Does 7-Eleven hire people with felonies?

What 7-Eleven has said

7-Eleven, Inc. runs some stores itself, and many others are owned and operated by independent franchisees. Every job posting we opened on its careers site, in states with and without local fair-chance laws and in Canada, links to the same employment notice. That notice says that under the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and any other applicable law, 7-Eleven, Inc. will consider qualified applicants who have arrest and conviction records. Its description of the hiring steps (no criminal-history question or background check until a conditional offer, then a chance to explain a job-related conviction) is written under the California Fair Chance Act, and the notice doesn't say those steps apply in other states. 7-Eleven isn't on the Second Chance Business Coalition member list, and we found no second-chance hiring program, drug-testing policy or named screening vendor. Its applicant privacy notice does not cover franchisee-owned stores.

• Fair-chance statement in a job posting

  Every 7-Eleven job posting we opened links, at the top of the page, to an employment-information notice. Its first paragraph is written under the California Fair Chance Act: it says applicants don't have to disclose criminal history or take part in a background check until a conditional offer, and that if the company is concerned about a job-related conviction after the check, the applicant can explain, offer mitigating evidence or challenge the report. The notice doesn't say that process applies outside California. We saw the same notice on store crew postings in Alabama, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, on manager postings in Texas, Ohio and Virginia, on driver postings in Oklahoma and Texas, and on a store posting in Ontario, Canada, so it is site-wide wording rather than a notice shown only where a local law requires it. Franchisee stores may follow their own practices.¹

• Fair-chance statement in a job posting

  The same notice says 7-Eleven will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records under the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and any other applicable law, and consistent with the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring.²

Does 7-Eleven do background checks?

7-Eleven hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. 7-Eleven's postings describe a background check only in the California Fair Chance Act paragraph of the employment notice linked from every posting, which says criminal history comes up after a conditional offer; the notice doesn't say how other states are handled. 7-Eleven's applicant privacy notice (updated Sept. 3, 2024) lists information in background or credit screenings among the personal information it processes, without saying which jobs are screened, when, by whom or for what. The notice states it does not apply to franchisees, so we can't say how franchisee-owned stores screen applicants.^1,3

• How long a background check takes

Does 7-Eleven drug test?

7-Eleven hasn't published a drug testing policy. None of the 7-Eleven postings we read (store crew, store manager trainee, box-truck delivery driver and petroleum transport driver) mention a drug test, and we found no 7-Eleven page on pre-employment testing. Commercial drivers fall under federal rules (see role notes).

Rules for specific jobs

• Stores owned by franchisees vs. stores run by 7-Eleven, Inc.

  7-Eleven's applicant privacy notice says many stores are owned and operated by independent franchisees and that the notice does not apply to franchisees. We found no 7-Eleven page describing how franchisees screen applicants, so the careers-site notice above can't be assumed to apply at a franchisee-owned store. The posting should show who the hiring business is; if it doesn't, ask.³

• Petroleum transport drivers (fuel delivery, SWTO, LLC)

  The postings we read (Abilene, TX and Charlotte, NC) say SWTO, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of 7-Eleven and require a Class A CDL with Tanker and HazMat endorsements, and a TWIC card in some listed states. Those postings don't describe background checks or drug tests.⁴

• Commercial drivers in DOT-regulated jobs (federal rule)

  (federal rule) A negative pre-employment drug test is required before a CDL driver first performs safety-sensitive work for an employer.⁵

• Delivery driver (box truck)

  One posting (Overnight Delivery Driver, Oklahoma City, OK) asks for a driver's license and a motor vehicle record plus a year or more of box-truck delivery experience. It doesn't mention a criminal check or drug test.⁶

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^13,14,15
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^13,14
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^13,16
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^17,18
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^17,19

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^13,16,20
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.²¹
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^22,23

See whether you can clear your record in your state