FBI Identity History Summary: your own rap sheet

FBI Identity History Summary: what the request is

An FBI Identity History Summary is the report people mean when they say FBI background check, rap sheet, or identity history summary check. The FBI produces it for the person whose fingerprints it matches. A restoration application can use that report as a way to see what the FBI has. The Department's required-documents page still asks for state criminal records covering the places a person lived. The summary does not replace those state reports, and it does not replace the judgment in the court file. The court records article is the clerk's list. This page is only the FBI's own copy of a person's history.

The request sits in 28 CFR 16.30 through 16.34. Those sections are the procedure for a person to obtain an Identity History Summary and to ask for a change. They are not section 925(c), and they are not a decision on a firearms disability. Ordering the summary does not start the Department's 30-day application window. It does not stop that window either. The clocks the Department has published are in how long to get gun rights back.

Steps before you pay the FBI

Read the current FBI FAQ before sending money. A fee on a blog can go stale. The steps below follow that FAQ and the Department's questions page as those pages stood for this series. They are a checklist for the errand, not a finding about any arrest.

1. Write down why you want the summary. A common reason is to compare the FBI's list with the courts you already know about, before anyone starts an electronic application.
2. Read the FAQ for the current fee, the payment types, and the waiver contact. As cited in this series, the fee is $18, payable by credit card, money order, or certified check.
3. If the fee cannot be paid, use the waiver path before filing. The FAQ points that request to identity@fbi.gov or (304) 625-5590.
4. Submit the request the way the FAQ describes, including the fingerprints that request uses. Electronic requests are typically processed faster. The FBI processes in the order fingerprints arrive. It does not expedite.
5. When the summary arrives, set it next to the charging papers and the judgment. A name match without a court paper is a question, not a conclusion.
6. If a line looks wrong, follow the dispute path below. Do not cross the line out and treat the edit as official.

Where the summary comes from, and where a correction comes from

The summary comes from the FBI. The underlying arrests were submitted by agencies. That split matters when a line looks wrong. The Department's questions page, updated September 9, 2026, says a person who believes a criminal history record is incorrect must first obtain a copy from the FBI or the state police, identify the errors, and dispute them with the relevant law enforcement agency. Skipping the copy and arguing from memory does not match that sentence.

The FBI FAQ, as this series has already recorded it, splits the correction by who submitted the arrest. Nonfederal arrest data is corrected through the state identification bureau for that state. Federal arrest data is corrected at the request of the submitting agency, or by a federal court order that states expungement. The expungement article stays on what an expungement order has to say. This article stays on how to get the report and where a dispute starts. It does not name any state's bureau, and it does not describe any state's sealing law.

A summary that still lists an arrest after a court says the record was cleared is a known kind of mismatch. The FAQ's correction path is the next errand. The mismatch is not, by itself, proof that the court order failed, and it is not proof that the FBI entry is right. Both papers have to be read. A lawyer can read them against 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(20). This page cannot.

Documents to put in the folder

Keep a copy of the request, the proof of the $18 payment or of the waiver request, the date the fingerprints for that request were taken, and the summary when it arrives. If you challenge a line, keep the challenge, the date the FBI received it, and whatever the state bureau or the submitting agency sends back. Those dates are how you tell the summary's clock from the application's clock.

Also keep the court papers the summary causes you to look up. The summary is a list. The judgment, the charging document, and the paper that shows when the sentence ended are the court file. If the summary names a court you had forgotten, that court clerk is the next stop, not a second copy of the same FBI report.

Timelines the FBI has published

The FAQ does not give a number of days for the summary itself. It says requests are worked in date order after the fingerprints arrive, that electronic requests are typically faster, and that the FBI does not expedite. Planning as if a phone call moves the file is planning against that page.

A challenge is the one place the FAQ states an average. It averages within 45 days of receipt. An average is not a promise that a particular challenge finishes on day 45, and it is not a description of what the FBI will change. The Department has also not published a number of days for a restoration decision. Gathering the summary before starting the electronic application is the Department's own reason to collect papers first: the application window is 30 days after the e-application starts. The summary's wait does not pause those 30 days.

What to ask an attorney

Ask which entries on the summary have to be accounted for in a statement of prohibitions, which entries are arrests without a conviction the federal definition uses, and whether a mismatch with a court order is a correction errand or a legal reading of that order. Bring the summary and the judgments. Do not bring only the worst line or only the best line.

Also ask whether ordering the summary is useful in that record at all. The Department's documents page requires state criminal records for places lived and for other arrests. It does not say the FBI summary is a substitute. Some people order it because the questions page tells them to start there when they think a history is wrong. That is a reason. It is not a requirement this article will invent, and it is not advice that any person must order one before speaking with a lawyer.

What the summary cannot do

It cannot grant relief. It cannot expunge a case. It cannot tell a dealer, an employer, or a lawyer what the law requires. It is a copy of information the FBI holds, produced so the subject can see it and, when a line is wrong, dispute it through the path the FAQ describes. Treating the summary as a certificate of restoration is the mix-up this page is here to stop. The restoration application, if someone files one, is a different submission to the Department of Justice under 18 U.S.C. 925(c). The papers for that submission are listed in how to restore gun rights.

The fingerprint appointment inside the summary request is also easy to mix up with the later appointment. Both involve fingerprints. Only the post-office appointment, after the Department's email and QR code, is the one the Department's fingerprint page accepts for the restoration program. Doing the $18 request does not check that box. Skipping the $18 request does not remove the post-office box. The fingerprints article is that later step.

My Gun Rights Back is the public name of Rights Restore, software from Desk Technologies, Inc.. It can help keep the summary, the challenge papers, and the court file in one place. It does not order the summary from the FBI, it does not submit a restoration application, and it does not decide what a line means. No outcome is guaranteed. The beta page describes that limited role. A lawyer reads the record. This article only points at the public pages that describe the request.