Does Subway hire people with felonies?

What Subway has said

Subway says its restaurants are independently owned and operated, and that franchisees are the employers of all restaurant team members and solely responsible for employment in their restaurants, so screening for restaurant jobs is up to each franchisee. We found no Subway statement on hiring people with criminal records, and Subway isn't on the Second Chance Business Coalition member list. For jobs with Subway's corporate group, its privacy statement lists criminal background among the information it may collect from applicants and says it may run criminal and credit background checks as the law permits or requires.

We didn't find a public statement from Subway about hiring people with records: not on its careers site, in its reports, or in its announcements. That doesn't mean it won't hire you. It means there's nothing on the record to point to.

Does Subway do background checks?

Subway hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. For restaurant jobs, Subway says franchisees are the employers and handle all employment matters, and it doesn't publish their screening practices. For corporate jobs, Subway's privacy statement says the information the Subway Group may collect during recruiting includes criminal background, employment history, education and references, and it lists conducting criminal and credit background checks, as permitted or required by law, among the ways it uses personal information; it doesn't say which roles are checked, when a check happens or how records are weighed.^1,2

• How long a background check takes

Does Subway drug test?

Subway hasn't published a drug testing policy. Subway hasn't published a drug-testing policy for corporate jobs, and restaurant hiring is handled by each franchisee.

Rules for specific jobs

• Sandwich Artists, shift leaders and managers at Subway restaurants

  Subway's restaurant careers site asks applicants to acknowledge that they are applying to an independently owned and operated Subway restaurant that is an equal opportunity employer. Ask the restaurant's owner or manager whether they run background checks or drug tests.³

• Corporate jobs with the Subway Group

  Subway's privacy statement says applicants to the Subway Group may be asked for information including criminal background, employment history, education and references, that it may conduct criminal and credit background checks as permitted or required by law, and that the statement doesn't cover data collected for franchisees.²

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.^7,8,9
• 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."^7,8
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^7,10
• 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.^11,12
• 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).^11,13

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.^7,10,14
• 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.¹⁵
• 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.^16,17

See whether you can clear your record in your state