Remote work has changed a lot about hiring, and background screening is no exception. When an employer can hire someone in a different state without either party ever meeting in person, questions that used to have a simple answer, which state’s laws apply, how do you verify someone’s identity remotely, where do you even run a criminal search, become genuinely more complicated.
Important: For remote employees, the applicable state and local background check laws are generally determined by where the employee actually lives and works, not where the employer is headquartered.
Whose State Law Actually Applies?
This is the single most important shift remote work introduces. Ban the Box laws, salary history bans, credit check restrictions, and background check timing rules are generally tied to where the work is performed and where the employee resides, not where the company’s home office sits. An employer based in a state with minimal screening restrictions can still be fully subject to a much stricter set of rules if they hire someone living in a different state, simply because that’s where the employee is actually working from.
This means a company hiring remotely across many states isn’t really operating under one screening policy, it’s effectively operating under as many different sets of state and local requirements as it has remote employees living in different jurisdictions.
Why This Compounds Quickly for Remote-First Employers
A traditional employer with a single physical location generally deals with one, or a small handful, of jurisdictions’ worth of screening requirements. A remote-first employer hiring nationally may end up with employees living across dozens of states, and potentially cities with their own additional Fair Chance ordinances layered on top of state law. Tracking Ban the Box timing, salary history restrictions, credit check permissibility, and reporting lookback periods individually for every jurisdiction where a remote employee actually resides is a meaningfully larger compliance task than a single-location employer typically faces.
Identity Verification Without In-Person Contact
Traditional hiring often includes some in-person verification, checking a physical ID during onboarding, for example. Fully remote hiring removes that step, which has made identity verification a more prominent concern in remote screening specifically. Remote-focused identity verification tools have grown as a result, using methods like document upload with authentication checks, live video verification, or biometric comparison against a government ID, to help confirm that the person being hired is actually who they claim to be, without requiring anyone to be in the same room.
Remote I-9 and Work Authorization Verification
Form I-9 traditionally required in-person review of identity and work authorization documents. Remote hiring has pushed this process to adapt, including expanded provisions in recent years allowing certain qualifying employers to complete I-9 verification remotely under specific procedures, sometimes involving a live video call review of documents rather than in-person inspection. Employers hiring remotely should confirm they’re using a currently valid remote I-9 verification method, since the specific rules and qualifying conditions for remote I-9 completion have shifted over time.
Determining Which Jurisdictions to Search
Criminal record searches are generally most reliable when they’re run in the specific counties and states someone has actually lived in, information typically surfaced through an SSN trace. Remote hiring doesn’t fundamentally change this process, but it does raise the stakes on getting it right, since a remote employer may have far less organic familiarity with an applicant’s location history than a local employer interviewing candidates from the same regional area might have.
Contractors and Gig Workers: A Separate Consideration
Remote work has also driven significant growth in contractor and gig-based engagement rather than traditional employment. Background check obligations can still apply when screening contractors, if a third-party consumer reporting agency is used and the check is for a covered
