Fingerprinting in Massachusetts Explained: SAFIS, FBI Checks, Live Scan and FD-258 Cards

Fingerprinting in Massachusetts: five routes, and the letter decides

People call us asking “where do I get fingerprinted in Massachusetts” as if there were one answer. There isn’t. A teacher in Lowell, a nurse moving to Florida, a couple adopting from abroad and a man renewing his License to Carry are all “getting fingerprinted”, and all four of them have to go to a different place. The prints themselves are the same ten fingers. What differs is the system the prints have to enter, and each system only accepts submissions from certain sources.

So before you look for a fingerprinting office, read the paperwork from whoever wants the prints. Certain words give it away.

• “SAFIS”, “provider ID”, “state fingerprinting” or a childcare licensing reference means the state program and its vendor.
• “License to Carry”, “LTC” or “firearms licensing” means your local police department.
• “Identity History Summary”, “FBI clearance”, “FBI record check” or “channeler” means the FBI route.
• “FD-258”, “fingerprint cards enclosed” or “mail the completed cards to” means ink cards.
• “ORI”, “electronic submission accepted” or “Live Scan” means a private live scan site can transmit for you.

A typical case: a man in Dracut gets two letters in the same week. One is from the school district where he coaches, and it mentions a provider ID and a state fee. The other is from an out-of-state real estate board and includes two blank fingerprint cards. He needs two separate appointments in two different places, and no office in the state can do both. Here’s why, route by route.

SAFIS fingerprinting in Massachusetts: schools, childcare and certain state licenses

SAFIS is the state’s own fingerprint-based background check program. It covers people who work in Massachusetts schools, people who work in licensed childcare and applicants for certain state licenses where the licensing agency has chosen to use it. New school and daycare employees almost always land here, and so do school volunteers where the district requires it.

The mechanics are simple once you see them. Your employer or the licensing agency gives you a provider ID or a service code. You use that code to book with the state’s contracted vendor at one of its locations, and the state sets the fee. The prints go electronically into the state system. The result goes to the agency, not to you.

We don’t quote SAFIS fees here because they’re set by the state and change on the state’s schedule. Use the code from your employer or agency and the fee will be shown when you book.

Here is the part that costs people money. A private fingerprinting office, ours included, cannot enter prints into SAFIS. If you book a Live Scan appointment somewhere because it was closer or cheaper, the prints will be captured perfectly and go nowhere useful, and you’ll end up paying the state vendor anyway. If the word SAFIS or a provider ID appears anywhere in your paperwork, that’s the whole answer. Go to the state vendor.

Firearms licensing: the local police take the prints

Fingerprints for a Massachusetts License to Carry are taken by the local police department that processes the application, as part of the application itself. You don’t get printed elsewhere and bring the prints in. The department takes them when it takes your application.

That means a private office has nothing to offer here, and we say so when people call. Bring what the department’s application checklist asks for and follow its process for scheduling. The only time we get involved with a firearms-related purpose is when a federal body or an out-of-state licensing authority asks for FD-258 cards or an electronic submission with an ORI, which is a different thing from the Massachusetts license.

FBI fingerprinting in Massachusetts: getting an Identity History Summary

The FBI Identity History Summary, which people call an FBI background check or FBI clearance, is a record of arrests and dispositions held by the FBI, or a letter stating there is none. Foreign consulates ask for it for visas and residency, and so do foreign employers, universities and adoption agencies. Some people request it to review their own record before an application. The FBI’s own page on Identity History Summary checks describes the two ways to request one.

The first route is an FBI-approved channeler. A channeler is a private company the FBI has authorized to collect your fingerprints and identifying details and submit them electronically, and the summary comes back to you. Fingerprinting sites like ours work with a channeler. We capture the prints on a certified scanner and the channeler sends them in, and the result usually comes back within days. At our office in Tewksbury that’s $170 all-in, which includes the channeler fee and the government fee, paid online at booking.

The second route is by mail directly to the FBI. You have a technician roll an FD-258 card, then mail it to the FBI with the FBI’s application form and fee. It works, and it’s the route some people prefer for its own reasons, but the response takes weeks rather than days, and if the card is rejected for print quality you start over. The FBI’s page has the current mailing instructions and fee.

1. Confirm the requester wants the FBI summary

   Read the request again. If it says Identity History Summary, FBI clearance or federal criminal record check, this is your route. If it says state background check or SAFIS, it isn’t, and neither is a CORI request. A CORI is a Massachusetts record, not a federal one, and no amount of FBI paperwork substitutes for it.

2. Choose channeler or mail

   Channeler if you need it in days, or if the summary is going abroad and you want the apostille clock to start soon. Mail if you don’t mind weeks and would rather deal with the FBI directly. Most people we see choose the channeler once they hear the timing.

3. Book and pay

   For the channeler route through our office, book at fingerprintboston.com and pay the $170 online. That one payment already includes the channeler fee and the government fee. For the mail route, book an FD-258 card appointment and handle the FBI’s fee yourself when you post it.

4. Bring photo ID to the appointment

   A valid, unexpired government photo ID in the same name you used at booking. Prints are captured on the scanner and graded on screen. Any finger that falls short gets re-rolled. The appointment takes about 15 minutes.

5. Receive the summary

   Through the channeler the summary usually arrives within days. It comes to you, and you decide who sees it. By mail, count on weeks. Either way, read it as soon as it arrives and check that your identifying details are correct.

6. Apostille it if it’s going abroad

   A foreign government will usually want the summary authenticated. Because it’s a federal document, that apostille comes from the U.S. Department of State, not from Massachusetts. The section on apostilles below has the fee and the timeline.

The full sequence for foreign use, including what the consulate will and won’t accept, is in our guide to apostilling an FBI background check in Massachusetts.

FD-258 vs Live Scan: what the difference is and who wants which

These two get confused constantly, partly because a Live Scan machine can produce the same rolled and flat impressions that an FD-258 card holds. The difference isn’t the prints. It’s the container and the delivery.

An FD-258 is the federal applicant fingerprint card, a stiff paper form with printed boxes for ten rolled impressions and two sets of flat impressions, plus fields for your name, date of birth, height, weight, eye color, hair color, place of birth and citizenship. A technician rolls each finger in ink and checks the impression before moving to the next. When it’s done, the card goes home with you and you mail it to the agency, or the agency’s vendor, at the address in your instructions. Some agencies send you cards with their ORI and return address pre-printed and won’t accept a generic card. Others let you use any FD-258.

Live Scan captures the same impressions electronically. You roll each finger across the glass of a certified scanner while the software grades each impression on screen. Anything weak gets re-rolled while you’re still sitting there. The file is then transmitted, usually the same day, to the agency whose ORI number you supplied. You never touch a card, and the agency has the record before you’re back in the car.

Which one you get is not a preference. Live Scan only works if the receiving agency accepts electronic submissions from private sites and has given you an ORI. Many Massachusetts employers and some agencies do. Most out-of-state licensing boards still want the card, and so do FINRA firms, several federal agencies and foreign governments. At our office Live Scan is $65 flat, and FD-258 cards are $49.95 for the first card and $25 for each additional card rolled in the same visit.

The trade-off is real. Live Scan is faster, and rejections for image quality are rare because the grading happens in front of you. Cards are universal, but if a roll is a little smeared you won’t find out until the board writes back weeks later. That’s why a good technician checks each ink impression before moving on, and why you should moisturize dry hands the night before either kind of appointment.

Where to get fingerprinted in Massachusetts: the comparison table

One row deserves a note of caution. Healthcare licensing sits in more than one row depending on the license and the state. A Massachusetts license that the board has put on SAFIS goes to the state vendor, while an out-of-state board almost always wants cards. A hospital’s own credentialing check may accept Live Scan with the hospital’s ORI. Read the specific letter, not the general category.

Why fingerprints get rejected, and how a technician prevents it

Every route above has a rejection path. Any of these systems can bounce a submission and ask for new prints, and the reasons are boring and repetitive. Here is what causes it and what a careful technician does about each one.

• Low image quality. Usually a smeared roll or a finger lifted early. On a scanner the software grades each impression and the technician re-rolls on the spot. On ink cards the technician checks each box under good light before moving on and re-does a poor one on a fresh card rather than hoping.
• Worn or dry ridges. Years of manual work and dry winter air both flatten ridge detail. A technician slows down and adjusts the pressure. If a finger truly won’t capture, it gets recorded as such the way the agency’s process allows, instead of forcing a bad image through.
• Wrong card or wrong form. A board that issued pre-printed cards will reject a generic FD-258. A technician asks whether the agency sent cards before rolling anything.
• Missing ORI. A Live Scan submission without the agency’s ORI has no destination. A technician won’t start a Live Scan without one, which is annoying in the moment and saves the appointment.
• Name and detail mismatches. The card has to match the ID and the booking. A middle initial present on one and missing on another is enough. A technician compares all three before the first roll.
• Blank demographic boxes. Cards with an empty height or place-of-birth box come back. The technician fills them in with you, not after you leave.

If you’re the one being printed, your job is smaller: moisturize the night before, wash with plain soap the morning of, skip heavy lotion right before, and bring your instruction letter so the technician can see exactly what the agency wants.

When you need an apostille after the fingerprinting

A U.S. employer or board reads your fingerprint results as they are. A foreign government usually won’t. If your FBI Identity History Summary is going to a consulate, a foreign employer, a foreign university or an immigration office abroad, it will almost always need an apostille first, and here the federal-versus-state distinction bites.

Massachusetts documents, such as a birth certificate from a town clerk or a notarized affidavit, are apostilled by the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Commissions Section in Boston for a $6 state fee. An FBI summary is a federal document, so Massachusetts can’t touch it. It goes to the U.S. Department of State Office of Authentications, where the fee is $20 per document and the typical timeline is 4 to 8 weeks. We coordinate federal apostilles through our partner apostilledepot.com, with a written quote before anything is sent.

The destination country decides whether an apostille is enough. Members of the Hague Apostille Convention of 1961, and there are well over 120 of them, accept the apostille as the final step. China joined on 7 November 2023 and Canada on 11 January 2024, so both now take apostilles. Countries outside the convention, including Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam, need consular legalization instead, which adds an embassy step. The Hague Conference status table is the authoritative list, and our guide to documents for China and non-Hague countries covers the legalization path.

If your packet also includes Massachusetts documents, those take the state route on their own timeline, standard 5 to 10 business days through our courier, with our Massachusetts apostille service handling notarization, submission and return. The difference between the two steps is explained plainly in notarization vs apostille in Massachusetts. Start the FBI check first, because its 4 to 8 week federal apostille is the long pole in almost every foreign packet.

Fingerprinting in Tewksbury and Lowell: where our office fits

Our fingerprinting service operates as Fingerprint Boston out of the Tewksbury Notary office at 1215 Main St, Unit 115, Tewksbury, on Route 38 about 3 miles from downtown Lowell and close to the I-495 and I-93 interchanges. Same owner and same desk. The phone is 978-424-4629 for both. Fingerprint Boston is a private fingerprinting service, not a government agency.

We handle three of the five routes. FBI Identity History Summary checks through an FBI-approved channeler are $170 all-in. Live Scan for agencies that accept electronic submission with an ORI is $65. FD-258 ink cards are $49.95 for the first card and $25 for each additional card rolled in the same visit.

Prints are captured on an FBI-certified Thales DactyScan84c and graded on screen. Appointments run about 15 minutes, and the office is open Monday to Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM, by appointment only. Everything you need to book is on the fingerprinting services page for Tewksbury and Lowell.

We don’t handle the other two routes, and we’d rather say it here than after you’ve driven over. SAFIS prints for school, childcare and state license checks go to the state’s vendor with the code from your employer. License to Carry prints are taken by your local police department. If that’s what your letter says, we can’t help with the prints, though we can still notarize the forms that go with the application.

For Lowell residents, we’re the closest private option for FBI checks and cards, about ten to fifteen minutes from UMass Lowell, the Acre or Pawtucketville down Route 38. The FBI background check page for Lowell has directions and timing, and the Lowell notary page covers mobile visits if you can’t come to Tewksbury. Employers screening a group can book mobile fingerprinting at a $295 base travel fee plus the per-person rate, quoted in writing, and pair it with CORI form notarization in the same visit.

Questions people ask about fingerprinting in Massachusetts