Illinois Expungement and Sealing: Eligibility, Waiting Periods, Filing

Illinois expungement and sealing are two separate court remedies for clearing a criminal record under 20 ILCS 2630/5.2. Expungement destroys the records or returns them to you, while sealing keeps the records on file but hides them from the general public, most employers, and most landlords. Which one you can get depends mostly on how your case ended: expungement is generally reserved for arrests and charges that did not produce a conviction, and sealing is the route for most actual convictions.¹

What Each Remedy Actually Does

Expungement is the stronger result. When a court grants it, the arresting agency and the Illinois State Police must destroy their files or return them to you, and the record stops appearing in state criminal history databases. For most practical purposes, it is gone.

Sealing leaves the record intact in government databases but blocks access by the public, private employers, and most landlords. Law enforcement, prosecutors, and certain licensing bodies can still see sealed records during background investigations. Because expungement wipes more away, its eligibility rules are tighter. Most people with an actual conviction will qualify for sealing only.¹

Who Qualifies for Expungement

Expungement is for cases that did not end in a guilty finding, or where a guilty finding was later undone. You can petition when your arrest or charge resulted in:

An acquittal, dismissal, or release without charging. No waiting period applies.
A conviction that was vacated or reversed on appeal.
Successfully completed court supervision, which Illinois does not treat as a conviction. Most offenses qualify, though some carry a longer wait.
Successfully completed first-offender probation under the Cannabis Control Act, the Controlled Substances Act, the Methamphetamine Control and Community Protection Act, or similar provisions.

The through-line: expungement is available when you were never convicted, when your conviction was erased by a court, or when you finished a sentence Illinois law does not count as a conviction.¹

Who Qualifies for Sealing

Sealing reaches a wider set of outcomes, including actual convictions. The following are eligible:

Arrests without charging, acquittals, and dismissals. These can be sealed at any time, though most people in this category pursue expungement instead.
Completed supervision orders, including supervision for municipal ordinance violations, unless the offense is on the exclusion list.
Misdemeanor and felony convictions. This is the category that distinguishes sealing from expungement. If the offense is not excluded by statute, a conviction can still be sealed.
First-offender probation completed under the Cannabis Control Act, Controlled Substances Act, or related statutes.

Waiting periods are longer for convictions than for non-conviction records.¹

What Can Never Be Cleared

Some records are permanently off-limits for both remedies. The main exclusions:

DUI convictions and supervision under Section 11-501 of the Illinois Vehicle Code.
Any sexual offense committed against a minor.
Reckless driving under Section 11-503 of the Vehicle Code, with a narrow exception for misdemeanor reckless driving committed before age 25 by someone with no other DUI or reckless driving record.
Certain domestic violence offenses, including domestic battery, aggravated domestic battery, and violation of an order of protection. These face significant restrictions throughout the statute and are excluded from the Prisoner Review Board’s Certificate of Sealing pathway.²
Minor traffic offenses and convictions requiring registration under the Sex Offender Registration Act, the Arsonist Registry Act, or the Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registration Act.

If your offense is on the exclusion list, waiting longer or showing rehabilitation does not change the result.¹

Waiting Periods Before You Can File

How long you wait depends on both the type of relief and the outcome of your case.

Expungement

Acquittal, dismissal, or release without charging: file immediately.
Completed supervision for most offenses: two years after supervision ends.
Completed supervision for certain Vehicle Code or domestic-related offenses: five years after supervision ends.
Problem-solving court or diversion programs: as early as 61 days before the anticipated dismissal.

Sealing

Arrests without charging, acquittals, and dismissals: no wait.
Completed supervision: two years after the end of your last sentence.
Misdemeanor and felony convictions and first-offender drug probation: three years after the end of your last sentence.
Educational shortcut: if you earned a high school diploma, GED, associate’s degree, career certificate, vocational certification, or bachelor’s degree during your sentence or mandatory supervised release, the three-year wait drops to zero.

“Last sentence” means your most recent sentence across all cases, not just the one you want cleared. If you finished probation for one offense but remain on supervision for another, the clock has not started.¹

How to Prepare the Petition

Start with your criminal history transcript from the Illinois State Police. This is the official rap sheet, pulled by fingerprint-based background check. The Illinois State Police charges $15 for an electronic state-only check or $20 for a manual submission.³ Commercial background check reports are not reliable substitutes; they often lack the case numbers and court codes the petition forms require.

With your rap sheet in hand, use the standardized forms approved by the Illinois Supreme Court: the Request to Expunge and Impound and/or Seal Criminal Records and the Notice of Filing for Expungement and/or Sealing. Both are available through the Illinois Courts website and must be accepted in every Illinois circuit court.⁴ The petition must list your name, date of birth, current address, the case number for each arrest or charge, the date of each arrest, and each arresting agency.¹

One trap catches people off guard. If you are petitioning to seal a felony drug conviction, a felony under the Cannabis Control Act, or certain felony records under first-offender probation, you must attach proof of a clean drug test taken within 30 days before filing. Skipping this can get your petition denied outright.

Filing and Costs

Illinois requires electronic filing through the Odyssey eFileIL system for most court filings. You upload your petition and supporting documents through the portal, which returns a time-stamped confirmation.⁵ If your arrests occurred in more than one county, file a separate petition in each county.

Filing fees vary by county. They typically include the circuit court’s own fee plus a $60 processing fee payable to the Illinois State Police after the court grants your order.³ Totals commonly land between $120 and $250. There is no ISP charge for the petition itself; the $60 only applies once a court order is entered.

If you cannot afford the fee, Illinois provides a sliding-scale waiver. A full waiver is available at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, or if you receive SSI, TANF, or SNAP. Partial waivers of 25% to 75% apply between 125% and 200% of the poverty level.⁶ You apply for the waiver at filing, and a judge reviews your income information.

Attorney fees for professional help typically range from $400 to several thousand dollars depending on complexity. Many Illinois legal aid organizations handle expungement petitions at no cost for people who qualify.

What Happens After You File

The circuit court clerk takes care of notifying the government parties. You do not serve them yourself. The clerk sends your petition to the State’s Attorney, 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 Your Notice of Filing identifies those parties so the clerk knows who to contact.⁷ Accuracy matters here. If your paperwork names the wrong arresting agency or leaves one out, the court can strike the petition. Cross-reference each entry against your rap sheet.

After service, any notified party has 60 days to file a written objection. If nobody objects, the court typically rules without a hearing, and uncontested petitions that meet all statutory requirements are routinely granted. You will receive the written order by mail.

If the state objects, the court schedules a hearing and must give the parties at least 30 days’ notice. The judge weighs the evidence and the circumstances and then grants, denies, or modifies the relief sought.¹

Once the judge signs the order, the clerk distributes it to the Illinois State Police and the arresting agency. Those agencies have 60 days from receipt to update their databases. In practice, the full cycle from court order to final confirmation often runs 90 to 120 days. The Illinois State Police sends a confirmation letter when its records are updated. Keep that letter. It is your proof the record was cleared or sealed if a background check later surfaces old information. If 120 days pass without confirmation, you can contact the ISP expungement unit at ISP.Expungement.Unit@illinois.gov.

Private Background Checks Will Not Update Themselves

Court orders are served on government agencies. They do not reach the commercial data brokers that scrape courthouse records and sell them to employers and landlords. No formal system requires those companies to update their files, and many keep reporting information from records that have been legally cleared.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires background screening companies to follow reasonable procedures to ensure accuracy, and the Federal Trade Commission has flagged the inclusion of expunged or sealed records as a sign that a company’s procedures may fall short.⁸ Enforcement in practice is on you. After your order is entered, run a few commercial background checks on yourself. If old records still appear, send the data broker a written dispute with a copy of the court order attached. If the company refuses to correct the report, you may have an FCRA claim for reporting inaccurate information.

Cannabis Records Have Their Own Pathway

Illinois built a separate route for minor cannabis offenses after legalizing recreational marijuana. If you were arrested for possession or distribution of 30 grams or less before June 25, 2019, and no charges were filed or the charges were dismissed, your police arrest records should have been automatically expunged with no action by you. The automatic deadlines ran through January 1, 2025, depending on arrest date.⁹

Automatic expungement of arrest records does not clear court records. If your case reached court, you still need a separate motion to vacate and expunge. For actual cannabis convictions involving 30 grams or less, the records go to the Prisoner Review Board, which can recommend that the Governor grant a pardon authorizing expungement. If the Governor acts, the Attorney General files the expungement petition for you in the county of conviction.⁹ This pathway does not disqualify you from pursuing expungement or sealing of other records through the standard process.

Immigration and Firearms: What State Relief Does Not Do

State-level expungement does not erase your record for every purpose. Two federal areas carry severe consequences and deserve specific attention.

Immigration

Federal immigration law defines “conviction” independently from state law, and the definition is broader than most people expect. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a conviction exists whenever a court found you guilty or you entered a guilty plea and a judge imposed any form of punishment or restraint on your liberty, even if the state later expunged the record.¹⁰ The Board of Immigration Appeals has consistently held that state expungements, pardons, and rehabilitative dismissals do not remove a conviction for immigration purposes.¹¹

If you are not a U.S. citizen, consult an immigration attorney before filing. The petition itself can draw attention to a conviction immigration authorities might otherwise not have noticed, and the expungement will not protect you from removal or inadmissibility findings based on that conviction.

Firearms

Federal firearms law treats expungement more favorably. Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), a conviction that has been expunged, set aside, or pardoned is not considered a conviction for the federal firearms prohibition, unless the expungement order specifically says you may not possess firearms.¹² If your Illinois order is silent on firearms, a prior felony conviction that was expunged should no longer bar you from possessing firearms under federal law.

Sealed records are a different story. Sealing does not erase the conviction, so the federal firearms prohibition can still apply. For anyone weighing which remedy to pursue, this is one of the most important practical differences between expungement and sealing.

1
Illinois General Assembly. 20 ILCS 2630/5.2 – Expungement, Sealing, and Immediate Sealing
2
Illinois Prisoner Review Board. Certificate of Sealing
3
Illinois State Police. Bureau of Identification Fee Schedule
4
Illinois Courts. Request to Expunge and Impound and/or Seal Criminal Records
5
Illinois Courts. How to e-File
6
Illinois General Assembly. 735 ILCS 5/5-105
7
Illinois Courts. Notice of Filing for Expungement and/or Sealing
8
Federal Trade Commission. What Employment Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act
9
Office of the State Appellate Defender. Cannabis Expungement Information and Forms
10
Legal Information Institute. 8 USC 1101(a)(48) – Definition of Conviction
11
USCIS. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions