The Utah Dealer License Background Check: BCI Fingerprints, the TC-465, and Your Record

Who gets fingerprinted — everyone, not just the signer

The requirement follows ownership, not signatures. If the business is a sole proprietorship, that's you. If it's an LLC with two members, it's both members. Partners, LLP members, and corporate officers are all on the list — every owner named anywhere in the application packet submits their own fingerprint card, their own TC-465, and their own $30 fee, and each receives their own owner license.

This is one of the classic ways an otherwise perfect application gets sent home: every document matches, but one of two partners never got printed. MVED's submission list applies to every owner on the application, and a packet missing one owner's items is an incomplete packet — a wasted trip, even when nothing in it is wrong.

What the $30 actually pays for

The $30 state fee splits into two pieces under UCA §41-3-205.5: $20 for the Western Identification Network (WIN) background check — the check itself — and $10 for the Rapback subscription. Rapback is the part people don't expect: it isn't a second check, it's an ongoing subscription tied to your prints, which is why it's priced separately from the one-time search.

Neither number includes the printing itself. Wherever you get your fingerprints taken charges its own service fee on top of the $30 — so budget the state fee as a floor, per owner, not a total.

The TC-465 — the form that goes with the card

The fingerprint card doesn't travel alone. Form TC-465 is the waiver — the release that lets Utah's Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) run and share your criminal history for the license review. Each owner signs their own. Card, waiver, and fee move together, per person, as a prerequisite of the application packet: MVED expects every owner's fingerprints to already be handled when the TC-301 is submitted.

What if you have a record?

This is the question behind most searches that land on this page, so here is the honest version. The application materials this school works from — MVED's own submission list and the forms — do not publish a list of convictions that automatically disqualify a dealer applicant. What the process does is exactly what this page describes: your fingerprints and signed release go to the BCI, and MVED reviews what comes back as part of your application.

Two practical rules follow. First, ask before you spend. If something in your history worries you, call MVED at 801-297-2600 and ask about your situation before you sign a lease, buy a bond, or pay for anything — a phone call is free, and MVED is the only party whose answer actually decides it. Second, don't hide anything. The background check exists precisely to surface your history; an application that tries to conceal what the fingerprints will show turns a reviewable situation into a credibility problem.

Salespeople are a separate track

Owners aren't the only people who get background-checked. Salespeople you hire license individually on Form TC-303 — $61 for a new license, $31 for a renewal or transfer — and the BCI fingerprint fee is included in that price. It's a separate license from the dealer license and from the owner licenses, so if you plan to hire before opening, count that cost per hire.

When to do it — early, not at the counter

Fingerprints are a prerequisite of the application, not a step inside it. The packet MVED expects — signed TC-301, bond, sign photo, lot photo, fees, owner photos, orientation proof for every owner, sales-tax license, registered business name — assumes each owner's card, TC-465, and fee are already handled. Get every owner printed early, at the same time everyone is scheduled for the 8-hour orientation, and neither item becomes the reason your packet bounces.

Common questions

Fingerprints are one line of a longer checklist: the TC-301 walkthrough covers the whole packet, the cost guide totals every fee per owner, and the full step-by-step is here — including what your lot has to pass before any of the paper matters.