Fingerprinting Services in Tewksbury and Lowell, Massachusetts

Which fingerprinting service do I need in Tewksbury, MA?

The honest answer is that your agency decides, not us. Any board or employer that asks for fingerprints has already picked a method and put it in the instructions. A private fingerprinting office can’t override that. What we can do is read the instructions with you and match them to the right service. The table below covers the purposes we see most often.

A typical case: a nurse in Dracut has accepted a travel contract in another state. The board’s packet says “submit two FD-258 cards” and includes the cards with the board’s address pre-printed. That’s a card appointment, $49.95 for the first and $25 for the second, and she mails them herself. Her colleague applying to a hospital across the New Hampshire line gets an email with an ORI number and the words “electronic submission accepted”. That’s Live Scan at $65, and the hospital has the record the same afternoon.

If the instructions say “SAFIS”, “state provider ID” or “Massachusetts school fingerprinting”, stop here and read the section below on what we can’t do. If they say “LTC” or “License to Carry”, your local police department takes those prints.

How a fingerprinting appointment in Tewksbury works

Most people are back in the car in about 15 minutes. Here is what happens between booking and the prints leaving the building.

1. Book at fingerprintboston.com or call 978-424-4629

   Pick the service that matches your instructions: FBI background check, Live Scan or FD-258 cards. The FBI check is paid online at fingerprintboston.com when you book, so the $170 is settled before you arrive. That figure already includes the channeler fee and the government fee. Weekday slots run 10 AM to 5 PM.

2. Gather your ID and your agency’s paperwork

   Bring a valid government photo ID. For Live Scan, bring the ORI number or service code from your agency, because without it there is nowhere to send the prints. For FD-258 cards, bring the card if your agency mailed one. Bring the instruction letter too. It answers half the questions before we ask them.

3. Check in at 1215 Main St, Unit 115

   We’re on Route 38 in Tewksbury, about 3 miles from downtown Lowell, in the same office as the notary desk. We check your ID against the name on your booking and on any card or form, down to the middle initial, and enter your demographic details with you.

4. Prints captured and graded on screen

   For FBI checks and Live Scan, each finger is rolled and pressed on the FBI-certified Thales DactyScan84c. The software grades each impression while you sit there. A weak roll gets redone on the spot instead of turning up in a rejection letter three weeks later. For ink cards we roll each finger by hand and check every impression before moving to the next.

5. Submission

   FBI checks go electronically through the FBI-approved channeler, and your Identity History Summary usually comes back within days. Live Scan prints are transmitted the same day to the agency whose ORI is on your paperwork. FD-258 cards go home with you, and you mail them where your board says to.

6. Follow up if you need more

   If your FBI check is headed abroad, we can start the federal apostille. If your agency also wants a notarized affidavit or a CORI acknowledgment signed, we can do that in the same chair for $45 per notarial act.

Live scan fingerprinting in Massachusetts: the scanner we use

We capture prints on a Thales DactyScan84c, an FBI-certified live scan device. Rather than ink, the scanner reads the ridges optically as you roll each finger across the glass. The software grades each impression on screen and flags the ones an agency would reject.

That matters more than it sounds. The most common reason a fingerprint submission comes back rejected is image quality, usually a smeared roll or a finger pressed too hard, and sometimes ridges worn flat from years of manual work. With ink cards you find that out weeks later when the agency writes back. With live scan grading we see it in real time and re-roll while you’re sitting there. You leave knowing the prints met the standard, not hoping they did.

The same scanner drives both the FBI background check and the Live Scan service. The difference is where the prints go. An FBI check goes through the channeler to the FBI and the results come to you. Live Scan goes to the agency whose ORI you gave us, and you never see the result. The agency does.

People with very dry hands or worn ridges sometimes struggle on any scanner. We’ll take extra time. If your prints still won’t grade after several attempts, we’ll tell you plainly and talk through what your agency accepts in that situation, rather than sending something we know will bounce.

What we can’t do: SAFIS, firearms licensing and agency rules

Fingerprint Boston is a private fingerprinting service, not a government agency. That sentence decides a lot of what follows.

Massachusetts school employees, childcare workers and applicants for certain state licenses are fingerprinted through the state’s SAFIS program. Those prints go through the state’s contracted vendor at its own locations, and the state sets the fees. Your employer or licensing agency gives you a provider ID or service code for that system. We cannot accept that code, and prints taken here won’t reach a SAFIS check. If your paperwork mentions SAFIS or a state provider code, use it with the state vendor.

Firearms licensing is similar. Fingerprints for a Massachusetts License to Carry are taken by the local police department that processes the application, as part of that application. We don’t take those prints.

Two more limits. We can’t look up your ORI or tell you what your agency will accept, because we’re not the agency. And we have no view into your results, and no way to speed them up. For an FBI check the summary comes to you. For Live Scan the record goes to the agency.

Our longer guide to fingerprinting in Massachusetts, covering SAFIS, FBI checks, Live Scan and FD-258 cards, walks through each route in more detail.

Mobile fingerprinting for employers in Lowell and the Merrimack Valley

If you have a group to print, we come to you. Mobile fingerprinting is built for employers and agencies that need to fingerprint several people at once: a home-care agency onboarding a class of aides, a security firm licensing new guards, a bank branch processing FINRA cards for a new team, a youth program screening volunteers through an out-of-state vendor.

Pricing is a $295 base travel fee plus the per-person rate for whichever service your people need. Zone and traffic surcharges depend on where you are and when, so we quote the whole job in writing before we book it. There is no guessing at the invoice.

We bring the scanner and the paperwork. You find us a table near an outlet. Each person still needs photo ID and the same ORI or agency code they would need at the office. Say a home-care agency near Lowell General Hospital has twelve new aides starting Monday, and its out-of-state parent company wants FD-258 cards for each of them. We set up in the break room at 8 AM and the cards are rolled before the first shift briefing.

Employers who also onboard with Form I-9 sometimes ask us to act as the authorized representative for I-9 verification on the same visit, and the notary desk handles CORI acknowledgment forms as well. Ask when you request the quote. We serve Andover, Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut, Wilmington and the rest of the Merrimack Valley, plus Metro Boston within 40 miles of the office.

Fingerprinting near Lowell: getting to 1215 Main St

Lowell doesn’t have us inside its city line, but it nearly does. The office sits on Route 38 in Tewksbury about 3 miles from downtown Lowell, close to the Lowell line. From downtown, take Rogers Street (Route 38) south, and it becomes Main Street as you cross into Tewksbury. Unit 115 is at 1215 Main St, with parking at the building. From the Lowell Connector or Route 3 it’s a similar run, and we’re a few minutes from the I-495 and I-93 interchanges for anyone coming up from Wilmington or across from Andover on Route 133.

From UMass Lowell, the Acre or Pawtucketville, plan on roughly ten to fifteen minutes in normal traffic. Lowell General Hospital’s main campus and Centralville are about the same. Chelmsford Center, Billerica, Dracut and Wilmington are usually inside twenty minutes. If you’re coming from the Gallagher Terminal on the commuter rail, it’s a short ride down Route 38.

For people who work in Lowell, the 10 AM to 5 PM weekday window means a lunch-hour appointment works: 15 minutes in the chair plus the drive each way. Book the slot and bring your ID with your ORI or card. You’re back at your desk inside the hour.

• Lowell
• Chelmsford
• Billerica
• Andover

Fingerprinting, notarization and apostille in one visit

The reason fingerprinting lives in a notary office is that the paperwork travels together. An FBI check bound for a foreign government almost always needs an apostille afterwards. Adoption dossiers need prints and then a stack of notarized affidavits, and an immigration packet usually pairs a background check with a sworn statement. Out-of-state license applications often want FD-258 cards plus a notarized verification form. One appointment saves you the second trip.

Notarization at the desk is $45 per notarial act. The Massachusetts apostille service covers state documents through the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Commissions Section at One Ashburton Place in Boston, where the state fee is $6 per apostille. Our full-service package runs $95 to $175 per document with a written quote first, and standard turnaround through our courier is 5 to 10 business days.

FBI checks are different because they’re federal. The apostille is issued by the U.S. Department of State Office of Authentications, the fee is $20 per document and the typical timeline is 4 to 8 weeks. We coordinate those through our partner apostilledepot.com. The guide to apostilling an FBI background check in Massachusetts lays out the sequence and the timing.

A typical case: a couple in Chelmsford is adopting from abroad. Their agency wants FBI Identity History Summaries for both of them, apostilled, plus a notarized home-study affidavit and a notarized financial statement. We take both sets of prints in one 30-minute block and notarize the affidavits while the FBI submissions are queued. When the summaries arrive, the federal apostille starts. The international adoption notarization guide covers the dossier side.

Fingerprinting services pricing in Tewksbury, MA

Prices are flat and published. The FBI check has no separate government fee added at the desk, because it’s built into the $170. Mobile work is the one thing that varies. It depends on distance and headcount, and we quote it in writing.

Notary pricing, including mobile zones for Lowell, Andover and Boston, is on the notary pricing page. Fingerprinting appointments are booked, and FBI checks paid, at fingerprintboston.com.

Mistakes that get fingerprints rejected

Agencies reject fingerprint submissions for a short list of reasons, and nearly all of them are preventable at the desk. These are the ones we see.

• Smudged or partial rolls. The finger slid, or it was rolled nail-to-nail too fast. On the scanner this shows up as a low grade and we redo it. On an ink card it shows up as a rejection letter a few weeks later, which is why we check every impression before you leave.
• The wrong card. Some boards issue their own pre-printed cards with the agency’s ORI and address already filled in and won’t accept a generic FD-258. If your board mailed you cards, bring them.
• Missing or wrong ORI. A Live Scan submission with no ORI has no destination. One with the wrong ORI goes to the wrong agency and you never hear back. Copy it from your instruction letter exactly.
• Name mismatch. The name on the card has to match your booking and your ID. A missing middle name, or a maiden name on one document and a married name on another, can bounce a submission.
• Blank demographic fields. Ink cards ask for height, weight, eye color, hair color, place of birth and citizenship. Boards reject cards with empty boxes. We fill them in with you at the desk, so know your answers.
• Dry or cracked fingertips. Very dry skin rolls poorly. Moisturize the night before and the morning of, then wash your hands with plain soap before the appointment. Skip heavy lotion right before you arrive, which does the opposite.
• Old cards and old instructions. If the packet is more than a year old, check with the board that the method and the mailing address are still current before you book.

Questions people ask about fingerprinting services in Tewksbury and Lowell