How to Expunge a Misdemeanor in Illinois: Eligibility and Petition

To expunge a misdemeanor in Illinois, you file a petition with the Circuit Clerk in the county where you were arrested or charged, and a judge reviews whether your case qualifies. The short version of who qualifies: expungement is available when your case did not end in a conviction, meaning it was dismissed, you were acquitted, you were released without charges, or you successfully completed court supervision or qualified probation. If you were convicted, expungement is off the table unless the Governor pardons you or a court reverses the conviction, though sealing may still be an option.

Does Your Case Qualify

Eligibility comes down to two questions: how did the case end, and how long ago did it end? Illinois sets different waiting periods depending on the outcome, and every clock runs from the date you finished your sentence, not the date of arrest or the court’s disposition.¹

Acquittal, dismissal, or release without charges: no waiting period. You can file immediately.
Supervision for most offenses: two years after you successfully completed supervision.
Supervision for domestic battery, certain vehicle offenses, or criminal sexual abuse: five years after successful completion.
Qualified probation: five years after you successfully completed probation.
Reckless driving supervision: if you were under 25 at the time and have no other DUI or reckless driving convictions, you become eligible when you turn 25. Otherwise it cannot be expunged.

Misdemeanors That Cannot Be Expunged

Some outcomes are permanently barred from expungement regardless of how much time passes:

DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs)
Any sexual offense committed against a minor
Reckless driving, unless you fit the under-25 exception above

These three categories are also barred from sealing, so there is no state-court remedy for these records.¹

If You Were Convicted

A misdemeanor conviction cannot be expunged through the standard petition. Two narrow paths exist. The Governor can grant a pardon that specifically authorizes expungement, in which case you also need a Certificate of Eligibility for Expungement from the Illinois Prisoner Review Board before filing. When a pardon specifically authorizes expungement, no agency can object to your petition. The other path is a conviction that is vacated or reversed by a court.¹

For most people with a misdemeanor conviction, the practical remedy is sealing. Sealing does not destroy the record, but it removes it from public view and from the standard background checks most employers and landlords run. Law enforcement, prosecutors, the Department of Children and Family Services, and employers required by law to run fingerprint-based background checks (including financial institutions, schools, healthcare organizations, and fire departments) can still see sealed records. Some professional licensing agencies can too.

You can petition to seal a misdemeanor conviction two years after you completed your last sentence across all of your conviction cases. If you have multiple convictions, the two-year clock does not restart until you finish the most recent sentence.¹

Sealing has a longer list of exclusions than expungement. In addition to DUI, sex offenses against minors, and reckless driving, sealing is barred for domestic battery and aggravated domestic battery, violations of stalking no-contact orders or civil no-contact orders, most sex offenses under the Criminal Code, intimidation, Class A misdemeanors under the Humane Care for Animals Act, and any offense requiring sex offender registration.¹

Get Your Criminal History First

Before you fill out anything, request a copy of your criminal history record from the Illinois State Police Bureau of Identification. This document lists every arrest on file under your name, and you will use it to complete the petition accurately. Petitions with wrong case numbers, wrong dates, or missing arrests are routinely denied, so the record you file against needs to match what the State has on you.

Fill Out and File the Petition

Get the petition forms from the Circuit Clerk’s office in the county where the arrest or charge occurred. Many clerks post them online. The main document is the Petition to Expunge and Seal Criminal Records. For each case you list, you will need:

The case number
Your date of arrest
The arresting agency’s name
The specific charge
How the case was resolved

You will also prepare a draft Order to Expunge and Seal Criminal Records for the judge to sign if the petition is granted. Filing fees vary by county but typically fall in the $60 to $120 range, sometimes including a mailing fee for service. If you cannot afford it, submit an Application for Waiver of Court Fees, a standardized form on the Illinois Courts website.²

File with the Circuit Clerk in the county where the charge was prosecuted. Some counties allow e-filing; others require in-person filing. The clerk stamps your documents and assigns a case number.

Service and the 60-Day Window

After you file, the Circuit Clerk serves copies of your petition on the State’s Attorney or prosecutor who handled the case, the Illinois State Police, the arresting agency, and, for municipal ordinance violations, the chief legal officer of the local government that made the arrest.¹ Ask the clerk whether you need to provide stamped envelopes or cover mailing costs; practices differ.

Each notified agency has 60 days to file a written objection stating specific reasons you should not receive expungement. If nobody objects within 60 days, the court typically rules on the paperwork alone, without a hearing. If an agency does object, the court will set a hearing where you can explain why the petition should be granted and the agency lays out its opposition. The judge decides.

After the Order

Once a judge signs the order, the agencies that were served have 60 days to comply. What compliance looks like depends on the agency. Police departments and the Illinois State Police must remove the expunged records from their systems. Courts do not destroy their files; they impound them, meaning the records still exist but cannot be accessed without a separate court order.

The process is not instant. It routinely takes several months for every agency to fully update its systems. Run a personal background check on yourself a few months after the order to confirm the record no longer appears.

A Shortcut for Some Cannabis Cases

If your misdemeanor involved a minor cannabis offense that did not end in a conviction, you may not need to file anything. Under the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, non-conviction records for possession, manufacture, or delivery of less than 30 grams of cannabis are automatically expunged by the Illinois State Police. Non-conviction covers dropped charges, deferred prosecution, and not-guilty findings. As of early 2023, the State Police had already expunged over 780,000 charges under this provision.³ Pull your criminal history record to verify whether a qualifying charge has already been cleared.

If You Are Not a U.S. Citizen

An Illinois expungement does not bind the federal government. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services treats a conviction as a conviction even after a state court has expunged or sealed it, and the Board of Immigration Appeals has held that state rehabilitative actions do not remove the underlying conviction in the immigration context.⁴ USCIS may even move to unseal records. If you are applying for naturalization, a green card, or any immigration benefit, talk to an immigration attorney before assuming the state process resolves the federal question.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 20 ILCS 2630/5.2 – Expungement, Sealing, and Immediate Sealing
2
Illinois Courts. Fee Waiver for Civil Cases
3
Illinois Cannabis Regulation Oversight Officer. Expungement
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual Volume 12 Part F Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors