Can You Expunge a Felony in Florida? Eligibility, Process, and Costs

Yes, you can expunge a felony in Florida, but only in a narrow set of circumstances. The felony arrest must have ended without a conviction, you must have no prior felony adjudications anywhere in your history, and you must never have had a Florida record sealed or expunged before. If your case ended in a withheld adjudication after a plea, you cannot expunge it directly; you must seal it first and wait ten years.¹

Which Felony Outcomes Qualify

Expungement under Section 943.0585 is only available when the case ended with no conviction at all. That covers four scenarios: the charges were dismissed, the state dropped the case (nolle prosequi), you were acquitted at trial, or formal charges were never filed after the arrest.¹ If any of those describes what happened, you can petition to expunge directly.

A withheld adjudication is a different animal. If you pleaded guilty or no contest and the judge withheld adjudication of guilt, you were not formally convicted, but the law does not treat the outcome as a clean dismissal either. Those records can be sealed under Section 943.059, and only after the sealed record has sat untouched for at least ten years with no new criminal activity can you petition to convert it to an expungement.²¹

The practical difference between the two outcomes matters. A sealed record is hidden from the general public but remains fully accessible to certain government agencies. An expunged record is physically destroyed by every agency that holds it except the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which keeps a confidential copy accessible only by court order.¹ Most agencies that query FDLE after expungement see only a notice that a record was expunged, with no access to the underlying details.³

Disqualifiers That End the Question Before It Starts

Every one of the following conditions must be true. A failure on any single item sinks the whole petition.

You were not adjudicated guilty of any charge arising from the arrest you want to clear.¹
You have never been adjudicated guilty of a felony anywhere. A single prior felony conviction anywhere in your history blocks you from clearing any record in Florida, including an unrelated case that was dismissed.¹
You have never been adjudicated guilty of certain misdemeanors, including assault, battery, carrying a concealed weapon, indecent exposure, arson, petit theft, child neglect, and animal cruelty.¹
You have never had a Florida record sealed or expunged before. The only exception is converting an already-sealed record to an expunged one after the ten-year wait.¹
You are no longer under any court supervision connected to the arrest, including probation and community service.¹
The offense itself is not one of the categories permanently barred from sealing and expungement under Section 943.0584, which includes crimes like murder and sexual battery.

The one-record-per-lifetime limit catches people off guard. If you have two dismissed felony arrests and you clear the less serious one first, you have permanently lost the ability to clear the other. Pick the right record before you file.

How the Process Works

Expungement runs in two stages. First you get certified by FDLE as eligible. Then you take that certificate to court and petition a judge to order the expungement. Both stages are mandatory.

Stage One: Certificate of Eligibility from FDLE

You apply to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a Certificate of Eligibility. The application package requires a fingerprint card taken by a law enforcement officer or criminal justice agency, a certified copy of the case disposition from the clerk of court in the county where charges originated, a certified statement from the state attorney or statewide prosecutor confirming the case outcome, and a $75 nonrefundable processing fee payable to FDLE. If your case was resolved through a pretrial intervention or diversion program, include documentation of successful completion.⁴

FDLE processing currently takes over twelve weeks. Once issued, the certificate is valid for twelve months.² Miss that window and you start over, including the $75 fee.

Stage Two: Petition and Hearing

With the certificate in hand, you file a petition for expungement in the circuit court where the arrest occurred, together with a sworn affidavit stating you have never been adjudicated guilty of a criminal offense and have never had a record sealed or expunged before. Counties set their own filing fees, typically around $40 to $50.⁵

The court schedules a hearing. The judge reviews the offense, the circumstances of the arrest, and whether every statutory requirement is met. The state attorney may file an objection but is not required to. If an objection comes in, you’ll need to answer it at the hearing. A granted order directs every agency that holds the record to destroy it, and the arrest stops appearing in public background checks. A denial can sometimes be fixed and refiled, but if your Certificate of Eligibility has expired by then you’ll need a new one.

What Expungement Does, and Where It Stops

An expungement lets you lawfully deny the arrest in most situations, including on standard job and housing applications.¹ Florida law carves out specific contexts where you must still disclose if asked:

Applying for employment with a criminal justice agency.
Seeking admission to The Florida Bar.
Applying for a position with the Department of Children and Families, the Agency for Health Care Administration, the Department of Health, the Department of Elderly Affairs, or the Department of Juvenile Justice, as well as any contractor or licensee of those agencies that works directly with children, disabled individuals, or the elderly.
Applying for employment with the Department of Education, a public or private school, a charter school, or a child care licensing entity.
Applying for licensure through the Division of Insurance Agent and Agency Services.
Seeking appointment as a court-ordered guardian.
Being a defendant in a new criminal prosecution, where the expunged record is accessible to the court.

Denying an expunged arrest when one of these situations directly asks about it is itself a crime. The disclosure requirement is narrow, but in the fields it covers, it is absolute.¹

Voting Rights and Firearms Are Separate Tracks

If your underlying goal is to restore voting rights after a felony conviction, expungement is not the right tool and probably not available anyway, since a conviction disqualifies you from expunging the record. Florida’s Amendment 4 automatically restores voting rights for most people with felony convictions once they complete all terms of their sentence, including prison, probation, parole, and all court-ordered fines, fees, and restitution. No clemency application is required.⁶⁷ Murder and felony sexual offenses are excluded and require the Board of Executive Clemency.⁸

Firearm rights are different again. Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment from possessing firearms or ammunition.⁹ A Florida expungement does not touch that federal bar. Restoring firearm rights requires a separate application to the Board of Executive Clemency.⁷

What It Costs

Plan on at least the $75 FDLE processing fee for the Certificate of Eligibility and a county court filing fee for the petition.⁴ If you hire an attorney, legal fees will be the biggest line item by far. You can do it without a lawyer. The risk is that the documentation requirements are unforgiving and the one-petition-per-lifetime limit makes mistakes expensive: a denied petition can burn through your certificate’s twelve-month validity, forcing you to pay the FDLE fee again and restart.

1
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
2
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 943.059 – Court-Ordered Sealing of Criminal History Records
3
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Frequently Asked Questions
4
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Applying for a Certificate of Eligibility for Court-Ordered Sealing or Expungement
5
Office of Miami-Dade State Attorney. The Court Process
6
Florida Division of Elections. Felon Voting Rights
7
Florida Commission on Offender Review. Apply for Restoration of Civil Rights, Pardon, Firearm Authority and Other Forms of Clemency
8
Florida Commission on Offender Review. Clemency
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts