FIRST ADVANTAGE CORP (FA) Business

Item 1. Business.

Our Company

First Advantage Corporation (“First Advantage” or the “Company”) is a global software and data company. We provide comprehensive, end-to-end identity solutions, criminal background screening, credential verifications, drug and health screening, and continuous risk monitoring. Combining AI-powered proprietary technology platforms with proprietary data, primary source data, and third-party data, we help organizations hire with confidence and manage risk across the entire employee lifecycle.

We transform screening data into actionable intelligence—with benchmarking, insights, and continuous monitoring that help organizations make smarter workforce decisions.

With over 80,000 customers worldwide—including approximately two-thirds of the Fortune 100—we deliver fast, comprehensive, and reliable identity verification, screening, and monitoring solutions for employers, their candidates, and their employees. We conduct more than 200 million screens annually across over 200 countries and territories, supported by decades of experience and proprietary databases containing over 1 billion records.

Identity, trust, and the way people work are shifting faster than ever. Organizations face unprecedented challenges: generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) and deepfake enabled identity-fraud, increasing regulatory complexity, borderless, distributed workforces, gig-based employment models, high churn and rapid role-switching, hybrid hiring, and social media risks. In this environment, identity can no longer be verified once; it must be actively understood, verified at multiple points in the employee lifecycle, and intelligently managed. First Advantage is well positioned to be a leader in this transformation, advancing the industry from fragmented, point-in-time checks to continuous, identity and background intelligence across the full employee lifecycle.

Our expertise and resources position us to grow market share by focusing on strategic industries and companies, increasing our share with existing customers, upselling and cross-selling products and solutions, and winning new customers. We engage multiple stakeholders within customer organizations, including Executive Management, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Compliance, Risk, Legal, Safety, and Vendor Management, who rely on our products and solutions.

Our verticalized go-to-market strategy delivers highly relevant products and solutions for targeted industry sectors, enabling us to build a diversified customer portfolio and effectively serve many of the largest, most sophisticated, and fastest-growing companies in the world. We have built a powerful, efficient customer-centric sales model, fueled by frequent customer engagement and deep subject-matter expertise in industry-specific compliance and regulatory requirements, which enables us to create meaningful, scalable products and solutions and drive consistent new business, upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

The combination of our deep market expertise from our sales and support teams with the flexibility of our proprietary technology platforms enables us to deliver industry-relevant, highly specialized solutions to our customers in a scalable manner, driving growth and differentiating us from our competitors. This has allowed us to develop a highly trusted brand and long-standing relationships with our customers, as evidenced by our high customer satisfaction scores, average over 13-year tenure of our top 100 customers, and gross retention rate of approximately 96% as of December 31, 2025.

Our technology is highly configurable, scalable, and extensible, integrating with more than 100 third-party Human Capital Management (“HCM”) software platforms and Applicant Tracking Systems (“ATS”) to provide visibility and input into our customers' human resources processes. Our AI-powered platforms deliver automated process outputs including anomaly detection, analytical insights, and continuous monitoring reports, transforming screening data into actionable insights and benchmarking capabilities. We leverage our proprietary internal databases, which include over 1 billion US criminal, education, and work history records as of December 31, 2025, and an extensive, highly curated network of thousands of automated, integrated primary source and third-party data providers. With approximately 90% of U.S. criminal screens completed in one day, we deliver fast turnaround times without sacrificing quality and compliance.

We remain focused on leveraging our deep industry expertise with advanced technologies to deliver comprehensive identity solutions, while driving exceptional customer value through continuous product innovation. Our roadmap is defined by perpetual evolution: introducing frequent updates and new features that anticipate and respond to customer needs and industry trends. Recent advancements include digital biometric identity verification with liveness detection, synthetic identity and deepfake detection, continuous criminal monitoring, mobile-first AI-enabled candidate experiences, AI-powered credential verifications (SmartHub), continuous driver monitoring (RoadReady), and instant oral drug testing. We combine cutting-edge technology with deep human insight to help organizations navigate an increasingly complex landscape. We are defining the future of identity at work and delivering the data, technology, and innovation that enable organizations to hire with confidence and manage risk at scale.

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Our Market Opportunity

The importance of human capital and the associated risks to brand, reputation, safety, and compliance are ever-increasing in today’s interconnected, fast-paced environment. Along with broader sustainability considerations, these issues have become priorities at the highest executive and oversight levels of our customers worldwide. Key stakeholders, including executive leadership, boards of directors, external auditors, business owners, property managers, educators, volunteer organizations, and franchisors, all face a heightened level of public scrutiny and accountability. Significant technological and societal trends, including fraud and cyber-attacks, sexual harassment, workplace violence, regulatory compliance, and the pervasive influence of social media, are amplifying reputational risk and driving demand for employment background screening, digital identity solutions, and verification services. Our products and solutions are critical tools that companies rely on to support human capital management programs and maintain compliance with evolving regulatory requirements.

We believe several key trends are creating significant growth opportunities and increasing demand for our products and solutions:

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Rise in Identity Fraud: Employers are facing a rapid increase in identity-related fraud, including synthetic identities, altered credentials, and impersonation attempts throughout the hiring and onboarding process. The growth of remote hiring, easy access to forged digital documents, and increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes elevate the risk to employers. These dynamics are driving organizations to adopt more advanced identity verification, biometric authentication, and fraud‑detection technologies. Providers like First Advantage, with scaled identity solutions and integrated verification workflows, are well positioned to help companies mitigate fraud risk, enhance trust in workforce decisions, and safeguard compliance across global hiring environments.

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Heightened Regulatory and Compliance Scrutiny: Businesses today operate under heightened scrutiny and must comply with an expanding and increasingly complex set of global, regional, and industry-specific regulations that vary by geography and use case. Examples include the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), the United Kingdom Bribery Act, as well as a growing number of US state privacy laws. These evolving requirements governing the collection, delivery, and use of background checks are driving companies to implement more comprehensive screening processes and seek partners with the scale, technology, and compliance expertise to meet their needs. Our products and solutions embed compliance into workflows, support global privacy standards, and strengthen corporate governance by enhancing risk management practices.

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Executive-Level Focus on Safety, Compliance and Reputation: Screening, verifications, and compliance have evolved into mission-critical priorities for boards and executive leadership teams as companies seek to mitigate brand, legal, and operational risks associated with workforce decisions. High-profile incidents involving workplace misconduct, fraud, regulatory breaches have resulted in significant reputational harm, litigation, and negative media exposure. These events reinforce the essential role of our solutions in helping companies safeguard their brand, protect stakeholders, and maintain compliance. Increasingly, companies are investing in comprehensive screening, monitoring, and verification programs that address safety and social responsibility concerns while reinforcing trust and accountability across their operations.

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Elevated workforce mobility and voluntary employee churn: Generational and structural shifts have led to voluntary turnover, particularly among younger workers seeking better compensation, career advancement, and cultural alignment. Millennials and Gen-Z now represent a large share of the workforce and tend to exhibit greater job-switching behavior. The continued adoption of remote and hybrid work models reduces geographic constraints, expanding talent pools for employers and lowering switching costs for employees. These dynamics increase the need for fast, global, and efficient screening and identity verification services that providers of scale, like First Advantage, are well positioned to deliver.

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Growth of Contingent and Flexible Workforces: Organizations are increasingly leveraging contingent labor—including freelancers, contractors, and gig workers—to address talent shortages and enhance workforce flexibility. As these individuals often access sensitive data or interact directly with customers, employers face heightened responsibility to rigorously screen, verify, and monitor contingent personnel. Demand for comprehensive solutions continues to rise as companies seek to maintain compliance, mitigate operational and reputational risk, and manage workforce complexity across diverse labor categories. Our integrated capabilities position us to help customers effectively manage and safeguard their contingent and flexible workforces, with solutions designed to meet evolving needs while maintaining compliance and mitigating risk across diverse workforce models.

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Development of International Markets: Background screening penetration remains low in many international geographies, with a significant portion of screens conducted by local providers. At the same time, global workforce trends, including increased cross-border hiring, remote work models, and heightened regulatory requirements, are driving multinational organizations to standardize and elevate human resources policies and compliance practices worldwide. Demand for technology-enabled, high-quality, and fully compliant screening solutions is accelerating as companies seek providers with the scale, expertise, and global reach to deliver consistent results across jurisdictions. These dynamics position First Advantage to capture significant growth opportunities in international markets.

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Advances in Analytics to Increase Value of Data: The rapid growth of accessible, high-quality datasets, combined with advancements in AI and machine learning, is transforming the background screening industry. Companies increasingly seek integrated solutions that deliver insights and actionable analytics to improve hiring decisions and compliance outcomes. Many customers lack the internal resources to develop analytical and visualization tools, increasing the need for providers like First Advantage that offer cutting-edge integrated data analytics capabilities embedded with scalable technology.

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Investment in Enterprise Software: As companies increasingly invest in enterprise software solutions, including next-generation software-as-a-service for HCM, we anticipate a rise in demand for screening, verification, and compliance solutions that can interface with these systems in an automated fashion. Our product suite is designed to provide a seamless applicant and user experience, delivering valuable insights through data analytics.

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Growth in Post-Onboarding Solutions: Companies are expanding their screening programs beyond the traditional “one-and-done” pre-onboarding measures. Our investments in post-onboarding products and solutions, position us to capture share in this growing market, allowing organizations to mitigate ongoing risk effectively.

Our Growth Strategy

We intend to continue to grow our business profitably by pursuing the following strategies:

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Continue to Win New Customers: We are focused on acquiring new customers across diverse industry verticals, particularly those with strong long-term growth prospects, such as e-commerce, essential retail, healthcare, transportation, and home delivery. In addition, we are expanding our reach into financial services and regulated industries that require deeper, more frequent checks, and advanced compliance standards. Our emphasis on Enterprise customers, those with complex global operations and durable growth profiles, continues to drive the highest demand for our solutions. We believe our integrated technology platforms, high-performing Sales and Customer Success teams, operational excellence, and industry-leading reputation, position us to successfully expand our customer base and market share.

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Growth within Our Existing Customer Base through Upselling and Cross-selling: Our customers often begin their relationship with us by implementing a few core products and subsequently expand their usage of our solutions platform over time to build a more comprehensive approach to screening and risk management. We drive growth through upselling as customers extend our products and solutions to new divisions and geographies, increase screening depth, and adopt complementary pre- and post-onboarding offerings, such as continuous monitoring, social media screening, and advanced identity verification solutions. We also cross-sell risk mitigation and compliance solutions, such as hiring tax credits and fleet solutions. Our verticalized Customer Success teams work closely with our customers to develop robust compliance and risk management programs. We believe that the revenue opportunity within our existing customer base remains significant, supported by strong upsell and cross-sell momentum. We will continue to prioritize sales and marketing efforts aimed at increasing product penetration and expanding solution adoption across our existing customer base.

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Continue to Innovate Our Product Offerings: We continue expanding our data-driven solutions and adjacent product capabilities, including investments in criminal and verification data products and identity solutions. Building on these capabilities, we are enhancing our identity product suite to provide verification at every stage of the employee lifecycle— from applicant screening to ongoing workforce monitoring. We are developing automation enabled solutions that extend our capabilities in biometric verification, fraud mitigation, and advanced data analytics, and we will continue to invest significantly in technology to sustain and advance our product leadership.

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Grow Internationally: We are well-positioned to expand our global presence as multinational corporations increasingly seek to standardize and strengthen human resources policies and screening practices globally, while navigating a growing set of local requirements. Most enterprise customers do not currently utilize a single global provider and are actively evaluating opportunities to consolidate screening programs for consistency and efficiency. Our strategy focuses on capturing these opportunities by investing in localized compliance capabilities, multilingual platforms, and regional data partnerships to meet varying regulatory standards. These initiatives, combined with our scalable technology and global expertise, position us to accelerate adoption in international markets and deliver comprehensive risk management solutions worldwide.

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Leverage Proprietary Data: With extensive industry experience, we have developed deep expertise in sourcing data from trusted providers, maintaining extensive historical datasets, and transforming information into actionable insights. We plan to continue investing in the development, enhancement, and acquisition of proprietary data assets to strengthen our core business and create new opportunities. These initiatives enable us to improve the speed and accuracy of our services, drive cost efficiencies, and create differentiated products that deliver greater value to our customers.

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Our Product Suite

First Advantage’s comprehensive product suite enables our customers across industries to perform pre-onboarding screening and post-onboarding monitoring of employees, contractors, contingent workers, and drivers. We generally classify our products and solutions into three categories: pre-onboarding, post-onboarding, and adjacent products, each of which is enabled by our technology, proprietary internal databases, and data analytics capabilities.

Pre-Onboarding

We offer an extensive array of products and solutions that strengthen the applicant evaluation process, support compliance from initial data submission through onboarding, and promote workplace safety. Our technology is flexibly tailored to each customer’s requirements, which could include a wide array of search categories such as Social Security number verification, education and employment verification, federal criminal checks, statewide criminal checks, country criminal checks, sex offender registry checks, and global sanctions checks. Our pre-onboarding products include:

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Criminal Background Checks: Utilizes our proprietary National Criminal Records File database, along with court and other public records, to help identify relevant matching and reportable criminal record histories.

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Drug / Health Screening: Offers various drug screening products, including saliva, urine, hair, and blood testing options, physical exams, and instant oral drug screening products performed by mouth swab collection.

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Identity Checks and Biometric Fraud Mitigation Tools: Includes government ID validation, liveness detection techniques, digital fingerprint collection, and identity and fraud mitigation tools. This suite includes telecom and device verification, identification document verification, facial recognition with biometric matching, Social Security number verification, and live video chat identification proofing.

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Extended Workforce Screening: Enables our customers to efficiently screen large numbers of contingent, contract, and temporary workers across various search types.

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Education / Work History Verification: Verifies work history and education of applicants, leveraging our proprietary Verified! Database and SmartHub technology enabled by AI, internal fulfillment, and relationships with other data providers.

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Driver Records and Compliance: Collection and storage of driver qualification files, as well as drug screening and background checks to assist with compliance with the requirements of the U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”), International Fuel Tax Agreement (“IFTA”), and other regulatory agencies across the entire U.S.

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Healthcare Credentials: Through our extensive Healthcare Exclusions Actions and Licensures (“HEAL”) product, verifies and documents the educational background, training, experience, and other credentials of healthcare employees, contractors, volunteers, and vendors, including identifying exclusions and sanctions by medical boards, Medicaid and Medicare, the Office of Inspector General, and the General Services Administration.

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FBI Channeling: As an approved Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) channeler, handles submissions of fingerprints to the FBI National Criminal Records database and returns Criminal Record Information from the FBI to authorized recipients, including through a secure connection to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) and the Nationwide Multi-state Licensing System (“NMLS”).

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Executive Screening: Provides in-depth investigative reports to confirm various aspects of credentials not typically covered by most background checks, such as civil litigation and bankruptcies, negative media searches, controversies and inconsistencies in business dealings, corporate and regulatory history, and potential conflicts of interest.

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Others: Includes screening products such as global sanctions, professional licenses and credentials verification, and social media checks.

Post-Onboarding

Companies face a heightened responsibility to ensure safety and comply with laws, regulations, and licensing requirements after the initial screening and onboarding of an applicant. To assist with those needs, we provide our customers with continuous monitoring and re-screening solutions that are important tools to help keep their end customers, workforces, and other stakeholders safe, productive, and compliant. Continuous monitoring solutions allow customers to be proactively alerted as soon as relevant information, which may require immediate attention and action, becomes available. Our post-onboarding solutions include:

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Criminal Records Monitoring: Provides background screening reports on an ongoing basis post-onboarding of any reportable criminal records of their employees, contractors, contingent workers, and drivers.

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Motor Vehicle Records: Provides customers with a streamlined process to establish an initial driver file and enroll drivers into the continuous monitoring program, which reports any driver records changes.

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I-9 Verification: Enables our customers to simplify and manage the process of onboarding new hires by streamlining employment eligibility verification through the convenience of digital workflows.

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Healthcare Sanctions: Our HEAL product provides ongoing healthcare-related compliance monitoring, which helps our customers comply with their obligations as employers of doctors, nurses, other employees, and vendors, reporting any changes in the status of required licenses.

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Global Sanctions and Licenses: Continuously monitors more than 2,500 source lists and searches a broad range of individual watchlists and key sanctions sources.

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Social Media: Offers ongoing post-onboarding social media background screening reports tailored to a customer’s specific criteria.

Adjacent Products

We also offer adjacent products that complement our pre-onboarding and post-onboarding products and solutions:

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Fleet and Vehicle Compliance: Comprehensive solutions for fleet managers to support compliance with various state and federal requirements, including licenses, titles, registrations, and gas taxes.

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Hiring Tax Credits and Incentives: Identifies and processes U.S. employment tax credits and economic incentive programs, including the Federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit (“WOTC”) program and other federal, state, and local incentives. Uses data collected from applicants during their background screen to increase quality and efficiency.

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Investigative Research: Provides in-depth investigative reports, similar to our Executive Screening products, used in performing due diligence of investment managers and senior executives before a major investment commitment or M&A transaction.

Our suite of products is available individually or through packaged solutions configured and tailored according to our customers’ needs. For example, through our RoadReady solution, we provide comprehensive driver and fleet solutions to assist with compliance and asset management. Our driver compliance products include pre-onboarding background checks, MVR checks, drug tests, driver file maintenance, and post-onboarding monitoring. Our asset management products related to vehicle compliance include title, registration, fuel and gas tax, permits, and transponder management, as well as ongoing data analytics.

Our Differentiated Technology

Background screening involves complex workflows, disparate internal and external data sources, and numerous integrations with third-party software providers. We believe our differentiated technology provides a strong competitive advantage by delivering a seamless, unified experience for applicants and customers across our platforms. Our front-end technology, including our powerful UI/UX design, creates a superior applicant and customer experience, leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize workflows and minimize applicant data capture errors and missing information. Our back-end technology and processing engines seamlessly integrate interactions with customer HCM platforms and other software, government, and third-party data sources, as well as internal Operations and Customer Care teams. We have been, and will continue to be, pioneers in using automation and intelligent routing technologies to optimize turnaround times, quality, and touchless end-to-end screening. Our compliance functionality governs all aspects of our technology and is designed to meet ever-changing global regulatory and compliance requirements.

Our customers and their applicants access our technology through intuitive, easy-to-use user interfaces – Profile Advantage, Enterprise Advantage, Insight Advantage, Candidate Hub, Client Hub, and Analytics Hub.

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Profile Advantage and Candidate Hub: Our applicant facing mobile‑first, intuitive platforms that deliver a streamlined, frictionless applicant experience across the entire screening process, creating strong first impressions that drive higher job acceptance, satisfaction, and productivity. Accessible across desktop, tablet, and smartphone devices, in multiple languages and fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 standards, they enable applicants to easily submit information, upload secure documents, and complete e‑signatures while tracking progress through integrated status updates, text notifications, and chatbot assistance. Their intelligent design customizes requested information based on the services ordered to eliminate unnecessary steps, while embedded AI and machine learning optimize workflows, reduce data entry errors, and prompt for missing information in real time, generating significant time savings for both applicants and customers. Recent enhancements such as biometric identity verification and InstantID with liveness detection strengthen fraud prevention and regulatory compliance, and automated workflows support jurisdiction‑specific requirements and adverse action processes. Together, the platforms provide a modern, branded, and efficient experience that enhances engagement, accelerates time‑to‑hire, and reinforces employer identity during one of the earliest and most critical applicant touchpoints.

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Enterprise Advantage and Screening Direct: Our core, proprietary global ordering and processing technologies—Enterprise Advantage and Screening Direct—centralize applicant orders and related data into a single, streamlined workflow that allows customers to place orders, manage tasks, monitor statuses, and review consumer reports with ease. Intuitive displays and collapsible search details support fast, clear interpretation of results, while the platforms’ flexible, scalable designs deliver 99.9% uptime and support configurable permissions, role‑based access, invitation and task workflows, package management, and adjudication rules. Both solutions integrate seamlessly with customers’ business processes, third‑party HCM and ATS systems, and external data sources, enabling users to create customized screening packages, manage screening criteria, and administer adverse action letters. Single sign‑on functionality strengthens security, and the modular architecture allows new services and updates to be added seamlessly to maintain compliance with evolving regulatory standards. Together, Enterprise Advantage and Screening Direct provide a unified, secure, and highly scalable environment for managing complex global screening programs with efficiency and precision.

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Insight Advantage and Analytics Hub: Our innovative, dynamic data visualization tools provide customers with advanced analytics, interactive dashboards, and near real‑time reporting to understand the drivers of their screening programs and make informed, data‑driven decisions. Insight Advantage and Analytics Hub deliver configurable analytics platforms that offer comprehensive, near real‑time views of program performance through suites of intuitive, interactive dashboards. By leveraging each customer’s unique applicant and screening data, the platforms generate actionable insights that help manage, streamline, and optimize screening workflows. With one‑click access to program metrics, drill‑down capabilities, and visibility into underlying data, customers can monitor key trends, enhance operational efficiency, and uncover program drivers with clarity. Both solutions also offer flexible customization, enabling users to tailor dashboards, conduct scenario analyses, and benchmark against peer‑group metrics to identify leading practices and achieve better outcomes. Together, Insight Advantage and Analytics Hub empower customers to continuously refine and maximize the performance of their screening programs with accuracy, transparency, and precision.

We have designed our technology architecture for extensibility. We receive data directly from the applicant through Profile Advantage and from our customers through their third-party HCM and ATS software platforms. This data is supplemented by our proprietary internal databases and external data sources as we perform screenings and verifications. Our proprietary internal databases of over 1 billion records include our National Criminal Records File, which includes well over 900 million criminal records, and Verified!, our repository of approximately 135 million records, primarily consisting of prior employment and education verification records. These proprietary internal databases allow us to complete our processes quickly and cost-effectively, which accelerates the onboarding process for our customers and improves the applicant experience. We also obtain data directly from federal, state, and local government entities, laboratories and collection sites, credit bureaus, and education and work history verification providers, as well as from third-party, independent compilers of public records. Our API integrations, either through our Standard API or our REST API, allow for real-time, bidirectional, and secure data flows between us and our customers’ software platforms and external data sources, creating a seamless and integrated screening process.

Background screening and verification requirements vary from customer to customer, depending on the size and geographic footprint of the business as well as the industry vertical in which the customer operates. For example, customers in the transportation, logistics, and home delivery industry may have screening requirements relating to transportation regulatory bodies, including the DOT, FMCSA, FAA, and IFTA, that customers in other industries do not require. In addition, the laws and regulations on the use of certain information vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and are constantly evolving. We have designed our technology to be highly configurable, allowing us to provide our customers with tailored solutions that meet their specific needs.

Our flexible, scalable, and highly integrated technology, enhanced by our investments in automation and AI, has driven significant operational efficiencies and enabled us to achieve one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings among our competitors for quality, accuracy, and turnaround times. We will continue to innovate using agile software development methodologies, focusing on user-centered design, to bring leading products and solutions to the market.

Our Customers

We serve a diversified customer base with over 80,000 customers globally in 2025. Our customer base varies in size and industry, encompassing healthcare, transportation and logistics, retail and e-commerce, financial services, manufacturing and industrials, general staffing, technology, media and entertainment, hospitality, business and professional services, and gig economy. We have executed a concerted go-to-market strategy to target customers with large, complex workforces and have built a leading customer portfolio in this area as a result. Our customers operate in different industries across almost all facets of the global economy, with particular strength in sectors experiencing favorable secular trends such as e-commerce, retail, transportation, warehousing, and healthcare.

We have maintained a gross retention rate of approximately 96% in 2025 and achieved an average tenure of over 13 years among our top 100 customers. Our customer relationships are contractual in nature and typically have multiple-year terms. Certain contracts include exclusivity or primary provider terms and exclude termination for convenience clauses.

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For the year ended December 31, 2025, no customer accounted for 10% or more of our total revenues for that period. As of December 31, 2025, we performed screens across over 200 countries and territories, with a major presence in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. Approximately 86% of our revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025 was generated in the U.S., while the remaining 14% was generated abroad.

Sales and Marketing

We believe our integrated sales and marketing approach gives us a competitive advantage and enhances our ability to capture additional market share. Our unified go-to-market team is organized by industry verticals and global regions, allowing us to effectively target new accounts and identify additional opportunities within existing accounts. This structure helps to ensure our sales professionals are deeply knowledgeable about industry-specific screening requirements, and can deliver value-added, tailored solutions to both existing and prospective customers.

Our sales representatives are trained to adopt a consultative approach throughout the entire sales process, which includes discovery, demonstration, negotiation, and closing. By understanding the unique challenges faced by customers in diverse industries, they design pursuit strategies and propose solutions that meet our customers’ specific needs. This customer-centric focus drives satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term retention.

The integration of our Customer Success professionals into the go-to-market team further strengthens our ability to deliver exceptional service. Organized by verticals and regions, these teams foster deep relationships with customers and build local expertise in compliance and screening standards. They maintain ongoing interactions with key customer users and program owners, conducting regular formal account reviews to help ensure high performance, satisfaction, and retention. Additionally, they organize customer advisory boards and events to gather product insights, drive innovation, and share best practices, which contributes to our industry-leading customer satisfaction scores and high retention rates.

Our relationships with HCM software providers remain a critical aspect of our sales and marketing strategy. Our technology is tightly integrated with major HCM and ATS platforms, offering greater speed and efficiency while enhancing the value of our solutions to our customers. Maintaining strong relationships with these third-party software providers is essential for generating new sales leads and providing market validation for our offerings.

We also employ a variety of marketing strategies to promote our products and solutions through both direct and indirect channels. Our marketing activities include traditional and online initiatives designed to generate sales leads, increase market awareness, and enhance the perception of our brand. We leverage referral partners, channel partnerships, digital advertising, search engine optimization, webinars, social media, thought leadership, and event-based marketing. Our participation in industry conferences and frequent publications in the industry press further bolster our visibility. Additionally, our annual customer conference, Collaborate, features presentations by subject matter experts and our customers on a wide range of industry topics, facilitating discussions and serving as a valuable resource on industry best practices. We believe we are able to capitalize on the network effects as we build goodwill through customer reviews and testimonials, word-of-mouth referrals, and references from other industry participants.

Competition

The global background screening and identity verification industry is highly fragmented and competitive, even as consolidation among larger firms increases. There are numerous local and single-country providers, but a limited number of multinational firms operating with the scale and reach necessary to serve diverse customer needs effectively. Our competitors vary based on customer size, industry vertical, geography, and product focus.

We compete with large players that offer broad capabilities and comprehensive product suites, as well as vertical-focused specialist firms targeting customers in select industries. Additionally, we face competition from mid-sized players and companies that serve small and medium-sized business (“SMB”) customers. Some competitors are focused on specific pre‑ and post‑onboarding product categories, including drug and health screening and executive screening services. In addition, we face competition from providers offering adjacent solutions such as fleet and vehicle compliance, hiring tax credits and incentives, employment eligibility verification, and investigative research.

The market for our products and solutions is subject to constant change, with numerous sources of competition and new entrants frequently emerging.

The principal competitive factors affecting our markets include:

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Reliability of Screening Results: The accuracy and dependability of the information we provide are critical to our customers’ decision-making processes.

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Turnaround Time of Screening Results: Speed is essential in the hiring process, and our ability to deliver timely results is a key differentiator.

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Product, Package, and Solution Pricing: Competitive pricing structures are vital for attracting and retaining customers.

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Applicant and Enterprise User Experience: The ease of use, level of functionality, scalability, and efficiency of our solutions significantly impact customer satisfaction.

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Breadth and Depth of Screening Solutions: A comprehensive suite of offerings allows us to meet diverse customer needs effectively.

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Geographical Reach: Our ability to operate in multiple countries and territories enhances our value proposition to multinational customers.

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Sales and Marketing Relationship History: Strong relationships with key decision-makers can influence purchasing decisions.

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Compliance and Regulation: Our expertise in navigating complex regulatory environments is a competitive advantage.

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Industry Vertical Support: Tailoring our solutions to meet the specific requirements of various industries enhances our appeal.

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Technical and Systems Performance: The ability to integrate seamlessly with customer and third-party systems and applications is crucial for operational efficiency.

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Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Data Protection: As data security becomes increasingly important, our commitment to protecting customer information is a significant competitive factor.

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Analytics and Insights: The ability to deliver actionable data for risk management is critical to our customers’ decision making processes.

We believe we compete favorably based on these factors. However, our ability to remain competitive will depend on our continued performance in these areas. For additional information, see “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—We operate in a penetrated and competitive market.”

Government Regulations

Due to the nature of our business, we are subject to significant and extensive U.S. federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations. These laws and regulations include national, international, state, and local cybersecurity, privacy and data protection, health, taxation, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering, antitrust, enterprise credit reporting agencies and environmental, health and safety protection. Compliance with these laws and regulations is critical to our business, and we take commercially reasonable steps to meet legal and regulatory requirements and monitor changes globally.

Regulators worldwide continue to adopt or propose national, international, state, and local laws that regulate consumer protection, cybersecurity, privacy, data protection, and/or business credit reporting. These laws impact, among other things, the collection, use, disclosure, sale, transfer, receipt, storage, transmission, destruction, and other processing of personal data (collectively, “Processing”). The principal laws and regulations affecting our business include, but are not limited to:

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FCRA, which regulates the use of consumer report information and governs the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of such information;

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Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”), which prohibits unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices with respect to consumer financial services practices;

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Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which regulates the use of non-public personal financial information held by financial institutions;

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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which restricts the public disclosure of patient information and applies indirectly to companies that provide services to healthcare-related businesses;

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Drivers’ Privacy Protection Act, which restricts the public disclosure, use, and resale of personal data contained in state department of motor vehicle records;

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U.K. Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework, which provides for a set of rules and standards for digital identity products;

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Various U.S. federal, state, and local data protection and consumer reporting agency laws at the state level, state data breach laws, and state privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (as amended, the “CCPA”) and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act;

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International data protection, data localization, and similar laws and regulations impacting our services and data suppliers, such as the U.K. and EU GDPR;

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Oversight by regulatory authorities for engaging in consumer reporting, including the FTC and CFPB in the United States;

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SEC Cybersecurity Disclosure Rules, requiring public companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents and governance practices; and

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Emerging AI Governance Frameworks, addressing ethical use, transparency, and bias mitigation in AI-driven decision-making.

These laws and regulations, which are generally designed to protect individuals’ privacy and prevent the misuse of personal data or unauthorized access to data, are complex, subject to ongoing changes in regulations and amendments, and inconsistent between jurisdictions. We proactively manage compliance with laws and regulations through the use of a number of resources, including our in-house legal and compliance department, external law firms, trade associations, and local suppliers and partners to understand the legal and regulatory requirements and practices that may impact the delivery of our products and solutions as well as our customers’ use of the same in light of employment, privacy and other laws and regulations. Our Chief Legal Officer leads our legal and compliance functions. The compliance team consists of regional compliance officers operating globally, with local compliance officers reporting through that hierarchy. Through the legal and compliance functions, we train our team members with respect to compliance with laws and regulations as well as our policies and procedures, monitor changes to relevant material laws and regulations, and meet with regulators and legislators, as necessary and appropriate, to establish transparency of our operations and build trust.

Public concern over the processing of personal data, including Social Security numbers, financial information, and health data, remains high. Additional legislative or regulatory efforts in the United States and internationally could further regulate how we process personal data in the conduct of our business. For additional information, see the section titled “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—If regulatory regimes continue to heighten their scrutiny over personal data and data security, it could lead to increased restrictions, loss of revenue opportunity, greater costs of compliance, and lost efficiency” and “— Any damage to our reputation or our brand could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.”

Intellectual Property

Our success depends, in part, on developing, maintaining, protecting and enforcing our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights. We own and control various intellectual property rights, such as confidential information, trade secrets, trademarks, service marks, trade names, domain names, copyrights, patents, and U.S. and foreign registrations and applications in the foregoing. We are licensed to use certain technology and other intellectual property rights owned and controlled by others, and certain third parties are licensed to use certain technology and other intellectual property rights owned and controlled by us.

Obtaining, maintaining, protecting and enforcing our intellectual property and proprietary rights is an important aspect of our business. We rely on a combination of statutory (e.g., copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent), contract, and liability safeguards (e.g., confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors and nondisclosure agreements with our vendors) to protect our intellectual property in the United States, and other jurisdictions. We currently have patent and trademark applications pending in several jurisdictions. Filing these applications does not guarantee patents will be issued or that our trademark applications will proceed to registration without challenge, but may provide us with legal defense and allow us to pursue the protection of our intellectual property to the extent we believe it would be beneficial and cost-effective.

While we believe that our intellectual property, in the aggregate, is generally important to our business and operations, we do not regard any aspect of our business as being dependent upon any single patent, group of patents or other intellectual property right. However, the First Advantage name and related trade names, marks, and logos are of material importance to our business, and their loss could have a significant negative impact on us.

See the section titled “Risk Factors” for a more comprehensive description of risks related to our intellectual property and proprietary rights.

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Seasonality

We experience seasonality with respect to certain industries due to fluctuations in hiring volumes and other economic activity. For example, pre-onboarding revenues generated from our customers in the retail and transportation industries are historically highest during the months of October and November, leading up to the U.S. holiday season and lowest in December and at the beginning of the new year, following the U.S. holiday hiring season. Certain customers across various industries also historically increase their hiring throughout the second quarter of the year as winter concludes, and the school year ends, giving rise to student and graduate hiring, and increased commercial activity tied to outdoor activities. We expect that changes in consumer behavior, labor market conditions, technological innovation, and broader macroeconomic factors may impact future seasonality, but we are unable to predict these potential shifts and their impact to our business.

Human Capital

Attracting, developing, and retaining the best talent globally with the right skills is fundamental to our long-term success. As our business and strategy evolve, we continue to advance the capabilities of our workforce. Key elements of our human capital management strategy are outlined below, with additional information provided in our most recent Sustainability Impact Report available on our website (which is not incorporated by reference herein).

As of December 31, 2025, we had over 9,500 employees across 19 countries. We also engage third-party contractors where appropriate to support operational flexibility. None of our employees are subject to collective bargaining agreements, and no work stoppages have been experienced. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good.

Global Code of Conduct and Ethics

The quality of our products and operations affects our reputation, productivity, profitability, and market position. Our objective is to create a work environment that allows and encourages all employees to perform their duties in an efficient, effective manner. We have established a Global Code of Conduct and Ethics (“Code”). Compliance with the provisions of the Code is a condition of employment at First Advantage and reinforced through regular training.

Equal Employment

We strive for all of our employees to work in an environment where we are treated with dignity and respect. We are an equal opportunity employment employer and are committed to providing a workplace that is free of discrimination of all types from abusive, offensive, or harassing behavior. We are committed to creating such an environment because it brings out the full potential in each of our employees, which, in turn, contributes directly to our business success.

Talent, Culture, and Inclusion

Our people are central to our ability to execute our strategy and deliver value to customers and shareholders. Our talent approach centers on maintaining workforce capability, operational readiness, and leadership continuity. We invest in structured onboarding, role-based training, leadership development, and continuous learning initiatives that support employee effectiveness and adaptability at every level of the organization.

We are dedicated to fostering a workplace that values each individual and promotes equal opportunities for all employees. We continue to invest in our active Talent, Culture, and Inclusion programs through Employee Impact Groups, which offer employees opportunities to collaborate and expand their impact across multiple lines of business, supporting their professional growth. Additional initiatives include talent attraction strategies, mentoring and engagement opportunities, as well as a variety of development programs designed to identify and retain top talent.

We maintain open communication and transparency across the organization and utilize employee feedback mechanisms, including engagement surveys and listening sessions to inform enhancements to both the employee experience and organizational effectiveness. Our approach emphasizes fair talent practices, leadership awareness, and programs that support engagement and collaboration across the global workforce.

Inclusion efforts are integrated into our broader talent and leadership strategies, and we continue to prioritize alignment of our People and Culture processes with our organizational mission and values. These approaches align with our sustainability objectives, as engaged employees are crucial for driving innovation and fostering a collaborative culture.

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Additional Information

First Advantage Corporation, a Delaware corporation, was incorporated in November 2019. We completed our initial public offering (“IPO”) of our common stock in June 2021.

We use our websites (https://fadv.com/ and https://investors.fadv.com/) to distribute company information. We make available free of charge a variety of information for investors, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file that material with or furnish it to the SEC. The information we post on our websites may be deemed material. Accordingly, investors should monitor our websites, in addition to following our press releases, filings with the SEC, and public conference calls and webcasts. In addition, you may opt in to automatically receive email alerts and other information about First Advantage when you enroll your email address by visiting the “Request Email Alerts” section of our investor website at https://investors.fadv.com/. The contents of our websites and social media channels are not, however, a part of this Annual Report.