You cannot expunge your driving record in Florida. The driving history kept by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) is a separate system from your criminal record, and no court order can erase it. What you can sometimes do is expunge or seal the criminal record attached to a driving-related arrest, such as a DUI that was dismissed or ended in acquittal. The DHSMV entry still stays put.
Why the Driving Record Itself Cannot Be Erased
Your Florida driving record lives with the DHSMV and tracks everything tied to your license: traffic violations, points, suspensions, and insurance-related incidents. Your criminal record lives with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and tracks arrests, charges, and case outcomes. These two databases are not linked the way most people assume.
Florida’s expungement statutes in Chapter 943 apply only to criminal history records held by criminal justice agencies. They give no court the authority to order the DHSMV to remove anything. So an arrest for DUI can potentially come off your criminal history, but the DHSMV will still show that the incident happened.
The DHSMV also keeps these entries for a long time. Alcohol-related entries are retained for up to 75 years. Standard traffic violations and the points attached to them generally remain for at least three years from the conviction date.
What Comes Off on Its Own
The only genuine “clearing” that happens to a Florida driving record happens by time, not by petition. Points from traffic convictions drop off three years after the conviction date under Florida’s point system. The underlying violation entry itself can remain visible on a complete driving record longer than that. There is no application, no form, and no court process that speeds this up.
If you hold a Commercial Driver License, even the limited protections of state-level sealing or diversion are off the table. Under 49 CFR 384.226, no state may prevent a CDL holder’s conviction for any traffic violation (other than parking or vehicle weight and defect issues) from appearing on the Commercial Driver License Information System record. It does not matter whether the offense happened in Florida or another state, or whether you were driving a commercial vehicle or your own car.1eCFR. 49 CFR 384.226 – Prohibition on Masking Convictions For professional drivers, there is effectively no way to clear a traffic conviction from the record that matters most to employers.
Clearing the Criminal Side of a Driving Arrest
When people ask about expunging a driving record, what they often actually want is to remove the arrest from background checks. That is a different question with a real answer, as long as you were never found guilty.
Under Florida Statute 943.0585, you can petition to expunge a criminal record if your case ended one of three ways: no charges were filed by the state attorney, the charges were dismissed or nolle prossed, or you were acquitted at trial.2Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
Sealing is the alternative when adjudication was withheld. That happens often in Florida, where a judge accepts a plea but officially withholds the finding of guilt, usually in exchange for completing probation. If adjudication was withheld on your driving-related charge, you can petition to seal under Florida Statute 943.059. A sealed record becomes confidential to the general public, but criminal justice agencies, certain state licensing boards, and the Florida Bar can still see it.3Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.059 – Court-Ordered Sealing of Criminal History Records
Beyond the case outcome, you also have to meet every one of these conditions: you have never been adjudicated guilty of any criminal offense in Florida, you are no longer under court supervision for the arrest in question, and you have never had a Florida record sealed or expunged before. The one exception to that last rule: a record sealed for at least 10 years can be upgraded to an expungement.2Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
A DUI note worth catching. DUI is not on the list of offenses barred from expungement under Section 943.0584, so a DUI arrest where charges were dropped or you were acquitted can potentially be expunged. A DUI conviction cannot, because you were adjudicated guilty.2Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
How to Pursue the Criminal Expungement or Sealing
Before you file anything with a court, you need FDLE to confirm your eligibility. Submit a completed application along with a fingerprint card taken by an authorized law enforcement officer, plus a certified disposition for every charge on your application from the clerk of court in the county where the case originated.4Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Applying for a Certificate of Eligibility for Court-Ordered Sealing or Expungement FDLE charges a $75 processing fee, which the executive director has authority to waive.3Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.059 – Court-Ordered Sealing of Criminal History Records The Certificate of Eligibility is valid for 12 months once issued.
With the certificate in hand, file your petition for expungement or sealing with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where you were arrested, and serve a copy on the State Attorney’s Office. The court sets a filing fee that varies by county, reviews the petition, and may hold a hearing. Processing generally takes several months.
Even if you check every box, the result is not guaranteed. Florida law expressly gives the court sole discretion to deny a petition.3Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.059 – Court-Ordered Sealing of Criminal History Records
What Clearing the Criminal Record Does Not Fix
Expunging or sealing the criminal side of a driving arrest does not touch your DHSMV record. It will not remove points, lift an active license suspension, lower your insurance premiums, or erase alcohol-related entries from the driving database. Insurance companies pulling your driving record will still see violations, suspensions, and point history on the normal retention schedule, no matter what happened on the criminal side.
That is the hard limit of what Florida law allows. The driving record is what it is until time removes individual entries. The criminal record, when the case ended without a guilty finding, is the piece you can actually ask a court to clear.