VT · state guide

Vermont background screening law

How the courts here are organized

The unit of search in Vermont is the county, and the county is the court's own organizing unit rather than an administrative convenience. 4 V.S.A. § 30(b) provides: "The Supreme Court shall by rule divide the Superior Court into 14 geographical units that shall follow county lines, except that, subject to the venue requirements of subsection 1001(e) of this title, the Environmental Division shall be a court of statewide jurisdiction and shall not be otherwise divided into geographical units." The same section adds that "The Superior Court shall be held in each unit of the State", so the unit is where the court sits and not merely how the state counts its courts.

Vermont abolished its District Court and runs a unified system instead. Title 4, chapter 9 is headed "District Court" and is repealed in its entirety, section by section, most of it by 2009, No. 154 (Adj. Sess.), § 238. What replaced it is set out in 4 V.S.A. § 1: "The Judiciary shall be a unified court system under the administrative control of the Supreme Court. It shall consist of an appellate division, which shall be the Supreme Court, and a trial division, which shall consist of a trial court of general jurisdiction to be known as the Superior Court, and a Judicial Bureau."

Both grades of offense are heard by the same court. 4 V.S.A. § 32(a): "The Criminal Division shall have jurisdiction to try, render judgment, and pass sentence in prosecutions for felonies and misdemeanors." The line between the two grades is drawn by maximum exposure, 13 V.S.A. § 1: "any offense whose maximum term of imprisonment is more than two years, for life, or which may be punished by death is a felony. Any other offense is a misdemeanor." The Superior Court has five divisions, Civil, Criminal, Family, Environmental and Probate under § 30(a), and only the Environmental Division is statewide; the Judicial Bureau handles civil violations under § 1102, and its decisions appeal to the Criminal Division.

There is no municipal court either. Section 32(b) puts local ordinance enforcement in the same place as everything else: "The Criminal Division shall have jurisdiction to try and finally determine prosecutions for violations of bylaws or ordinances of a village, town, or city, except as otherwise provided." A Burlington by-law or ordinance violation therefore surfaces in the Chittenden County unit of the Superior Court Criminal Division rather than in a city court, and it sits in the same county unit that hears felonies and misdemeanors. One Criminal Division per county covers the criminal business, so a Vermont search does not have to ask which court a given offense was heard in.

There is no public online case search, and the prohibition is statutory rather than a matter of court policy. 12 V.S.A. § 5(a): "(a) The Court shall not permit public access via the internet to criminal, family, or probate case records. The Court may permit criminal justice agencies, as defined in 20 V.S.A. § 2056a, internet access to criminal case records for criminal justice purposes, as defined in 20 V.S.A. § 2056a." Subsection (b) opens one further door: "Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, the Court shall provide licensed Vermont attorneys in good standing with access via the internet, through the Judiciary's public portal website or otherwise, to nonconfidential criminal, family, and probate case records." The codified text also carries a § 5(c), which permits electronic access to court schedules, Criminal Division opinions and Supreme Court materials, and permits State agencies access "in accordance with data dissemination contracts entered into under Rule 12 of the Vermont Rules for Public Access to Court Records". Act 165 of 2026 amends the section from July 1, 2027 so that the procedures governing public internet access to criminal case records are set by rules the Court promulgates.

A search here therefore cannot begin from a statewide criminal case portal, because there is not one. The bar in § 5(a) is categorical as to criminal case records, and any product described as a Vermont statewide criminal case search is describing something other than the court's own portal. What the state does publish is a conviction record through the repository, which is a different instrument with different content, and it is covered below.

The statewide repository is the Vermont Crime Information Center, in the Department of Public Safety, and release is exclusive to it. 20 V.S.A. § 2056d(a): "Statewide criminal history records shall be released only by the Vermont Crime Information Center." It holds two products that must not be confused. "Criminal history record" is defined at § 2056a(a)(1) as "all information documenting an individual's contact with the criminal justice system, including data regarding identification, arrest or citation, arraignment, judicial disposition, custody, and supervision", and that record goes to criminal justice agencies only, under § 2056a(b), on a filed user's agreement. The phrase "criminal justice purposes" is wide enough to include "screening for criminal justice employment" under § 2056a(a)(3), which is the one hiring channel that reaches the arrest tier.

The public product is a conviction record, and the statute is explicit about its own edges. Section 2056c(a)(2)(A): "'Criminal conviction record' means the record of convictions in the Criminal Division of the Superior Court." Section 2056c(a)(2)(B): "Release of conviction records by the Center pursuant to this section or pursuant to any other provision of State law that permits release of Vermont criminal records shall include only the charge for which the subject of the record was convicted, and shall not include docket numbers." That is the repository stating what the product is and is not: convictions in the Criminal Division, the convicted charge only, and no docket numbers. Because the definition is court-conviction-shaped, it does not reach municipal ordinance violations or non-court dispositions on its face.

Access runs through a user agreement rather than through an open portal. A requestor must "have completed a user's agreement with the Center", an agreement that "shall prohibit the alteration of criminal records and shall require the requestor to comply with all statutes, rules, and policies regulating the release of criminal conviction records and the protection of individual privacy"; access is by "a secure Internet site or other alternatives approved by the Center", on a secure online account, conditioned on accepting a user agreement that "specif[ies] guidelines for the proper interpretation and use of the information". The queries themselves are constrained. Section 2056c(c)(4): "All queries shall be by name and date of birth of the subject." Section 2056c(c)(5): "Only 'no record' responses and record responses that constitute an exact match to the query criteria shall be returned automatically online. In the event that query criteria suggest a possible match, Center staff will determine whether the query criteria match a record in the repository and shall return the result to the requestor." Name-only searching is therefore not how the state product works, and a near match is resolved by a person rather than returned as a hit.

The remaining mechanics are set out one by one. Every transaction is logged with the requestor name, date, purpose and result, and the log is not available to anyone but Center staff except by court order, under § 2056c(c)(6). The fee is $30.00 per query under § 2056c(c)(9), and § 2063(a) sets the same $30.00 for a name-and-date-of-birth criminal history or conviction record check, and an out-of-state check carries the fee set by the state that holds the record. The Center's site must provide "an electronic mechanism for users to notify the Center of possible record errors" under § 2056c(c)(7). Section 2056c(c)(10) bars anyone entitled to receive a conviction record from requiring an applicant "to obtain, submit personally, or pay for a copy of his or her criminal conviction record", with one carve-out: "except that this subdivision shall not apply to a local governmental entity with respect to criminal conviction record checks for licenses or vendor permits required by the local governmental entity." That carve-out is confirmation that Vermont municipalities do run conviction checks as a licensing function.

The repository's own completeness caveat is written into the statute, which is the closest thing the state has to an official statement of the point. Section 2056c(c)(8) requires the Center's Internet site to provide "links to Center training information regarding best practices for the use of record checks as part of a complete background check process." A conviction-record check is, on the repository's own account, a component of a complete background check rather than the whole of one. There is also no general commercial subscription: § 2064 creates a service that notifies when a record is updated, but by its terms it is limited to the Department for Children and Families and to education officials authorized under 16 V.S.A. chapter 5, subchapter 4.

The routing consequence is that a Vermont answer has to say what produced it. A repository response is a name-and-date-of-birth conviction record, released on a user agreement, carrying the convicted charge and no docket numbers, and reaching nothing from the arrest tier unless the role is a criminal justice one. A court record comes from the Superior Court Criminal Division of the county unit where the matter was heard, and a sealed record has to be answered as though it did not exist. The county organizes the second of those and there is no online portal that organizes the first, so the two halves of a Vermont search are reached by two different routes and neither covers the other.

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 Vermont adds on top of that floor, and where it departs from it.

What Vermont law adds

Reporting limits at a glance

Every figure below is against Vermont law. Where a row says “federal only”, the state has set nothing and 15 U.S.C. §1681c governs.

Adverse action here

The federal sequence applies unchanged: pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and the summary of rights, a reasonable opportunity to dispute, then the adverse action notice with the agency’s details and a dispute route. The FCRA article sets it out in full.

Vermont's own overlay sits on the record rather than on the letter, and it is a prohibition on acting at all rather than a notice duty. Section 13 V.S.A. § 7607(b)(2) provides that a person "may be required to answer questions about a previous criminal history record only with respect to arrests or convictions that have not been sealed", and § 7607(b)(3) fixes the answer to any member of the public who asks about a sealed record: "NO CRIMINAL RECORD EXISTS." A report that surfaces a sealed arrest has therefore put the employer in possession of something the person was entitled to answer as never having happened.

The penalty attaches to the disclosure and it multiplies. Section 7611 assesses "a civil penalty of not more than $1,000.00" on a person who knowingly accesses or discloses sealed criminal history record information without authorization, and adds that "Each unauthorized disclosure shall constitute a separate civil violation." A sealed record reproduced to a client, restated in a letter and passed again to a successor vendor is three disclosures on the face of the section. Section 7607(a) requires the court to notify VCIC of the sealing order and VCIC to pass it to the FBI's NCIC, so the record is meant to be suppressed at source rather than at the point of use.

Where an employer asked about convictions and got an answer, § 495j(c) requires that the candidate be given "an opportunity to explain the information and the circumstances regarding any convictions, including postconviction rehabilitation", qualified by "if still eligible for the position under applicable federal or State law". That opportunity sits after the record arrives and before the decision is made, and it covers the circumstances of the conviction as well as the fact of it.

Where a credit component runs, two state rules sit alongside the federal sequence. Section 495i(c)(2) provides that an exempt employer "may not use an employee's or applicant's credit report or history as the sole factor in decisions regarding employment", so a decision resting on credit alone is not available however the exemption was established. And § 495i(d) requires, for a report containing credit score, account balances, payment history, savings or checking balances or account numbers, written consent each time, a written statement of the employer's reasons for accessing it, no cost passed to the applicant, and confidential handling with secure destruction where the applicant is not hired.

Two sections that read almost identically need separating before a letter is written. An expunged record is answered to "any person" under § 7606(b)(3) and the case file is destroyed under § 7606(c)(3) once every charge on the docket is expunged, while a sealed record is answered to "any member of the public" under § 7607(b)(3) and the file stays publicly accessible under § 7606(c)(2) where charges remain. Sealing is also not absolute in one direction that matters: § 7607(c)(1) lets an entity that already possesses a sealed record keep using it for litigation arising from the same incident or occurrence, and any disclosure made under that exception must carry the section's notice verbatim: "SEALED - KNOWINGLY ACCESSING OR DISCLOSING THIS RECORD WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS A CIVIL VIOLATION SUBJECT TO A PENALTY OF NOT MORE THAN $1,000.00."

Vermont adds no state adverse-action notice duty for a criminal-history report. The state overlay is the sealing and explanation pair above, plus the credit-report consent and sole-factor rules where a credit component runs, and nothing else. For a conviction report with no sealed record in it, the federal sequence is the whole of the procedural requirement.

Screening in Vermont: what your process needs

• Read § 495j(a) before drafting the application form. The bar is on the initial employee application form, and it lifts during an interview or once the candidate has been deemed otherwise qualified for the position.
• Know that the form bar reaches arrests and citations, not only convictions. Section 495j(e)(1) adopts the 20 V.S.A. § 2056a definition of "criminal history record", which runs through "arrest or citation, arraignment, judicial disposition, custody, and supervision". A question about "any contact with law enforcement" is inside the bar.
• Do not read the exception as a safety-sensitive carve-out. Section 495j(b)(1) is triggered only by a federal or State mandatory or presumptive disqualification, or by an obligation not to employ, and the questions must be limited to the offense types creating the bar.
• Do not treat a waiver as taking you back outside the exception. Section 495j(b)(2) provides that an employer may still inquire about convictions on the initial form even where the law creating the obligation also permits a waiver.
• Give the § 495j(c) opportunity to explain before deciding. It covers the circumstances of the convictions and postconviction rehabilitation, and it is qualified by whether the candidate is still eligible for the position under applicable federal or State law.
• Check the size threshold at one employee, and check it before assuming a small-employer exemption. Section 495d(1) covers an employer with one individual performing services in the state.
• Do not expect a public case search. Section 12 V.S.A. § 5(a) bars public internet access to criminal, family and probate case records, and § 5(b) opens access to licensed Vermont attorneys in good standing. Plan the court half of a Vermont search on that footing.
• Scope a court search to the county unit. There are 14 units following county lines, the Superior Court sits in each one, and the same Criminal Division hears felonies, misdemeanors and municipal ordinance violations, so there is no second court tier to search.
• Do not search the repository by name alone. Section 2056c(c)(4) requires name and date of birth, and § 2056c(c)(5) returns only exact matches automatically, with Center staff resolving any possible match, so a near match is a human decision rather than an automated hit.
• Know what the VCIC product excludes. It is a conviction record from the Criminal Division, carrying the convicted charge and no docket numbers, and the definition does not reach municipal ordinance violations or non-court dispositions on its face. The arrest tier is available for criminal justice employment only.
• Expect a sealed record to have to read as none. Section 7607(b)(3) fixes the answer as "NO CRIMINAL RECORD EXISTS", and § 7611 makes each unauthorised access or disclosure a separate civil violation at up to $1,000.00. Check the source of a record that looks like an old arrest before it goes into a report.
• Route a sealed-record question through § 7607(c). A criminal justice agency and the Attorney General may use sealed records and may disclose them to another person only under a court order, and an entity that already holds one may keep using it for litigation from the same incident, with the section's notice carried verbatim on any such disclosure.
• Check the credit exemptions before running a credit component, and check the sole-factor rule even where an exemption applies. Section 495i(c)(2) bars a decision resting on credit alone.
• Get written consent each time before accessing credit score, balances, payment history, savings or checking balances or account numbers, give the employer's written reasons, do not pass the cost to the applicant, and handle the data confidentially with secure destruction if the applicant is not hired, per § 495i(d).
• Do not treat cannabis as protected, and do not run a random test. There is no cannabis employment protection in Vermont, and the constraint is the drug-testing subchapter: § 512(b)(1) requires a conditional offer before an applicant is tested and § 513(b) bars random and company-wide tests.
• Do not assume the company is outside the data broker registration duty. Section 9 V.S.A. § 2446 has no exemption for consumer reporting agencies, and the § 2430(4)(B) direct-relationship list does not include the subject of a background check.
• Check the private investigator exemption against the work actually done. Section 26 V.S.A. § 3151a(a)(4) exempts the credit-and-financial-standing business and not the preparation of FCRA investigative consumer reports, which is what reference or associate interviews produce.

Related states

• New Hampshire. New Hampshire authorizes consumer reporting agencies by name to obtain state criminal conviction records for employment screening and designates the state police record the official certified source for employment and licensing purposes, while forbidding the division from requiring notarization. Its seven-year cap on convictions is switched off by a $20,000 salary figure carried from 1971.
• New York. New York sets its salary threshold at $25,000, so the seven-year limit reaches jobs federal law exempts, and its bar on reporting arrests has no time limit attached to it.
• Massachusetts. Massachusetts holds its criminal disposition file with the Commissioner of Probation rather than with the courts that produced it, and releases it only through a registration that expires every two calendar years and requires retraining. Its regulation also writes the federal $75,000 employment figure into state law, so how much record a provider may pass to an employer turns on the salary of the job.

What we do

Vermont makes one form rule and then hands the rest to two institutions. Section 21 V.S.A. § 495j bars the criminal history question on the initial application form from one employee up, and the bar is wider than the exception behind it: the form cannot ask about arrests or citations, while the exception that lets a statutorily regulated employer ask early reaches convictions only. The courts are cleaner than the paperwork, with 14 county units, one Criminal Division in each, felonies and misdemeanors and ordinance violations all in the same place, and no public internet access to criminal case records at all under 12 V.S.A. § 5(a). What answers a Vermont question is the Crime Information Center conviction record, released on a user agreement, by name and date of birth, carrying the convicted charge and no docket numbers, and the statute itself describes that record as a component of a complete background check rather than the whole of one. Our Vermont work keeps the form, the interview and the decision apart, says whether a repository record or a court record produced the answer, and treats a sealed record as one that has to read as none, because 13 V.S.A. § 7611 makes each unauthorised disclosure a separate civil violation. If your current vendor runs Vermont by name alone, or reports a sealed arrest as a hit, this is where that shows.

Sources

• 4 V.S.A. ch. 1, the Supreme Court and the unified court system, including § 1 on the unified system, § 30 on the five divisions and the 14 county units, and § 32 on the Criminal Division
• 4 V.S.A. ch. 9, District Court, repealed in its entirety, most of it by 2009, No. 154 (Adj. Sess.), § 238
• 13 V.S.A. § 1, the felony and misdemeanor line drawn by maximum exposure
• 12 V.S.A. § 5, dissemination of electronic case records, including the internet bar at (a), the attorney portal at (b) and the exceptions at (c)
• 2026 Act 165 (H.937) as enacted, § 4 amending 12 V.S.A. § 5 and § 41 on the effective date
• 2026 Act Summary Book, the General Assembly's own digest of the 2026 acts, extracted in full
• 9 V.S.A. ch. 63, fair credit reporting, §§ 2480a to 2480r, extracted in full and searched for the lookback and salary negatives
• 21 V.S.A. ch. 5, fair employment practices, including § 495j on applications, § 495i on credit information, the drug-testing subchapter at §§ 511 to 519 and the Polygraph Protection Act at §§ 494 to 494e
• 13 V.S.A. ch. 230, expungement and sealing of criminal history records, including §§ 7603, 7606, 7607 and 7611
• 7 V.S.A. ch. 31, Cannabis, read in full and searched for employment-protection language
• 7 V.S.A. ch. 33, Cannabis Establishments, read in full and searched for employment-protection language
• 9 V.S.A. ch. 62, including the data broker registration at § 2446, the definitions at § 2430, the use restriction at § 2431(a)(2)(C), the safe-destruction exemption at § 2445(d)(3) and the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act at §§ 2449a to 2449j
• 20 V.S.A. ch. 117, the Vermont Crime Information Center and its records, including §§ 2056a, 2056c, 2056d, 2063 and 2064
• 26 V.S.A. ch. 59, private investigative and security services, including §§ 3151, 3151a, 3172, 3173, 3176 and 3179
• Burlington, Vermont, Government page, which links the Municipal Code of Ordinances to codepublishing.com/VT/Burlington
• Route note: every Vermont statute quotation was read from the Vermont Statutes Online at legislature.vermont.gov on 2026-09-23, which carries its own disclaimer that it is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated provided as a convenience, so the session law is the citation to check where precision matters. Act 165 was read from the enrolled act PDF. The municipal gap is a client limitation rather than a legal one: codepublishing.com returns HTTP 403 behind a JavaScript-gated Cloudflare challenge to every request from this environment, the city's CivicPlus site search returns a client-side shell, ecode360, codelibrary.amlegal.com and library.municode.com refused or served JavaScript shells, the Wayback replay service answered HTTP 429 throughout while its CDX index kept working, timetravel.mementoweb.org failed to connect, archive.ph had no snapshot, and the search engines were unusable. The chapters Burlington01 to Burlington31 are a road map for whoever picks that up, not a finding.

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.