to a personal internet account and from penalizing an applicant or employee who refuses. Employers may view publicly available content. The Act is enforced through private suits, with damages capped at $500 under § 34-48-301.

No Utah statute restricts them. The federal FCRA applies: stand-alone disclosure, written authorization, a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and the Summary of Your Rights, and a final adverse-action notice, enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission. Limit credit screens to positions with financial responsibility.

The Bureau of Criminal Identification, part of the Department of Public Safety, releases records under Utah Code § 53-10-108. Private employers generally rely on the applicant’s Right of Access request with consent, or on fingerprint checks where a statute authorizes them. BCI reflects fingerprint-supported records only, so a court-level search of the district and justice courts is needed to capture the rest.