Missouri Background Check Guide · 2025
From a hospital position in St. Louis or Kansas City to a riverboat casino role on the Mississippi, Missouri employers reach for the same source when they want to know your history: the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), which runs the state's official criminal record repository. The good news is that the MSHP makes that record available to you, too, for a small fee.
This guide explains how to run a Missouri self background check, what the report contains, and how Senate Bill 588, the 2018 expungement reform that expanded eligibility dramatically, affects what employers can still see.
Missouri's criminal records cross 114 counties plus the City of St. Louis, with data feeding into the MSHP from circuit courts, sheriffs, and municipal police departments. With that many sources, knowing what made it into your file, and what didn't, is worth the $14 it costs to find out.
Disposition lag is real in Missouri. Cases that were dismissed in 2022 sometimes still appear on the MACHS report as "open" in 2025 because the court clerk's office never closed the loop with the MSHP. A self-check catches these, and the MSHP has a formal dispute process to fix them.
Missouri expungements granted under RSMo 610.140 require a court order that's then transmitted to the MSHP for removal from the state record. The transmission isn't always instantaneous. If you've been granted an expungement, running a self-check 60–90 days later confirms the record is actually gone.
Missouri's gaming industry, healthcare facilities, schools, and licensed professions all run fingerprint-based checks. These pull both state and federal records and disqualifying offenses are spelled out by statute or by board rule. Knowing what's on your record beforehand lets you address concerns proactively rather than reactively.
Landlords in Kansas City, Columbia, Springfield, and the Lake of the Ozarks region routinely pull criminal background reports from commercial screening services. Errors in the underlying state data flow downstream to those reports, and the easiest place to fix them is at the source.
Felony convictions and Class A and B misdemeanor convictions processed in Missouri courts appear on the MACHS report unless expunged. The report shows offense, court of conviction, conviction date, and sentence.
Missouri reports arrests on the MACHS report, including arrests that didn't lead to conviction (with disposition status). Missouri is one of several states where arrest records remain in the criminal history database, though the FCRA still limits how third-party reports can use them for employment.
Active cases that have been filed but not yet resolved show up as "pending" on the MACHS record. If your case was dismissed and the record still says "pending," that's an error you can dispute.
Federal court cases, out-of-state convictions, juvenile records (sealed by default in Missouri), most traffic offenses (except DWI), and civil litigation are not on the MACHS record. A comprehensive personal check usually pulls these from separate sources.
The fastest official option is the Missouri Automated Criminal History Site at machs.mo.gov. Create an account, enter your name and date of birth, pay $14 by credit card (plus a small convenience fee), and receive a PDF report instantly. This is the same source most Missouri employers use for name-based checks.
If you'd rather not use the online portal, submit Form MSHP-167 and a $14 check or money order to the MSHP Criminal Records Section in Jefferson City. Turnaround is 2–3 weeks.
For the most accurate record, and what licensed professions and casino jobs require, schedule a fingerprint appointment through IDEMIA, the MSHP's contracted vendor. The $44 fee covers both state and FBI portions and gets results back to you and any applicable agency in 5–7 business days.
Missouri's free public court record system, Case.net (courts.mo.gov/casenet), lets you search circuit court records statewide. This catches cases that may not yet have made it into the MSHP system and shows full case histories.
For a single report combining Missouri MSHP data with federal courts, multi-state records, and sex offender registries, a professional service is faster than running each source separately. Background-Check.com consolidates all of this in one report.
For nationwide coverage based on fingerprints, request an Identity History Summary from the FBI. Useful if you've lived or been arrested in multiple states.
Effective January 1, 2018, SB 588 was the most significant overhaul of Missouri's expungement law in decades. Key features:
Expungement is petition-based, you file in the court of conviction. There is no automatic Clean Slate system.
Signed in April 2016 by Governor Nixon, this order removed criminal-history questions from initial applications for state executive-branch jobs. It does not extend to private employers statewide, though Kansas City and St. Louis have passed local ordinances doing so.
Arrest records where the case was dismissed, the defendant was acquitted, or no charges were filed within 30 days can be made "closed records," meaning they are not disclosed to private employers (with exceptions for criminal justice agencies, courts, and licensing boards).
Third-party employment background checks in Missouri are governed by the FCRA: written consent required, pre-adverse-action notice required, right to dispute errors, and 7-year cap on non-conviction reporting.
Casino employees in Missouri undergo enhanced fingerprint-based checks through the Gaming Commission, with disqualifying offenses listed by statute. The Commission can also disqualify based on character and fitness factors beyond the strict list.
If you have any conviction older than the SB 588 waiting period, an old arrest you're not sure was closed, or a disposition that's supposed to be recorded but you've never confirmed, yes. The $14 online MACHS check is the cheapest sanity check you can run, and it gives you a real PDF you can hand to a landlord or use to dispute errors.
For a complete personal report combining Missouri MSHP data with federal records, sex offender registries, and out-of-state convictions, run a multi-source check through Background-Check.com.
The fastest official route is the MACHS online portal at machs.mo.gov: $14 + small convenience fee, instant PDF. For deeper coverage, file a fingerprint-based check through IDEMIA ($44), pull case histories from Case.net (free), or use a professional multi-state service.
Missouri has no state cap on how far back convictions can be reported. The federal FCRA caps non-conviction records at 7 years on third-party employment reports. Convictions can be reported indefinitely unless expunged under SB 588.
Records expunged under RSMo 610.140 are removed from the MSHP database and should not appear on FCRA-compliant employer background reports. If you find an expunged record on your own MACHS report, contact the MSHP Criminal Records Section to correct it.
MACHS online: $14 (+ small convenience fee). MACHS mail-in: $14. Fingerprint-based via IDEMIA: $44 (state + FBI). FBI Identity History Summary: $18. Professional comprehensive multi-state checks: $20 to $80.
Yes, when they use a third-party background check company, the federal FCRA requires written authorization. Employers requesting records directly from the MSHP must also generally have your authorization. You always have the right to see any report used in a hiring decision and dispute errors before final action.