Guilford County Criminal Records Check

Choose the certification and geographic scope first

For a certified Guilford County criminal-record search, request the Clerk of Superior Court’s name-based service on Form AOC-CR-314 and pay $25. It covers Guilford County court records only. Certification authenticates that county search; it does not turn it into a statewide report or a fingerprint identification.

Ask the organization receiving the result whether it requires a certified county search, a statewide review or a copy of a particular disposition. Those are different deliverables. If several counties are specified, one Guilford certificate does not cover the others, even if you can see statewide information on a courthouse terminal.

Complete the county form and choose a payment route

Enter Guilford as the county and list every name by which the subject may be known. Select criminal records, infraction records, or both; add the requester’s name, address and signature. The form explains that infractions are noncriminal violations and that their electronic records are purged five years after final disposition. Do not label an infraction result a criminal conviction.

Print the completed form and submit it with the $25 fee. By mail, the Judicial Branch accepts a money order or certified check and excludes personal checks. In person, it lists credit card, cash, money order or certified check. Before mailing, confirm the payee and the office’s result-return instructions so the clerk can deliver the certificate in the form you need.

Use the correct Guilford clerk address

Both courthouse pages publish clerk public hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, with a 12:45–1:45 p.m. closure and Judicial Branch holidays excluded. Call the chosen office to confirm routing for your search or existing case, processing expectations and how the result will be returned. Do not confuse a physical address with the published post-office-box mailing address.

Use courthouse terminals for non-certified checks

At a clerk’s public-access computer in any North Carolina courthouse, you may search, view or email criminal records for yourself or others at no charge, with county or statewide scope. Printing may cost extra, and the result is not certified. This can help locate the exact court and case before you order a specific document.

The Judicial Branch explicitly tells people performing background checks to use the county clerk’s office, not Portal. Portal remains useful for online case information by name, case number and other fields. Public terminals also support case searches by defendant, case number, victim or witness; choosing a broader search field does not change the identity limits of the underlying records.

Check names, exclusions and the actual outcome

AOC-CR-314 warns that records are indexed by name, not other identifying characteristics. A hit can belong to a different person, while a no-hit can miss another name, a sealed record or an arrest warrant not yet returned to the clerk. Juvenile records are confidential and are not included. Compare available identifiers before relying on a possible match.

Read the charge and its disposition separately. The form’s reverse-side code explanations distinguish charged offenses from convictions and different dismissals. Keep the clerk’s search date, stated coverage and certification with the attached result; the form specifies a raised seal on each page for validity. If the outcome is unclear, obtain the actual judgment or dismissal rather than interpreting an abbreviation as a final answer.

Obtain the file or your own statewide history

Paper court files are accessed through the clerk in the county where the case is located. Ask for the particular public order, judgment or disposition using the full case number and document date, and request the copy/certification total. For a police report, ask the investigating law-enforcement agency; purchasing the court’s name search does not buy that separate report.

For your own North Carolina repository record, SBI offers a $14 fingerprint-based Right to Review through its Personal Review page and linked Request for Access form. This is an NC state-only self-review product with an SBI response letter. It is separate from the clerk’s certified county search; confirm the recipient’s requirements rather than presenting one as an interchangeable substitute.