Missouri Automatic Expungement: Start Date, Eligibility, and Limits

Missouri’s automatic expungement system is scheduled to begin on August 28, 2029, under a 2026 law creating a new section 610.141. Until it goes live, the only way to clear a Missouri criminal record is to file a petition under the existing statute, RSMO 610.140. The automated system will have shorter waiting periods than the petition process and will not require you to file anything or pay a fee.¹

When the Automatic System Starts

HB 2047 passed both chambers of the Missouri legislature in 2026 and sets August 28, 2029, as the date the automated system begins operating. The bill describes it as “technology-assisted, state-initiated bulk closing of records.” From that date, the Office of State Courts Administrator identifies eligible records every month and transmits them to the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Central Repository and to prosecuting agencies for closure.¹

A second date matters if your record is older: August 28, 2031. Any record that was already eligible on or before August 28, 2026, must be identified and expunged by that deadline. The two-year window exists because the historical backlog is large, so if your record has been sitting for years, expect it to clear sometime between 2029 and 2031 rather than on day one.¹

The system applies retroactively to any arrest, charge, trial, or conviction for which a digital record exists, no matter when the offense occurred.¹

Who Will Qualify

The automatic system uses waiting periods measured from final disposition of the case, and they are considerably shorter than the current petition-based waits of three and seven years:

Suspended sentences where probation was completed successfully: one year after final disposition, with no new felony or misdemeanor convictions during that year.
Infractions, municipal offenses, and misdemeanors: one year after final disposition, with no new convictions.
Felonies: three years after final disposition, with no new convictions.
Age 65 and older: any eligible offense qualifies if you have had no misdemeanor or felony convictions in the preceding ten years.
Governor’s pardon: all offenses covered by a full pardon qualify immediately.

Traffic violations do not count against you during the waiting period under the automatic system.¹

Offenses That Will Never Be Cleared

The exclusions that apply to petition-based expungement carry over to the automatic system. If your offense falls into one of these categories, it will not be cleared no matter how much time passes:

Class A felonies, Missouri’s most serious felony classification, carrying 10 to 30 years or life imprisonment.²
Dangerous felonies as defined by statute, including first-degree arson, first-degree assault, first-degree robbery, second-degree murder, armed criminal action, first-degree kidnapping, and vehicle hijacking.³
Any sex offense that requires registration.
Felonies where death is an element of the offense.
Felony assault, domestic assault, and felony kidnapping.
Intoxication-related traffic and boating offenses, so DWI records remain available for enhanced sentencing on repeat cases.
Any traffic offense committed by someone holding or required to hold a commercial driver’s license.

The statute also individually excludes dozens of specific code sections, covering crimes such as election fraud, certain weapons offenses, child endangerment, and official misconduct.⁴

Lifetime Caps Apply Across Both Systems

You cannot use automatic expungement to bypass Missouri’s cap on how many offenses can ever be cleared from your record. Under HB 2047, the combined lifetime limits across the petition and automatic systems are two felonies and four misdemeanors or ordinance violations that carry an authorized term of imprisonment.¹ If you already used a felony expungement through a petition, the automatic system can only clear one more felony.

Infractions are not capped under the current petition statute.⁵

If You Don’t Want to Wait Until 2029

The petition process remains available now and will continue after the automatic system starts. Under RSMO 610.140, you file a petition in the court where you were charged or convicted, naming every agency that might hold records of the case, including law enforcement, the prosecuting attorney, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Central Repository.⁵

The waiting periods under the petition system are longer than under the automatic system: three years after completion of sentence for a misdemeanor, municipal offense, or infraction, and seven years for a felony. Completion of sentence includes probation and parole.⁶ You must also have no new convictions during the waiting period, and all fines, restitution, and court costs on the case must be paid.

The prosecuting attorney has 30 days to object after you file. If an objection comes in, the court holds a hearing within 60 days. Once the court confirms eligibility, it must issue an expungement order within six months of filing. If you satisfy the statutory criteria, the law presumes expungement is warranted and the prosecutor bears the burden of arguing otherwise.⁵

Filing runs roughly $250 per case. Courts can waive the fee if you cannot afford it. If you were arrested but never charged, or if charges were dropped, you can petition three years after the arrest as long as you had no felony or misdemeanor convictions during that time.⁴

What Expungement Actually Does

Once your record is expunged, the court closes the file. On Case.net, Missouri’s public court records portal, the case no longer appears in name searches and the docket is hidden from public view. In most settings, including job and housing applications, you can legally deny that the arrest or conviction happened.⁵

Missouri law carves out three situations where you must still disclose an expunged offense:

Applications for any state-issued professional license, certificate, or permit.
Paid or unpaid work with an entity licensed under Missouri’s gaming laws, or with a state-operated lottery.
Positions with any emergency services provider, including law enforcement.

Even in those situations, the law says an expunged offense cannot be the sole grounds for automatic disqualification. It can be considered as one factor.⁵ You must also disclose an expunged offense to a court if asked or if you are charged with a new crime.

Private Background Checks

Private background check companies pull data from courts, agencies, and third-party aggregators on their own schedules. There is no centralized process that forces every private database to update when a Missouri court expunges a record, so an expunged offense can keep showing up on private checks for months or years.

Federal law provides some protection. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, screening companies must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy in their reports.⁷ The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has said that reporting expunged or sealed records is an inaccuracy that violates FCRA accuracy standards.⁸ The FTC has stated the same for tenant screening.⁹ If an expunged record costs you a job or an apartment, the employer or landlord must give you the name of the screening company that produced the report, and you can dispute the entry directly with that company.

Immigration

A Missouri expungement does not remove a conviction for federal immigration purposes. USCIS treats an expunged conviction as a conviction, can require you to submit evidence of it during a naturalization or benefit application, and can treat a failure to disclose an expunged arrest or conviction as a false statement that creates a separate bar to naturalization.¹⁰

Checking Whether Your Record Cleared

Missouri’s public court records are searchable through Case.net. A properly expunged record will not appear in name searches, and the case docket will be hidden. If a record you believe should have been expunged still shows up, contact the clerk of the court where the case was filed. Correcting a genuine error requires a court motion, and if the court’s expungement order was not carried out fully, a follow-up motion may be needed to enforce it.

Keep a copy of any expungement order you receive. You may need it to dispute inaccurate private background checks, to answer questions during a professional licensing application, or to provide to USCIS if you pursue immigration benefits.

1
BillTrack50. MO HB2047
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 558.011 – Sentence of Imprisonment, Terms – Conditional Release
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 556.061 – Code Definitions
4
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 610.140 – Expungement of Certain Criminal Records, Petition, Contents, Procedure – Effect of Expungement on Employer Inquiry – Lifetime Limits
5
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 610.140 – Expungement of Certain Criminal Records
6
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 610.140 – Expungement of Certain Criminal Records, Petition, Contents, Procedure – Effect of Expungement on Employer Inquiry – Lifetime Limits
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681e – Compliance Procedures
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Fair Credit Reporting – Background Screening
9
Federal Trade Commission. What Tenant Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act
10
USCIS. Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors