Federal

• Only the U.S. and the Philippines allow professional bail agents and bounty hunters to operate; all other countries delegate these jobs to law enforcement. In the U.S., the legal precedent stems from westward expansion, when local businessmen would lend suspects bail for a fee. A Supreme Court decision from the 1800s ruled that such lenders could assume temporary law enforcement roles in order to recover the bail when a client goes on the run.
  
  

Training

• Most states require prospective bail agents to take a training course, though the type and intensity vary by state. Florida requires prospective agents to take an approved 120-hour training course, generally offered by established bail agents, then take the state's correspondence course and complete a year-long internship with a licensed agent, and that's just the education component. California simply requires a short training course that can be completed in a weekend and six hours of continuing education each year after licensing.
  
  

Licensing

• States' departments of insurance or the equivalent register, license and regulate bail agents. States require prospective bail agents to take a licensing exam after completing any pre-licensing training. Exams test the applicant on state laws and regulations. Some states conduct fingerprinting and a background check along with the licensing exam.
  
  

Prohibited States

• Four states have banned professional bail agents: Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin, citing the legal establishment's arguments that a for-profit element in the otherwise public pre-trial system is discriminatory. These states do not issue licenses and no one can legally collect a fee for posting someone else's bail.