National Police Certificate

A national police certificate will contain the results of a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check application and disclosable court outcomes (if any).

The police clearance check is a collation of police and conviction history information about an individual that has been determined releasable by government agencies.

A national police certificate is provided through accredited agencies. This police check checks an applicant’s name against a national persons of interest database.

Specific industries that commonly require police clearance certificates before new employees can commence work include and are not limited to: Community services & development, healthcare & medical, government & defence, banking & financial services, construction & mining, public transport services, volunteering organisations, etc. The above list is not exhaustive. Overall, the majority of employers with effective hiring procedures incorporate criminal history checks as part of their hiring process.

A National Police Certificate lists disclosable court outcomes released by all Australian police agencies. This includes convictions, sentences, penalties, and pending charges. This includes:

Findings of guilt, good behaviour bonds, community-based orders, and suspended sentences

Traffic infringements (e.g., drink or drug driving, excessive speeding) for which you are convicted.

Findings of non-guilt, incomplete or dropped charges, traffic infringements not involving convictions (e.g., fines, cautions), diversion programs, penalties imposed by institutions or professional bodies, matters prosecuted by authorities other than the police, convictions overseas.

Spent convictions are also not shown on a national police record check depending on what state the convictions occurred in. Generally, a spent conviction is a criminal offence which is older than five years if convicted as a child, or an offence older than ten years in any other case.Convictions which are not eligible to be “spent” include:

Convictions for which a prison sentence of more than six months has been imposed

Convictions for sexual offences

Convictions against companies and other corporate bodies

Convictions prescribed by the regulations.

Results on police clearance certificates have no set expiry date, however the majority of employers do not accept a national police certificate that is older than three months. A police record check is a point-in-time check, meaning that the results only reflect police records on the date they are released by each police agency.

Decision makers in organisations are responsible for determining how long police certificates are to be accepted as 'valid', based on their own risk management strategy and assessments.

The base price for a police clearance certificate is $46.00. The certificate is commonly used for Employment positions, Volunteer positions and a variety of Australian Licensing and Registration schemes.

Applicants can securely pay to obtain a national police certificate online via credit card, debit card or PayPal.

The National Police Certificate is valid Australia wide. When you apply for a national police certificate, in essence you are also applying for the following:

Police Check New South Wales (NSW)
Police Check Victoria (VIC)
Police Check Western Australia (WA)
Police Check Queensland (QLD)
Police Clearance South Australia (SA)
Police Check Tasmania (TAS)
Police Check Northern Territory (NT)
Police Check Australian Capital Territory (ACT)