When you apply for an SIA licence there are three possible outcomes:
- Pass - the criteria for licensing have been met
- Fail - the criteria for licensing have NOT been met
- Consider additional factors - depending on other factors, the criteria may or may not have been met. This is not an immediate refusal: we invite you to supply to us (within a specific time period) additional information before reaching our final decision.
This on-line facility will give an indication on whether you may or may not meet our criminality criteria in order to obtain an SIA licence.
This process cannot give you an indication of your likely eligibility if you have received a sentence of life imprisonment, have juvenile convictions, have been detained because of mental health problems, or have received convictions overseas. If these circumstances apply you will not necessarily be ineligible for a licence, but we shall need to give special consideration to your case, which we cannot do until we have received your application.
You will be asked to enter information about all cautions, warnings, absolute/conditional discharges, admonishments and convictions you may have - and in the case of convictions, the actual sentence received. You will remain anonymous throughout the process.
The resulting indicator is based entirely on the information that you have entered and is not a guaranteed outcome of the actual criminality check that we will conduct at the time of your application.
If you have convictions on your record that relate to the most recent conflict in Northern Ireland, please read this page for further information.