Changing your name and DBS checks

Give every name on the application#

In England and Wales, a standard or enhanced check starts with the employer or organisation that asks for it: it gives you the application form, checks your identity and countersigns the form. You can also request a basic check yourself on GOV.UK, for £21.50.

DBS's guide to the form is plain about names. If you have been known by any other name, "you must provide all other names you have been known by from birth", with a forename and surname for each and the month and year you started and stopped using it, and the employer will ask you to confirm them. If you use two names at the same time, one of them at work for example, the main one goes in as your current name and the other as an other name, dated to the present. If you were adopted before you were 10, your name at birth can be left out, and transgender applicants have a confidential route, described below.

Take your deed poll to the identity check#

The person checking your documents must be satisfied that every name is on the form, and must ask you about anything that does not match. DBS's identity checking guidelines, for basic checks as well as standard and enhanced ones, treat a recent change of name that can be evidenced, "for example, by presenting a marriage certificate or deed poll", as a legitimate reason for documents in different names. So if your passport or driving licence still shows your old name, take your deed poll as well; the guidelines' own example is a man who shows his marriage certificate alongside a passport in his old name. Can I change my name if I have a criminal record? explains what the names are used for.

A certificate in your old name#

DBS's guidance for employers says "There is no official expiry date for a criminal record check issued by DBS." A certificate is accurate on the day it was issued, and employers look at the date of issue to decide whether they want a newer one. Accepting a certificate issued earlier is, in DBS's words, "the employers' decision", and one of the points DBS asks them to weigh is whether the identity details on the certificate match the applicant's.

For a certificate you hold on paper, then, the question is whether the employer will accept it. Show the original, because DBS tells employers that copies and digital photographs must be rejected, together with your deed poll, which links the name on the certificate to the name you use now. The employer may still ask for a new check; the choice is the employer's.

The Update Service after a change of name#

The Update Service is DBS's online subscription for standard and enhanced certificates. It costs £16 a year, is free for volunteers, and lets an employer check with your consent whether a certificate is still current. DBS's guide for subscribers is direct about names: "If you change your name, you must apply for a new DBS check via the organisation you are working for."

You can add the new certificate to your existing subscription, but the guide says the certificate "must still contain your previous name" and that the name on the subscription "cannot be changed", so DBS recommends a new subscription in your new name, to avoid confusion during status checks. A new subscription has to be joined within 30 days of the new certificate's date of issue, or during the application using its form reference number. The same guide says a certificate with incorrect names on it is not valid and will be cancelled, while a change of address leaves a certificate valid.

DBS's guide for employers shows the other side. Its example school re-checks staff identities every two years to spot changes of name, asks anyone whose name has changed for a new certificate, and has them link it to their subscription so that status checks can continue. Telling your employer covers the rest of the paperwork at work.

If you are transgender#

DBS's sensitive applications route, available at every level of check, lets you give your previous names and gender to DBS privately instead of on the form. You contact the sensitive applications team before you apply, through DBS's page for transgender applicants, and DBS's Update Service guide says a previous identity given this way is not shown to others if you join the service. Who can see my former name? explains the route, and the processes in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in full.

Scotland: Disclosure Scotland and the PVG scheme#

Disclosure Scotland runs the checks for roles in Scotland. If you are a member of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme, it says you must tell it within 3 months of changing your name or gender, or within 1 month if you are barred or under consideration for listing, and that failing to do so is a criminal offence. The route is its update form, sent by email together with a copy of a marriage certificate, passport, driving licence photocard, "deed poll certificate" or Gender Recognition Certificate. Updating your details does not produce a new disclosure; if you or your employer want an updated one, you apply for it.

Northern Ireland: AccessNI#

AccessNI runs the checks for roles in Northern Ireland. Its guidance for the signatories who approve applications, dated July 2026, says all surnames used during a person's lifetime must be on the application, naming a change by deed poll among them, unless the surname was taken before the age of 10, for example on adoption; every forename must be given too. AccessNI says a certificate is valid for the recruitment to a specific role and cannot be transferred from one role to another, so a certificate in your old name would not carry over to a new job in any case. It also has a special process for transgender applicants, through AccessNI's contact page.