San Francisco Just Changed the Rules on Background Checks 

If anyone on your payroll works eight hours a week in San Francisco, including from a home office there, the background check laws changed on August 10.

On July 10, 2026 the city updated the Fair Chance Ordinance (FCO), and the changes took effect August 10. Two things are new: a group of criminal records employers can never consider, and tighter deadlines for turning someone down over a record.

Who Does this apply to?

The FCO applies if your business is located in San Francisco or does business there, and you have five or more employees anywhere in the world, including owners.  If that’s you, it covers any position where the person works at least eight hours a week in San Francisco. That includes part-time, seasonal, temporary, contract, and commission roles, plus workers placed through a staffing agency.

What matters is where the work happens, not where the person lives. Someone living in Oakland who reports to your San Francisco office is covered. Someone living in San Francisco who drives to a San Mateo worksite is not.

This city law is separate from the California Fair Chance Act. If you hire in San Francisco, you follow both, and the city rules are stricter. They also protect current employees, not just applicants.

The four new off-limits records

Each covers an out-of-state conviction or unresolved arrest for something legal in California:

  • Abortion-related healthcare. Getting, giving, or helping with care to end a pregnancy.
  • Pregnancy loss. A person’s own miscarriage or stillbirth, or the medical care around it.
  • Gender-affirming care. Hormone therapy, surgery, name or gender marker changes. Also using a restroom or playing on a sports team matching a person’s gender identity.
  • Drag performance. Public performances playing up exaggerated femininity or masculinity.

San Francisco pointed to state laws passed since Dobbs. As of May 2026, thirteen states had criminalized abortion care and twenty-seven had limited gender-affirming care, most with penalties attached.

This isn’t just for doctors

Most of these definitions cover seeking, performing, providing, receiving, or facilitating the care. That reaches four groups: the patient, the provider, anyone who helped, and advocates. “Facilitating” is the widest. It covers the friend who drove someone across a state line, the relative who paid for the trip, or a parent who arranged care for a transgender teenager.

Two categories aren’t medical at all. Drag covers performers. Gender-affirming care includes restroom and sports-team convictions, which are everyday situations.

The older rules still apply

You still cannot consider arrests that never led to conviction, diversion programs, dismissed or expunged convictions, juvenile records, infractions, conduct since made legal, or convictions more than seven years old. That seven-year limit has an exception for positions supervising or serving minors, seniors, or dependent adults. 

The new deadlines

Before turning someone down over a record, you must send a pre-adverse action notice naming the specific records and including a copy of the report. The person then has seven days to respond with corrections or evidence of rehabilitation.

Three things are new:

  1. If they respond in time, confirm receipt within 14 days.
  2. Pause your decision for a reasonable period and reconsider it.
  3. If they reasonably show the decision rests only on a record that isn’t job-related, withdraw it.

Penalties also went up, both for city enforcement complaints and lawsuits. Separately, San Francisco job postings must state that qualified applicants with records will be considered, and the official FCO notice must be posted where employees can see it. Check that you have the current version.

What to do this month

Call your background check company. Employers skip this step most often, and it’s your strongest protection. The safest outcome is never receiving these records. Your screening company should filter out-of-state records tied to reproductive care, pregnancy loss, gender-affirming care, and drag performance before the report reaches you. If they can’t explain how they handle San Francisco, that’s worth a conversation.

Review your forms. Check applications for questions you can no longer ask, and check offer letters and adverse action notices against the new deadlines.

Figure out who’s covered. Two lists: everyone assigned to a San Francisco worksite, and any remote worker whose home work address is there. Confirm your staffing partners and franchisees are doing the same.

Train whoever decides. A clean report doesn’t help if a hiring manager finds the information elsewhere. Make sure your team knows these categories are out of bounds, and that the rule isn’t limited to medical professionals.

Remember this stacks. San Francisco sits on top of the California Fair Chance Act and the federal FCRA. Los Angeles, LA County, and San Diego County each have their own rules. Multi-state franchise systems should treat this as an ongoing compliance map, not a one-city fix.

Sure Check Background Screening is a woman-owned, FCRA-compliant consumer reporting agency serving franchise networks in senior care, childcare, home services, and staffing. For a review of how your screening package handles San Francisco and other fair chance rules, reach out at maggie@surecheckbackground.com.

This post is for information only and is not legal advice. Talk to an employment lawyer about your specific situation.

 

Sources: Duane Morris LLP; Littler Mendelson ASAP (July 27, 2026); Reed Smith Employment Law Watch; Morgan Lewis; CDF Labor Law LLP; Weintraub Tobin.