How to Expunge Your Record in Florida: Eligibility and FDLE Steps

To expunge your record in Florida, your case has to have ended without a finding of guilt, and you have to clear a state-level eligibility check with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement before a circuit court judge can order your arrest record destroyed. The FDLE keeps one confidential copy that stays sealed from public view, but every other agency holding the record is directed to physically destroy it.¹ Plan on several months from start to finish.

Who Qualifies

Expungement is for cases that ended without any finding of guilt. That covers dismissals, charges the prosecutor dropped, acquittals, and arrests where charges were never filed.²³⁴

The outcome of the specific case is only the first hurdle. Your entire Florida criminal history is examined, and every one of these has to be true:

You were never adjudicated guilty on the arrest you want cleared.²
You have no prior conviction anywhere in Florida for any offense. Certain juvenile adjudications for felonies or specific misdemeanors — battery, petit theft, and carrying a concealed weapon among them — also disqualify you.²
You have never had another Florida record sealed or expunged. It is a one-time lifetime relief, with the ten-year sealing-to-expungement conversion as the only exception.²
You have finished any probation, pretrial supervision, or other court-ordered conditions tied to the case.²
The charge is not on the list of offenses that can never be expunged.

The one-time-only rule is where people run out of options. A minor sealing five years ago blocks expungement of a more serious dismissed charge today, unless that earlier record qualifies for conversion.

Offenses That Can Never Be Expunged

Some charges are permanently barred, even when the case ended in dismissal or acquittal. The prohibited list in Section 943.0584 covers homicide, kidnapping, aggravated assault or battery, sexual battery, lewd or lascivious conduct and other sexual misconduct, child abuse and exploitation offenses, terrorism, arson, and certain domestic violence offenses, among others.² If your charge is on the list, FDLE will deny the Certificate of Eligibility and the process ends there. The FDLE application package includes the complete statutory list.⁴

Step One: Certificate of Eligibility From FDLE

Before any judge will hear your petition, the FDLE has to certify you qualify.⁵ Your application package has to include:

The FDLE application form, signed in front of a notary or a deputy clerk of the court.⁵
A fingerprint card taken by a law enforcement agency or other authorized criminal justice agency, bearing your name, date of birth, signature, and the official’s signature.⁵
A certified disposition from the Clerk of Court in the arrest county showing how the case ended. If your case went through pretrial intervention or diversion, a completion certificate from that program can substitute.⁵
A certified statement from the State Attorney’s office that handled the case, confirming the case meets eligibility requirements. You request this directly from that office.²
A $75 processing fee payable to FDLE by money order, cashier’s check, or personal check. It is nonrefundable if the application is denied.⁵

Mail the complete package to FDLE. Current processing runs over 12 weeks from the date they receive it, and applications are handled in order.⁴ An incomplete package pushes you further back. The State Attorney’s certified statement is the piece most likely to slow you down because it depends on another office’s timeline, so request it early.

Step Two: Petition the Circuit Court

With the Certificate of Eligibility in hand, you file a Petition to Expunge in the circuit court for the county where the case was handled, along with the certificate and a sworn statement of eligibility.⁶ The court charges its own filing fee.

You then serve copies of the petition and certificate on the State Attorney’s Office in the county of origin and on the arresting law enforcement agency.⁶ Objections are uncommon once FDLE has issued the certificate.

The judge reviews the paperwork, sometimes without a hearing, sometimes with a brief one. If the judge grants the petition, the order directs every agency holding the record to destroy its copy. The order can extend to additional arrests directly related to the same incident, but only if the judge says so explicitly.²

What You Can Legally Say Afterward

Once your record is expunged, you can lawfully deny the arrest on job applications, housing forms, and in most other settings.⁷ Checking “no” when asked about prior arrests is legally truthful.

You still have to disclose the arrest when:⁷

Applying for work with a criminal justice agency such as a police department or sheriff’s office
Applying for admission to the Florida Bar
Seeking employment or licensure with state agencies that oversee children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, including the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Health, and the Agency for Health Care Administration
Seeking employment or licensure with schools, charter schools, child care facilities, or the Department of Education
Applying for an insurance agent license through the Department of Financial Services
Being appointed as a guardian
Facing charges as a defendant in a new criminal case
Petitioning for another sealing or expungement

When an Expunged Record Still Shows Up

The court order reaches government agencies. It does not automatically reach the private background check companies that pull court records into their own databases and keep old copies. An arrest that appeared before your expungement can still sit in those systems afterward.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires background check companies to follow reasonable procedures to keep their reports accurate.⁸ An expunged record on a report is inaccurate by definition. Dispute it in writing with the reporting company, attach a copy of your court order, and they have to investigate and correct or remove it. If a company ignores a legitimate dispute or keeps reporting expunged information, you may be able to recover damages such as lost wages from a withdrawn job offer.

The practical step: after your order is signed, run a background check on yourself through one of the major consumer reporting services. Don’t assume private databases will update on their own.

Non-Citizens and Immigration

Florida expungement offers limited protection in immigration matters. Federal immigration law has its own definition of “conviction” that a state expungement does not override.⁹

Under federal law, a conviction exists whenever a judge or jury found you guilty, or you entered a guilty or no-contest plea, and the court imposed some form of punishment or restraint on liberty. That is true even if adjudication was withheld under Florida law. A truly dismissed case, an acquittal, or a pretrial diversion that required no admission of guilt generally does not count as a conviction for immigration purposes. But if a conviction was vacated solely to avoid immigration consequences or because you completed a rehabilitative program rather than for a legal defect in the case, immigration authorities will still treat it as a conviction.⁹ Talk to an immigration attorney before filing for expungement if your status is at stake.

A Different Path: Administrative Expungement for Wrongful Arrests

If you were arrested by mistake or the arrest was contrary to law, Florida has a simpler path that skips the court entirely. The FDLE can administratively expunge the nonjudicial record when the arrest itself was the error.¹⁰

The arresting agency can initiate it, or you can apply to FDLE directly if the head of the arresting agency or the State Attorney in that circuit endorses your application. The application has to include the arrest date and time, your name, the tracking system number, and the charges.¹⁰ This route is narrower than court-ordered expungement. It reaches arrests that should never have happened, not arrests that were valid at the time and later resulted in dropped charges.

1
My Florida Legal. Attorney General Opinion 2000-16 – Criminal History Records, Expungement
2
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
3
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 943.059 – Court-Ordered Sealing of Criminal History Records
4
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Seal and Expunge Frequently Asked Questions
5
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Applying for a Certificate of Eligibility for Court-Ordered Sealing or Expungement
6
Office of the State Attorney Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida. Office of the State Attorney Expungement Procedures
7
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 Section 1681e – Compliance Procedures
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors
10
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 943.0581 – Administrative Expunction of Criminal History Records