How to Get a Felony Expunged in Virginia: Who Qualifies, Costs, and Sealing

You can get a felony expunged in Virginia only if the case ended without a conviction, meaning you were acquitted, the charge was dismissed, the prosecutor dropped it, or you were charged because someone used your identity. A felony conviction itself cannot be expunged. If your case qualifies, you file a petition in the circuit court where the charge was resolved, serve the Commonwealth’s Attorney, and convince the court that keeping the record accessible causes you “manifest injustice.”

Who Qualifies

Expungement in Virginia is reserved for charges that did not end in a guilty verdict or plea. You may petition if your felony case resolved in any of these ways:

Acquittal. A judge or jury found you not guilty.
Nolle prosequi. The prosecutor chose to drop the charge.
Dismissal. The court dismissed the charge for any reason, including dismissal by accord and satisfaction.
Identity theft. Someone else used your name or identification during an arrest, and you were wrongly charged as a result.

Two narrow paths exist for people who were convicted. If the Governor grants you an absolute pardon based on actual innocence, the court must order expungement of the charge and conviction records upon receiving a copy of that pardon. The same applies if your conviction is vacated through a writ of actual innocence. An absolute pardon is not the same thing as a simple or conditional pardon, and only the absolute version triggers expungement.¹

The Manifest Injustice Standard

Being eligible is not the same as winning. For a felony expungement, the court must find that keeping your arrest record accessible causes or could cause you “manifest injustice.” This is the highest burden Virginia places on expungement petitioners, and it is where most felony petitions turn.¹

The statute does not define the term with a checklist. Virginia courts look at whether the record’s continued existence causes concrete, specific harm that outweighs the public’s interest in maintaining it. Evidence that tends to help includes documented job losses or rejections tied to the charge showing up on background checks, denial of housing, difficulty obtaining professional licenses, and similar real-world consequences. Vague claims that the record is embarrassing or inconvenient will not carry a petition. You need documentation: rejection letters, screenshots of background check results, written statements from employers or landlords, and anything else that ties the record to the harm you have experienced.

Filing Steps and Required Documents

Gather three things before you file.

First, complete the Petition for Expungement, Form CC-1473, available on the Virginia Judicial System website. Fill in your personal details, the specific felony charge, the date of the charge, and how the case was resolved.²

Second, get a certified copy of the warrant or indictment from the clerk’s office of the court where your case was handled.

Third, go to a law enforcement agency to have a full set of fingerprints taken, and bring a copy of your petition with you. The agency submits your fingerprints and a copy of the petition to the Central Criminal Records Exchange, which runs a background check and sends a sealed report with your fingerprint card and criminal history directly to the circuit court.³

File the completed petition and the certified copy with the circuit court clerk in the jurisdiction where your charge was resolved. Some courts also require a Cover Sheet for Filing Civil Actions, Form CC-1416.⁴

After filing, you must serve a copy of the petition on the Commonwealth’s Attorney for that jurisdiction. The prosecutor then has 21 days to either file an objection or provide written notice that they do not oppose the petition.¹

What It Costs

Virginia’s circuit court fee schedule sets the expungement filing fee at $98.⁵ Starting July 1, 2026, petitioners who qualify for expungement based on an acquittal, dismissal, or identity theft will not be required to pay court fees or costs.¹

Beyond the filing fee, expect additional expenses. Fingerprinting fees vary by the law enforcement agency you use. If you hire a process server or the sheriff’s office to serve the petition on the Commonwealth’s Attorney, that adds another cost. And if you hire an attorney, legal fees will be the largest expense by far. Given how much depends on the manifest injustice showing for a felony petition, most people in this situation benefit from legal representation.

The Hearing and the Court’s Decision

Once the Commonwealth’s Attorney has been served, the case follows one of two tracks. If the prosecutor files an objection or does not respond, the court schedules a hearing after it receives the CCRE background check report. At that hearing, you present your evidence of manifest injustice and the Commonwealth’s Attorney may argue against the petition.¹

There is one scenario where a felony expungement can proceed without a hearing. The Commonwealth’s Attorney must both provide written notice of no objection and specifically stipulate in that notice that the record’s continued existence causes or could cause manifest injustice. Both conditions must be met. In practice, prosecutors rarely volunteer that stipulation on felony charges, so plan on a hearing.³

If the court grants the petition, the clerk forwards the expungement order to the Virginia Department of State Police, which directs the relevant agencies on how to remove or seal the records. The petition and the order are kept under seal by the court clerk.¹

If Your Petition Is Denied

A denial does not have to be the end. Virginia treats expungement proceedings as civil cases, so any party unhappy with the decision may appeal under the same procedures used in civil appeals.¹ The statute does not impose a waiting period before you file again, but refiling the same petition with the same evidence will not change the result. If your manifest injustice showing fell short, use the time to build a stronger record before trying again.

If You Were Actually Convicted: Sealing in 2026

A felony conviction cannot be expunged in Virginia. A separate process called sealing takes effect on July 1, 2026, and will let people with certain lower-level felony convictions petition a circuit court to seal the records from public view. Sealed records still exist and remain available to law enforcement and government agencies, but they are removed from standard background checks.⁶

Sealing is limited to Class 5 felonies, Class 6 felonies, and grand larceny, for offenses on or after January 1, 1986. You must have a ten-year clean record from your conviction, release, or last probation or parole violation finding, with no Class 1 or 2 felony ever, no Class 3 or 4 felony in the past 20 years, and no other felony in the past 10. Violent felonies, sex offenses requiring registration, firearm felonies, DUI, protective order violations, hate crimes, animal cruelty, and election law violations are excluded.⁷

Federal Consequences Expungement Does Not Fix

A Virginia expungement does not automatically resolve every problem a felony charge can create at the federal level.

Firearm Rights

Under federal law, a conviction that has been expunged or set aside is generally not treated as a conviction for purposes of the federal ban on felons possessing firearms. The exception: if the expungement order itself expressly prohibits you from possessing firearms, the federal prohibition still applies.⁸ Virginia expungement applies to non-convictions, so if your felony charge was dismissed or you were acquitted, you were likely never subject to the federal firearms ban in the first place. If an absolute pardon and expungement are both involved, the interplay with federal law gets complicated, and the ATF recommends consulting the state attorney general’s office in your state of residence and the state where the conviction occurred.⁹

Immigration

If you are not a U.S. citizen, state expungement can be genuinely dangerous. Federal immigration authorities generally do not recognize state expungements for purposes of deportation proceedings. An expunged conviction can still make a noncitizen deportable and can still block naturalization or other immigration benefits. Records from contact with the criminal justice system often remain in federal databases maintained by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security even after a state court orders them sealed. The only reliable way to eliminate the immigration consequences of a conviction is to have it vacated based on a legal or procedural defect in the original case. Talk to an immigration attorney before filing anything, because submitting applications that reference an expunged conviction can itself create risk.

1
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 19.2-392.2 – Expungement of Police and Court Records
2
Supreme Court of Virginia. Form CC-1473 – Petition for Expungement
3
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code Title 19.2 – Chapter 23.1 Expungement of Criminal Records
4
Supreme Court of Virginia. Cover Sheet for Filing Civil Actions – Form CC-1416
5
Supreme Court of Virginia. Circuit Court Fee Schedule – Appendix C
6
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code Title 19.2 – Chapter 23.2 Sealing of Criminal History Record Information and Court Records
7
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 19.2-392.12 – Sealing of Offenses Resulting in a Conviction or Deferred Dismissal; Petition
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 Section 921 – Definitions
9
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Most Frequently Asked Firearms Questions and Answers