If your background check process predates January, it's out of date
Philadelphia has regulated criminal-record screening since 2011. On 6 January 2026, amendments to the Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Ordinance took effect, and they are substantial enough that a process built to the old rules is now non-compliant.
City Council passed the amendments unanimously in September 2025. Mayor Cherelle Parker signed them on 8 October 2025.
If nobody has reviewed your application form, background-check procedure or adverse-action letters since last year, they predate all of this.
What changed
The misdemeanor lookback is now four years
Previously, employers could consider convictions up to seven years old. The amendments cut that to four years for misdemeanors, measured from the date of conviction or release from incarceration, whichever is later.
Felonies remain at seven years.
So you now have to track two different clocks depending on the offense class, which most background-check workflows were not built to do.
Summary offenses are barred entirely
Employers may no longer consider summary offense convictions at all — the minor infractions typically resolved with a citation or fine. Disorderly conduct, loitering, and similar.
Not shortened. Excluded.
“Incarceration” now has a definition
Because the lookback runs from release, the definition matters. The amendments limit “incarceration” to confinement in a jail or prison. It does not include parole, home confinement, or residence at a treatment facility or residential program.
That definition can move a conviction inside or outside the window, which makes it more consequential than it first appears.
Expunged and sealed records
The existing ban on considering expunged, sealed or exonerated records is reinforced — and there is a new obligation attached. If such a record appears on a background check or a motor vehicle report, you must give the individual an opportunity to submit evidence that it was sealed or expunged.
That is a procedural step, and skipping it is a violation independent of what you eventually decide.
Coverage is wider
The amendments extend the ordinance to a broader range of workers, including contractors, rideshare drivers and gig workers. “Employment process” is also now defined broadly enough to cover not just hiring but promotions, raises and terminations.
If you have been treating this as a hiring rule, it is no longer only a hiring rule.
Notices and anti-retaliation
Provisional rejection notices now have to carry more: a summary of rights, a statement that you will accept evidence of error or rehabilitation, and a list of the specific kinds of rehabilitation evidence you will consider.
Anti-retaliation protections were strengthened, with a presumption that an employer must rebut by a preponderance of the evidence — showing both just cause and that the action would have occurred regardless of the protected activity.
What still applies from before
The foundations have not moved:
- No criminal history inquiry before a conditional offer. Not on the application, not in the interview.
- Individualized assessment before any adverse decision, considering the nature of the offense, its relationship to the role, time elapsed, and evidence of rehabilitation.
- A real opportunity to respond before the decision is final.
What to do
Read your application form. If it has a criminal-history question, remove it. This is the most common violation and the easiest to fix.
Reconfigure your background-check order. Tell your vendor about the four-year misdemeanor window and the summary-offense exclusion. Most vendors can filter at the report level — but only if you ask.
Rewrite the provisional rejection notice. The content requirements changed. A letter that satisfied the old ordinance does not satisfy this one.
Brief whoever makes the call. Hiring managers improvising an “individualized assessment” without knowing what it requires is where the exposure actually lives.
Extend it past hiring. Promotions and terminations are in scope now.
The remote-work wrinkle
The ordinance reaches employers operating in Philadelphia, and that includes hiring remote or hybrid workers who fall within the city’s jurisdiction. If you are headquartered elsewhere and hiring someone who will work in Philadelphia, this applies to you.
That is the kind of obligation that arrives with a single hire and gets noticed eighteen months later — which is the broader pattern we deal with in multi-state compliance.
This is general information, not legal advice. Criminal record screening carries real penalties in Philadelphia and specific situations should be reviewed with employment counsel.