A summary offense stays on your Pennsylvania record permanently unless you take action to remove it. There’s no automatic expiration. What does happen automatically, under Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law, is sealing: five years after the conviction, most summary offenses are hidden from public background checks without you filing anything. If you want the record actually destroyed rather than hidden, you can petition for expungement after the same five-year wait.
Why a Summary Conviction Never Just Goes Away
A summary offense is the least serious criminal category in Pennsylvania. A conviction can carry up to 90 days in jail and a $300 fine, though most end in a fine alone. Disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and low-level retail theft are common examples.
Minor as it is, a summary conviction has no built-in end date. It sits on your criminal history record indefinitely. The two ways it becomes less visible or disappears are Clean Slate sealing (automatic, after five years) and expungement (by petition, after five years for convictions or immediately for non-convictions).
Automatic Sealing After Five Years
Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law, updated by Act 56 of 2018 and expanded by Clean Slate 3.0 in 2024, seals qualifying records without a petition or a fee. The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts sends eligible records to the Pennsylvania State Police for sealing on a rolling basis.
For a summary conviction, sealing kicks in five years after the judgment of conviction, as long as any court-ordered restitution is paid. Non-conviction records (dismissals, withdrawals, not-guilty verdicts) are sealed 30 days after the final disposition on the same restitution condition.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 18 Section 9122.2
Clean Slate 3.0 changed two things worth knowing. Unpaid fines and court costs no longer block automatic sealing; only outstanding restitution stops the clock. And a later conviction, even a misdemeanor or felony, does not disqualify an older summary conviction from being sealed under this provision.
What Sealing Actually Hides
Sealing is not deletion. A sealed record still exists in the system; it’s just hidden from most public searches, most employers, and most background check companies.
Who can still see it? Law enforcement, courts, and prosecutors keep access. Federal agencies, including immigration authorities, may see sealed records through federal databases. The FBI runs its own criminal history repository, and state-level sealing does not automatically clear the FBI’s system. The FBI will only remove nonfederal arrest data at the request of the submitting agency, and procedures vary by state.2Federal Bureau of Investigation. Identity History Summary Checks Frequently Asked Questions So a sealed Pennsylvania summary offense could still turn up in a federal background check, a military enlistment screening, or an immigration proceeding.
For ordinary civilian employment, the effect of sealing is strong. Most private employers rely on commercial background check companies, and those companies are barred from reporting sealed records. Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumer reporting agencies must use reasonable procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 Section 1681e Reporting a sealed record violates that standard, and if one shows up on your background check anyway, you have the right to dispute it.
When Sealing Isn’t Enough
Sealing handles the everyday cases: job applications, apartment rentals, college admissions. Expungement is the harder tool, and you want it in specific situations.
- Military enlistment. Federal rules require you to disclose sealed and expunged state records to the military. Expungement doesn’t remove the disclosure obligation, but it destroys the underlying data, which limits what recruiters can independently verify.
- Immigration. USCIS can look behind sealed records when evaluating good moral character for naturalization. Offenses that fall into the “unlawful acts” category can affect an applicant even when they aren’t an explicit statutory bar.4USCIS. Conditional Bars for Acts in Statutory Period
- International travel. Canada, for example, judges admissibility based on the Canadian equivalent of your offense. Two or more summary-level convictions can make you inadmissible even if both were minor.
- Professional licensing. Many Pennsylvania licensing boards, including those for nursing, law, and teaching, ask about your full criminal history, including expunged matters. Sealing doesn’t relieve disclosure duties, and answering dishonestly about a record the board can verify through law enforcement channels creates a far bigger problem than the original offense. Read each application carefully.
Petitioning to Expunge a Summary Conviction
You can petition to expunge a summary conviction once five years have passed since the conviction date, provided you have been free from any arrest or prosecution during that entire period.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 18 Section 9122 The statute only spells out the arrest-free requirement, but courts routinely expect any outstanding fines and court costs to be resolved first. Pay off any balance before filing so the district attorney has no easy basis to object.
Underage drinking convictions under 18 Pa.C.S. § 6308 have their own path: you can petition once you turn 21, provided all sentence conditions (including any driver’s license suspension) are satisfied.5Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 18 Section 9122
The process typically takes six months to a year.
Get Your Criminal History Record First
You need a current copy of your Pennsylvania State Police criminal history record before filing. Submit Form SP 4-170 (Request for Individual Access and Review) with a $20 certified check or money order payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.6Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Apply for Criminal Record Expungement Allow up to three months for a response.7Pennsylvania State Police. Pennsylvania State Police Request for Individual Access and Review The record must be dated within 60 days of the date you file your petition, so order it early and have the rest of your paperwork ready to file as soon as it arrives.
You’ll also need the docket number and Offense Tracking Number (OTN) from your case, both of which appear on the docket sheet. Docket sheets are available through Pennsylvania’s Unified Judicial System web portal. Your petition must include your full name, any aliases, date of birth, and Social Security number.8Legal Information Institute. 234 Pa Code r 790 – Procedure for Obtaining Expungement in Court Cases; Expungement Order
File and Serve the Petition
File the petition with the Clerk of Courts in the county where the charges were resolved. Filing fees vary by county, commonly in the $100 to $200 range. You must serve a copy on the district attorney’s office in the same county when you file.9Legal Information Institute. 234 Pa Code r 490 – Procedure for Obtaining Expungement in Summary Cases; Expungement Order
What Happens Next
The district attorney has 30 days to consent, object, or take no action.9Legal Information Institute. 234 Pa Code r 490 – Procedure for Obtaining Expungement in Summary Cases; Expungement Order If the DA consents or does nothing, judges typically grant the expungement on the paperwork alone. If the DA objects, the court schedules a hearing. For a summary offense where you clearly meet the five-year arrest-free requirement, objections are uncommon, though they do happen, usually over unpaid financial obligations.
Mistakes That Keep People’s Records Visible
The most common mistake is assuming a summary offense is too minor to worry about and doing nothing. Under Clean Slate, doing nothing usually works, since sealing is automatic at five years. But if you owe restitution, the clock never starts. Plenty of people carry a summary conviction from a decade ago that never sealed because of a small forgotten balance.
The second mistake is treating sealing as if it meant the record was gone. It isn’t. Sealed records still exist and are visible to law enforcement, courts, and certain federal agencies. If you’re facing immigration proceedings, military enlistment, a security clearance review, or professional licensing, sealing alone may not be enough — expungement is the tool you want.
The third mistake is ordering your criminal history record too late. The SP 4-170 can take three months to come back, and once it arrives you have 60 days before it goes stale for petition purposes. Order it first, then prepare everything else in parallel.