# Getting Your FBI Background Check (if required for visa)



## drexfrance

Some people aren't asked for a background check, but I know of one person who was, and have read of a few other cases. If you want to be prepared in case it's requested, here's an outline of the process I used. If this violates board rules in any way, please let me know and/or delete it.

For a background check, called an Identity History Summary Request or a Rap Sheet, the FBI tries to match your fingerprints with the no doubt millions (billions?) that they have on file, includiing Arlo Guthrie's.  Obviously you hope that they can't. 

You apply on the FBI website. Find the page by searching for FBI "Rap Sheets" or FBI "Identity History Summary Checks." The cost is $18. You can choose to get your results snail-mailed, or download the report from the FBI site, or both.

You have a couple of options for submitting your fingerprints. One is to have your fingerprints taken in ink on a standard fingerprint card. Some police stations and sheriff departments will do this for you, usually for a fee (my local blues wanted $30). You then mail the card to the address given on the FBI website.

Another (possibly faster) option for your fingerprints is electronic submission through some post offices. They charge $50. That's the method I used. 

Before signing up, make sure that a post office reasonably close to you offers fingerprinting. The ones that do tend to be in larger cities and commercial areas. To check post office availability, type the phrase "electronic departmental order CJIS" into your favorite search engine. You should get a webpage with a search button and a zip code blank. 

Warning - because of an apparent website bug, you may have to use a Mozilla browser such as Firefox. This page didn't work with my Android phone browser, or with Chromium on a computer.

Bookmark the page, because you may need to return to it.

On the Rap Sheets website, fill in the form and choose your prints submission method. Once you've paid with a credit card, you should get an email acknowledgement. If you requested electronic prints, it may or may not have a link to a USPS office you can use. Mine didn't. If not, go back to the page you bookmarked above, search, then click the pre-registration link for the post office you want. 

Don't delete any of the emails you get from the FBI. The first one contains a link and a token (PIN) that you'll need to retrieve your results online. There's no other way to get the link and token. If you lose this email, you'll have to start over, and pay again.

A few days after your USPS fingerprinting, you should get another email that says your results are ready. There is no link in the email - you have to use the one from the earlier email. Your results will also be snail-mailed to you if you chose that option. I left the snail-mailed envelope sealed in case the visa folks wanted it that way. So far they haven't asked for the report, though.


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## Bevdeforges

This is the first I've heard of a rap sheet being requested for a visa application, but hey, things are changing all the time in the immigration game. Just a note, though - the various work arounds work only in the US. It's more common for a rap sheet request here in France for someone applying to take French nationality - and it's tricky to find places to have your fingerprints taken. Used to be the Embassy/Consulate did the honors but now they refer you to private companies that handle this for a fee.


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## drexfrance

Bev, thanks! You definitely know your subject, and I'm quite sure that you're correct. Most of the instances I see on this forum are in the Australia section. 

However, I can cite two examples in which France required an FBI background check, though both are somewhat old. 

My own partner is the one I know personally who was asked for this, in 2019. Neither one of us can recall whether the demand came from VFS or from the consulate. Nor can we figure out why she had to provide it when others clearly don't.

You can read another account of such a visa requirement - this one from 2016 - at a webpage you can find by searching for the simultaneous phrases "culture travel" and "how to get a long stay visa for France"

I decided to go ahead and carry out the process so I'd be ready in case either VFS or the Washington consulate requested the background check at the last minute. It wasn't cheap, $68, but skipping the taxi ride to and from downtown Chicago more than paid for it.  

All that said, I'm a long way from an expert on these matters. This is my first visa. The guidance I've gotten from this board has shone several lights on the process, but to some extent I'm still throwing darts at a target in a dark room and hoping for the best.


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## Bevdeforges

The problem can be simply that you're trying to get too far ahead of the process. Immigration rules and regulations change constantly and in France (as in most countries), the agents doing the processing are granted a fairly broad range of "discretion" in what they can ask applicants to provide. 

I discovered this quite by accident, by the way, as the evil troll working at the time in our local mairie was insisting that I had to provide both marriage and divorce certificates from my first marriage in order to fulfill the requirements for getting married as a foreigner in France. I had something that passed as a divorce certificate, but had no idea how to get a marriage certificate from that long-ago marriage - so I lied and said that I couldn't get any sort of certificate because of where the marriage had taken place. But, I pointed out that I probably would NOT have been issued a divorce paper if I had never been married, so they could use that as "proof" of both the marriage and the divorce, right?

Luckily, she bought that argument. But a few years later, I found out that the state where that marriage took place does NOT register marriages anywhere centrally. The only way to get a certified copy of the original marriage license is to visit the courthouse in person and request a copy. I was never about to fly back to a part of the US I hadn't visited in decades to get a single document - so in essence it turns out I wasn't lying when I said the document simply wasn't available. 

It's usually possible to negotiate these matters, if you take a reasonable stance. Another reason why I tell folks not to get certain kinds of documents unless specifically requested. Though delays in receiving the documents from the US or elsewhere can complicate matters.


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## kingalbert4321

I am currently going through the procedure for getting French citizenship. I'm using a relatively new on-line system, currently only available for certain French departments. The website asks a series of questions and then determines which documents are required -- it's very similar to the on-line document simulation tool used by the prefecture.

Since I haven't lived in France continuously for ten years, I have to get a Police History Report from my country, which in my case is the FBI Background Check (the FBI calls it a "Rap Sheet"). 

The following text is from the French government website, as a part of my application.

"Casier judiciaire étranger des pays où vous avez résidé 6 mois et plus au cours des dernières années, ou des pays dont vous avez la nationalité".

I was never asked for this for my VLS-TS, four annual visitor cards, nor my resident card. But citizenship is a whole other ballgame.

I got fingerprinted in Paris and successfully got my FBI report. So I'm good to go. I also got it Apostilled by the U.S. Department of State.


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