MA · state guide
Massachusetts background screening law
What is different here
- Massachusetts does not let a screening provider buy its criminal records. The disposition file sits with the Commissioner of Probation rather than with the courts that produced it, and the only route to it runs through a state registration that expires every two calendar years and must be renewed with fresh training.
- The lookback is set by statute: ten years for a felony and five for a misdemeanor, each running from disposition or from release from custody, whichever is later. A tail provision then keeps older convictions visible for as long as the applicant’s most recent one is visible.
- A separate seven-year bar in the state consumer reporting act prohibits reporting criminal records at all beyond seven years, and unlike the federal rule it carries no employment exemption. It reaches every job in the state regardless of what the position pays.
- How much of a state record a provider may pass to an employer does turn on salary, but the figure comes from regulation rather than statute. A position paying $75,000 or more unlocks a materially wider release.
- The employer-side rules go further than the report-side ones in one respect that is routinely missed: an employer may not even ask about a misdemeanor conviction that is three or more years old, unless there is a conviction within the last three years.
How the courts here are organized
Massachusetts has seven Trial Court departments, and for screening purposes the department that made a record matters less than where the record ends up. The file of criminal court appearances and dispositions sits with the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, not with the court that produced it. CORI is compiled from Trial Court records and maintained by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services.
That inverts the shape of the problem. Where a California search is an exercise in reaching 58 superior courts and a New York search is county by county, a Massachusetts search is a single registration and a single state query. The court structure is worth knowing because it explains where a record came from, not because it describes where a screener has to go.
The centralization is real, and it is bounded by statute rather than by practice. What CORI contains is defined by an enumerated exclusion list, and what a provider may do with it is defined by a regulatory scheme that binds the provider directly. Those two boundaries are where a Massachusetts coverage statement either holds up or does not.
| Trial Court departments | Seven: Superior, District, Boston Municipal, Juvenile, Probate and Family, Housing, Land |
|---|---|
| Record holder | Office of the Commissioner of Probation, not the courts |
| State system | DCJIS iCORI, name and date of birth based |
| Unit of search | One registration, not a list of counties or courts |
| Arrest records | Separate system, reachable only by ten-print fingerprint card |
| Correcting court data | DCJIS has no authority to amend Trial Court records |
A single state source changes what a coverage claim can honestly say, in the same way it does in Oklahoma, but for a different reason. Oklahoma publishes a county-indexed docket search, so the claim can be about a system. Massachusetts releases a compiled disposition file under statutory access rules, so the claim has to be about what the state will hand over rather than about what was searched.
The scope of that file is defined by exclusion, and the exclusions are worth stating plainly because they are the reason a Massachusetts result can look thin for a subject with a real history. CORI excludes proceedings dismissed before arraignment, offenses not punishable by incarceration, juvenile offenses by anyone under eighteen on or after 18 September 2013, photographs and fingerprints, intelligence information, and the published records of public court proceedings. Records of those events can exist and still not appear in a name-based state check.
Arrest records sit outside the system entirely. Except for law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, Massachusetts makes arrest data available only on submission of a ten-print fingerprint card, which means a name-based CORI is not an arrest-record check and should never be described as one. This is the single most common overstatement made about Massachusetts coverage.
There is also a correction limit that no amount of provider diligence can work around. DCJIS has no authority to amend any record of the Trial Court, and the statute disclaims liability for information erroneously entered by the court or the probation office. When a Massachusetts record is wrong, the fix runs through the court that made it, which means a dispute route that is longer than the dispute window most screening processes are built around.
The one thing the state source genuinely buys is that completeness is not a function of effort. There is no county that was skipped, because there is no county-by-county step. What remains is scope, and scope here is a published list rather than an open question.
The federal baseline
Federal law sets the floor here as it does everywhere. It is at 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., it binds the agency and the employer separately, and it does not vary by state. The FCRA article covers it section by section, including the seven-year limits, the salary threshold and the adverse action sequence, so that this page does not restate any of it.
What follows is only the overlay: what Massachusetts adds on top of that floor, and where it departs from it.
What Massachusetts law adds
Its own consumer reporting statute
Yes, and it is substantive. M.G.L. c. 93 §§50 to 62A govern consumer reporting agencies directly, with enforcement and remedies at §§63 to 68. Its most consequential provision for screening is §52(a)(5), a seven-year bar on reporting criminal records that has no employment exemption, so it reaches every job in the state regardless of salary.
M.G.L. c. 93 §52(a)(5) · M.G.L. c. 93 §52(b)
Ban-the-box
Yes, and there is no public and private split. c. 151B §4(9½) bars an employer from requesting criminal offender record information on its initial written application form, and the same clause governs the commonwealth and all its political subdivisions because c. 151B §1 expressly includes them as employers. Two narrow exceptions apply: positions with a mandatory or presumptive statutory disqualification, and employers under a legal duty not to employ certain offenders. The employer threshold is six employees.
M.G.L. c. 151B §4(9½) · M.G.L. c. 151B §1 cl. 5
Lookback limits
Set by statute rather than left to practice. For the employer tier, felony convictions and findings of not guilty by reason of insanity are available for ten years and misdemeanor convictions for five, each running from disposition including termination of any period of incarceration or custody. A tail provision keeps prior convictions available for as long as the subject’s last available conviction record is available, so one recent conviction can pull an older history back into view. Pending charges are included, and a case continued without a finding counts as pending until dismissed.
M.G.L. c. 6 §172(a)(3)
Non-conviction reporting
Restricted on both sides. c. 151B §4(9)(i) bars an employer from requesting, recording, using or acting on information about an arrest, detention or disposition in which no conviction resulted, which is broader than ban-the-box because it covers the whole employment relationship rather than the application form. Under the CORI scheme non-convictions are outside Standard access altogether, and for positions paying under $75,000 a provider may not disseminate non-conviction information seven or more years old that did not result in a warrant.
M.G.L. c. 151B §4(9)(i) · 803 CMR 11.10(1)(e) · 803 CMR 2.05(4)
Salary threshold
Two different answers, and conflating them is the common error. The state consumer reporting act sets no employment threshold, so its seven-year reporting bar applies at every salary. Separately, the federal $75,000 figure is written into state regulation at 803 CMR 11.10, where it gates how much CORI a provider may disseminate to a client, and 803 CMR 11.06(3)(e) requires the client to state whether the position pays above or below that figure.
803 CMR 11.10(1) · 803 CMR 11.06(3)(e)
Cannabis
No protection for off-duty recreational use. c. 94G §2(e) preserves employer authority to restrict consumption and to enforce workplace policies, and the cannabis regulations contain no off-duty employment protection at all. Off-duty medical use is different and runs through handicap discrimination rather than the cannabis statutes, where an exception to a drug policy can be a facially reasonable accommodation and the employer bears the burden of proving undue hardship. There is no private right of action under the medical marijuana act itself.
M.G.L. c. 94G §2(e) · Barbuto v. Advantage Sales & Marketing, LLC, 477 Mass. 456 (2017)
Credit checks
Not prohibited. Massachusetts limits how old credit-type items may be when reported and requires adverse-action notice, but there is no general bar on employment credit checks. A full-text search of the General Laws located no employment credit-check prohibition.
M.G.L. c. 93 §52(a)(2)–(4) · M.G.L. c. 93 §62
Automated decision law
None enacted, and the question is actively open rather than settled. Full-text searches of the General Laws for artificial intelligence, automated decision system and algorithmic returned no employment provision; the hits are life-sciences funding, retirement, health-plan, electricity and appropriations text. The bill family that would regulate automated employment decision tools is pending in the 194th General Court, with H.77 reported favorably out of committee and referred to Ways and Means in December 2025.
H.77, 194th General Court (pending)
Provider registration
Required, and this is the structural feature of the state. There is no vendor track: a consumer reporting agency registers as an iCORI requestor under 803 CMR 2.04 and is additionally bound by 803 CMR 11.00, which is the provision set written specifically for this industry. Registration expires every two calendar years, with the agency agreement re-executed and training repeated at each renewal. A provider that exceeds its client’s access level commits a violation.
803 CMR 2.04(9) · 803 CMR 11.04(1)
The statute that surprises people
The seven years that has no salary exemption
M.G.L. c. 93 §52(a)(5)
Federal law bars a consumer reporting agency from reporting non-conviction items older than seven years, and then exempts employment entirely above $75,000. Most providers carry that shape into every state. Massachusetts does not follow it.
Under c. 93 §52(a)(5) a consumer reporting agency may not include records of arrest, indictment or conviction that antedate the report by more than seven years from the date of disposition, release or parole. The exceptions in §52(b) cover credit transactions of $50,000 or more and life insurance of $50,000 or more. There is no employment exemption at all.
The consequence is narrow and easy to state. In Massachusetts the seven-year ceiling on reporting criminal history applies to every employment report, at every salary, and the $75,000 figure that governs the federal rule has no effect on it. A provider that applies its federal configuration here will report records the state act prohibits.
The same seven-year figure appears twice more in Massachusetts law and means something different each time, which is why it gets applied to the wrong question. The CORI retention cap governs how long a copy may be kept. The c. 93 bar governs what may be reported from any source. Neither one is the lookback, which is the ten and five year rule governing what the state will release. Three periods, three different questions, and only one of them is about how far back a search reaches.
Reporting limits at a glance
Every figure below is against Massachusetts law. Where a row says “federal only”, the state has set nothing and 15 U.S.C. §1681c governs.
| Dimension | Limit | Source and qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Lookback, felony | 10 years | M.G.L. c. 6 §172(a)(3). Runs from disposition including termination of any period of incarceration or custody. |
| Lookback, misdemeanor | 5 years | M.G.L. c. 6 §172(a)(3). Same starting point. |
| Tail provision | Older convictions stay visible | c. 6 §172(a)(3). Prior convictions remain available for as long as the subject’s last available conviction record is available. |
| Permanent records | Never expire | Murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, and sex offenses punishable by state prison, unless sealed. |
| General public tier | 10 / 2 / 1 | Felonies punishable by five or more years for ten years, other felonies for two, misdemeanors for one. |
| Retention cap | 7 years | From the later of last date of employment or volunteer service, or the final decision. A provider acting as decision maker runs from the date the CORI was obtained. |
| Reporting bar | 7 years, no employment exemption | M.G.L. c. 93 §52(a)(5). Applies to every employment report at every salary. |
| Employer request bar | 3 years for misdemeanors | c. 151B §4(9)(iii). An employer may not ask about a misdemeanor conviction three or more years old unless there is a conviction within the last three years. |
| Copy duty | Before questioning | c. 6 §172. The record in the employer’s possession, from the department or any other source, must be given to the applicant before asking about criminal history. |
| Negligent-hiring safe harbor | 90 days | Conditioned on relying solely on DCJIS CORI, doing no additional checks unless required by law, and maintaining compliant verification procedures. |
| Registration | Two calendar years | 803 CMR 2.04(9). Agency agreement re-executed and training repeated at renewal. |
| Sealing wait | 3 years misdemeanor, 7 years felony | c. 276 §100A. Petition-based, from the court appearance and disposition, with no new conviction in the period. |
Adverse action here
The federal sequence applies: pre-adverse action notice with the report and the summary of rights, a reasonable opportunity to respond, then the adverse action notice with the agency’s details and a dispute route. The FCRA article sets it out in full. Massachusetts adds two obligations to it, and both sit earlier than the adverse decision itself.
The first is the copy duty, and its trigger is the part that gets missed. A person in possession of an applicant’s criminal history must provide it before questioning the applicant about that history, and separately if an adverse decision is made on the basis of it. The duty attaches to the record in the person’s possession whether it came from the state or any other source, so a privately obtained record counts, and providing the copy before questioning satisfies the later obligation as well.
The second runs the other way and is a protection rather than a burden. An employer that relies solely on CORI from the department, performs no additional criminal history checks unless the law requires them, and decides within 90 days of obtaining the record, is not liable for negligent hiring on that basis. The conditions are cumulative and the 90-day window is short, which makes it a deadline rather than a formality.
There is also a disclosure duty that providers working in multiple states often carry in from elsewhere and misapply here. Massachusetts requires a written notice that a consumer report may be obtained, in a document consisting solely of that notice, plus the applicant’s separate written authorization, and the authorization is expressly not satisfied by the state acknowledgement form. Two documents, doing two different jobs.
Screening in Massachusetts: what your process needs
- Confirm the c. 93 §52(a)(5) seven-year bar is applied to Massachusetts employment reports at every salary, and that no $75,000 exemption has been imported from the federal configuration into state reporting logic.
- Confirm the three seven-and-ten periods are separated in the configuration: what the state releases, what may be reported, and how long a copy may be kept are three different rules with three different starting points.
- Confirm the search specification does not describe a name-based check as covering arrest records. Arrest data is available only by ten-print fingerprint card and is outside CORI.
- Confirm the coverage statement describes the state source and its enumerated exclusions, and does not claim a county-by-county search that does not exist here.
- Confirm the copy duty is triggered before any interview question about criminal history, not at the adverse action stage, and that records obtained outside the state source are included.
- Confirm the iCORI registration and its two-year renewal are tracked, including re-execution of the agency agreement and repeat training, and that requests stay within the access level the client is entitled to.
- Confirm the configuration applies c. 151B §4(9)(iii), so a misdemeanor conviction three or more years old is not requested or used where there is no conviction within the last three years.
- Confirm the clean-slate position is reflected. A record sealed under c. 276 §100A leaves Standard access, and c. 151B §4(9)(iv) bars an employer from requesting or using sealed or expunged records.
Related states
What we do
Massachusetts is the state that punishes carrying a federal assumption across a state line. A provider that applies its standard configuration here will report records the state act prohibits, will describe a name-based check as covering arrests, and will put its copy duty in the wrong place in the sequence. Being able to say which of the three seven-year rules you applied, and why, is the whole of the answer.
Sources
- M.G.L. c. 6 §172, criminal offender record information, access and limits
- M.G.L. c. 6 §167, definitions, criminal offender record information
- M.G.L. c. 93 §§50–62A, consumer reporting agencies
- M.G.L. c. 151B §4, clauses 9 and 9½, unlawful practices
- M.G.L. c. 151B §1 cl. 5, definition of employer
- M.G.L. c. 94G §2(e), employment limitation
- M.G.L. c. 276 §100A, sealing of criminal records
- 803 CMR 2.00, criminal offender record information
- 803 CMR 11.00, consumer reporting agency
- Barbuto v. Advantage Sales & Marketing, LLC, 477 Mass. 456 (2017)
- Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, levels of name-based criminal record check access
- 935 CMR 501.802, employment qualifications for marijuana establishments
- Massachusetts Court System, Trial Court departments
- H.77, 194th General Court, automated employment decision tools, pending
Last reviewed 23 September 2026. This page is checked on a quarterly cycle, because state screening law changes every legislative session. Nothing here is legal advice; see the terms of use.