How to Expunge a Felony in Missouri: Eligibility, Filing, and Costs

To expunge a felony in Missouri, you file a petition under Section 610.140 in the circuit court where you were charged or convicted, wait until at least three years have passed since you finished your full sentence, pay a $250 surcharge, and ask a judge to close the record. You can expunge up to two felonies in your lifetime, and if the court grants your petition, your civil rights are restored and the conviction is sealed from public view.¹

Who Qualifies

The conviction has to be a Missouri conviction from a Missouri court. Three years must have passed since you completed every part of your sentence, and that clock runs from the day you finished probation or parole, not the day you were convicted or released from custody.¹

You cannot have any pending criminal charges when you file, and you cannot have picked up new convictions during the three-year waiting period. Every financial obligation from the original case — restitution, court costs, fines — has to be paid off before the court will consider your petition.

Missouri caps lifetime expungements at two felonies and three misdemeanors, with no cap on infractions. If several charges came out of the same course of criminal conduct, you can bundle them into one petition and they count against the cap only at the level of the highest offense.¹

Felonies That Can Never Be Expunged

Some convictions are permanently off-limits regardless of how long ago they happened or how clean your record has been since:

Class A felonies, Missouri’s most serious classification.¹
Dangerous felonies as defined in Section 556.061, a category that includes offenses such as first-degree arson, first-degree assault, second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree robbery, armed criminal action, and vehicle hijacking.²
Sex offenses that require registration.
Any felony in which death is an element of the offense.
Felony assault, misdemeanor or felony domestic assault, and felony kidnapping.¹
DWI and other intoxication-related traffic or boating offenses.
Moving violations committed while holding a commercial driver’s license.

The statute lists dozens of additional specific code sections, from child abuse to weapons offenses to public corruption. If you’re not sure where your conviction falls, read through the full exclusion list in Section 610.140 or talk to an attorney before you pay the filing fee.

Filing the Petition

File in the circuit court in the county where you were charged or found guilty. The petition must include your full name, sex, race, driver’s license number, and current address, along with the offense you want expunged, the approximate date you were charged, the county or municipality where the case happened, and the case number and court name.¹ Most circuit court clerks’ offices and websites have a fillable form.

Every agency that might hold records of the conviction has to be named as a defendant. That means the arresting agency, the prosecuting attorney’s office, the circuit court, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol as the central state records repository. Any municipal police department or state agency involved in the original case belongs on the list too. If you leave an agency off, the court’s order doesn’t reach that agency, and its records stay open.¹ This is the step where petitions most often go wrong.

The filing surcharge is $250.³ If you can’t afford it, ask the court for a hardship waiver.

What Happens After You File

The clerk notifies the prosecuting attorney from the original case. The prosecutor has 30 days to file a written objection, usually arguing that you don’t meet the eligibility requirements or that sealing isn’t in the public interest.⁴

If a prosecutor objects, the court sets a hearing within 60 days. Even if no one objects, the court may still schedule a hearing and must give reasonable notice to every agency you named.⁴ Either way, the statute requires a final decision within six months of the filing date.

At the hearing, the judge checks that you meet every statutory requirement and looks at your conduct since the conviction to decide whether you’re a threat to public safety. If the petition is granted, the court sends the order to every named agency, directing each to close its records.

What a Granted Expungement Does

Every agency named in your petition must close its records on the offense. The court file becomes confidential, available only to the parties or by special court order, and Missouri’s central repository is required to ask the FBI to remove the record from its national system.⁴

The order also restores your civil rights to the status you held before the arrest and conviction, including the right to vote, hold public office, and serve on a jury.⁴ Federal jury eligibility turns on whether civil rights have been legally restored, and a Missouri expungement should satisfy that test.⁵

Answering Employer Questions

Once your record is expunged and you have no other public criminal record, you can legally answer “no” if an employer asks whether you’ve ever been arrested or convicted, and you can’t be charged with perjury or any other offense for that answer.⁴

One exception matters. If an employer is required by state or federal law to exclude applicants with certain criminal histories, you have to answer truthfully and disclose the expunged conviction.⁴ Jobs in law enforcement, schools, healthcare, and financial institutions often fall in this category. You also have to disclose the expunged offense to any court that asks, or if you’re charged with a new crime.

Firearm Rights

The statute specifies that a Missouri expungement qualifies as a “complete removal of all effects” of the conviction under the federal definition of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.⁴ Federal law generally bars anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison from possessing firearms.⁶

In practice, the expungement doesn’t automatically clear the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, because the FBI isn’t a party to state court proceedings. If a firearms purchase is denied, you can challenge the denial through the FBI’s appeals process.

Where a Missouri Expungement Won’t Help

Immigration

If you aren’t a U.S. citizen, a Missouri expungement will not shield you from immigration consequences. Federal immigration law defines “conviction” independently of what states do with their records afterward: once a court found you guilty and imposed any punishment, a conviction exists for immigration purposes, and a later state expungement doesn’t undo it.⁷ A conviction vacated for a constitutional or procedural defect can be recognized, but a rehabilitative expungement like Missouri’s is not.⁸ On a naturalization application, you’re still required to disclose expunged convictions. Anyone with immigration exposure should talk to an immigration attorney before filing.

Background Check Databases

Even after the court orders your record closed, traces can linger elsewhere. Missouri’s central repository is required to ask the FBI to delete the record, but the FBI acts on those requests only when they come through the state identification bureau’s official channels.⁹ If your conviction still appears on an FBI Identity History Summary you request yourself, you can challenge the record and submit the expungement order as proof.

Private background check companies are a separate problem. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumer reporting agencies have to follow reasonable procedures for accuracy, which includes not reporting expunged records.¹⁰ Some pull from stale databases and report sealed convictions anyway. If that happens, dispute the report in writing directly with the company. If it isn’t corrected, you may have a claim under the FCRA.

Costs and Timeline

The $250 court surcharge is the only mandatory government fee.³ Attorney fees run from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on complexity and the number of convictions. You can file on your own, but getting the petition right, especially the agency list, is where a lawyer often earns their fee.

The statute caps the process at six months from filing to final order.⁴ Many cases move faster. An unopposed petition can wrap up in a couple of months. A contested case takes longer, though the hearing itself must be scheduled within 60 days of an objection. After the order issues, expect additional time for each named agency to actually close its records.

1
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Revised Statutes Section 610.140 – Expungement of Certain Criminal Records
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 556.061 – General Definitions
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 488.650 – Surcharge on Expungement Petitions
4
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 610.140 – Expungement of Certain Criminal Records
5
U.S. Courts. Juror Qualifications, Exemptions and Excuses
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
7
Legal Information Institute. 8 USC 1101(a)(48) – Definition of Conviction
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Administrative Appeals Office Non-Precedent Decision
9
Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. FBI Criminal History Records – What Every Legal Aid Lawyer Needs to Know
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681e – Compliance Procedures