Does Bank of America hire people with felonies?

What Bank of America has said

Bank of America has publicly committed to second-chance hiring through the Second Chance Business Coalition: it is listed as a member and was named in the coalition's April 2021 launch release. We found no Bank of America program or policy statement on hiring people with records on pages we could open. Its applicant acknowledgment form says employment is contingent on a satisfactory background check, that applicants agree to fingerprinting when requested or required by law and to drug screening before or during employment when requested or legally required, and that federal law restricts employing people with certain convictions for dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering. One California posting we read says laws restrict hiring people with certain criminal history for the position and names the FDIC.

• Second Chance Business Coalition member

  Listed as a member of the Second Chance Business Coalition.¹

• Founding member of the Second Chance Business Coalition

  Named in the coalition's April 26, 2021 launch release as one of the companies that had already joined.²

• Statement in a job posting

  One Bank of America posting we read (Client Services Representative II, Glendale, California) says that laws or regulations restrict or prohibit hiring people with certain specified criminal history for the position and lists the FDIC. We didn't see that sentence in the Gainesville, Florida relationship banker posting we read. Both postings link the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, so that link is site-wide boilerplate rather than a California-only notice.³

Does Bank of America do background checks?

Bank of America runs background checks. Bank of America's applicant acknowledgment form (Terms and Conditions of Employment, July 2025) says an applicant's employment is contingent on a satisfactory background check that meets the bank's obligations as an FDIC-insured institution, that the applicant agrees to be fingerprinted for a criminal background check when requested or required by law, and that the bank may request an investigative consumer report that may include criminal record and character information, and may check employment history. It also includes notices for some places, such as San Francisco's rules on asking about arrest and conviction records and a Massachusetts rule letting applicants with expunged records answer that they have none. The form doesn't say when in the process the check happens, who runs it or how far back it looks.^3,4

• Criminal history

• How long a background check takes

Does Bank of America drug test?

Bank of America hasn't published a drug testing policy. Bank of America's applicant acknowledgment form says the applicant agrees to illegal-drug screening before or during employment if the bank requests it or the law requires it, and that a positive result for illegal drugs or controlled substances makes the person ineligible at that time. It doesn't say which jobs, if any, are tested before hire, and the postings we read mention only the bank's drug-free workplace policy.⁴

Rules for specific jobs

• Jobs at FDIC-insured banks (federal rule)

  (federal rule) Under Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1829), a person convicted of a crime involving dishonesty or breach of trust or money laundering, or who agreed to a pretrial diversion program for one, can't work for an FDIC-insured bank without the FDIC's prior written consent. The statute says the bar does not apply to an offense if 7 or more years have passed since the offense, or 5 or more years since release from incarceration for it; if the person was 21 or younger at the time and more than 30 months have passed since sentencing; if the conviction was expunged or sealed under an order that meant to destroy or seal it; or if the offense is a minor one the FDIC has exempted by rule. Those time exceptions don't apply to certain listed offenses (including some bank fraud, embezzlement, mail and wire fraud affecting financial institutions, and money laundering offenses), which carry a minimum 10-year bar before the FDIC may consent. This is a federal rule that applies to insured banks, not a company policy.⁵

• Mortgage loan originators at any lender (federal rule)

  (federal rule) Federal lending rules (12 CFR 1026.36) require a loan originator organization to determine before an individual acts as a loan originator that the individual has not been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a felony in the preceding seven years, or a felony involving fraud, dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering at any time. Expunged and pardoned convictions don't count, and a conviction doesn't disqualify the person if the employer has the FDIC (or other regulator's) Section 19 consent to employ them.⁶

• All Bank of America employees

  Bank of America's applicant acknowledgment form says federal law requires all bank employees to be bonded and restricts employing people convicted of crimes involving dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering, including people who entered a pretrial diversion program, and says other convictions may also limit eligibility where the law allows.⁴

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.^12,13,14
• 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."^12,13
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^12,15
• 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.^16,17
• 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).^16,18

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.^12,15,19
• 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.²⁰
• 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.^21,22

See whether you can clear your record in your state