Texas Expunction Statute: Eligibility, Filing, and Limits

The Texas expunction statute, Chapter 55 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, lets certain people erase an arrest record so completely that they can legally deny the arrest ever happened. It is built for arrests that did not end in conviction: acquittals, dismissed or never-filed cases, pardons, identity-theft mistakes, and a narrow class of fine-only misdemeanors handled through deferred disposition. If you pleaded guilty and got probation, this is almost certainly not your remedy. Read on for who qualifies, what disqualifies you, how long you wait, how you file, and what the order actually does once you have it.

Who Qualifies Under Chapter 55

Expunction is available for arrests, not convictions, with narrow exceptions. You may be entitled to it if your situation falls into one of these categories:

Acquittal. You were tried and found not guilty by the trial court or on appeal.
No charges filed, or charges dropped. You were arrested but never formally charged, or charges were filed and later dismissed, and the case is no longer pending. You must not have been placed on court-ordered community supervision for the offense.
Pardon. You were convicted but later pardoned. A pardon or court order based on actual innocence is treated differently from a general pardon and triggers a faster, near-automatic process.
Identity theft or clerical error. Your identifying information ended up in the records because someone else used your name without consent, or because of a data-entry mistake. Your personal information can be scrubbed even though the underlying arrest involved a different person.
Class C misdemeanor with deferred disposition. You were charged with a fine-only Class C misdemeanor, completed deferred disposition under Article 45.051, and the case was dismissed.

The common thread: the arrest did not produce a conviction, or the conviction was wiped out by a pardon.¹

What Disqualifies You

Several situations block expunction even when the arrest looks eligible on the surface:

Conviction on the underlying charge. Any final conviction makes the arrest record ineligible, other than a Class C misdemeanor handled through deferred disposition and certain pre-2021 open-carry offenses.
Court-ordered community supervision. Probation for the offense bars expunction. This is the rule that catches most people. Deferred adjudication counts as community supervision, so completing deferred adjudication on anything above a Class C blocks expunction of that arrest.
Same criminal episode with a conviction. When multiple charges come out of a single event and one of them ended in a conviction or community supervision, the entire episode is ineligible.
Felony conviction within five years. A felony conviction in the five years before the arrest you want expunged disqualifies you, unless the Texas Department of Public Safety files the petition on your behalf.

Prosecutors and law enforcement can also object if the records are still needed for an ongoing investigation or a potential future prosecution.¹

Waiting Periods Before You Can File

When your case was dropped or never filed, you cannot petition right away. The statute imposes minimum waiting periods measured from the arrest date, to give prosecutors time to decide whether to charge:

Class C misdemeanor: 180 days
Class A or B misdemeanor: one year
Felony, or any arrest that also involved a felony charge from the same transaction: three years

You can skip the wait entirely if the prosecutor certifies in writing that the records are not needed for any investigation or prosecution. That certification is uncommon in practice but does happen when the prosecutor’s office agrees the case has no future. Acquittals and pardons based on actual innocence carry no waiting period at all.¹

When the Court Enters an Expunction on Its Own

Not every expunction requires a petition and a hearing. Texas law directs the trial court to enter an expunction order automatically in three situations:

Acquittal. The court must issue the order within 30 days of the acquittal, at the request of either the acquitted person or the prosecutor with that person’s consent.
Pardon based on actual innocence. The court must issue the order within 30 days of receiving notice of the pardon or grant of relief.
Dismissal after veterans treatment court or mental health court. If the case is dismissed after successful completion of one of these specialty programs, the court may enter an order within 30 days, with the prosecutor’s consent.

If you were acquitted at trial, you should not need to hire an attorney or navigate the petition process at all. The trial court handles it.²

How to File a Petition

If your case does not qualify for automatic expunction, you file a verified Petition for Expunction in the district court of the county where the arrest occurred. The petition must include:

Your full name, sex, race, date of birth, driver’s license number, Social Security number, and address at the time of arrest
The offense charged, the date it allegedly occurred, and the date of arrest
The county, and municipality if any, where the arrest happened
The arresting agency’s name
The case number and court
Every entity you believe holds records related to the arrest, including law enforcement agencies, courts, prosecutors, jails, state and federal criminal record depositories, and private background check companies, along with their physical or email addresses

That last item is where most self-filed petitions fail. If you leave an agency off the list, the expunction order will not reach that agency, and records will survive there. Cast a wide net. Think through every entity that processed you during arrest, booking, court appearances, and any pretrial supervision, and include the major background check companies so the court’s order itself directs them to purge the record.²

The court sets a hearing no sooner than 30 days after filing. Every government entity named receives certified mail or secure electronic notice.² Bring certified copies of the dismissal order, acquittal judgment, or other court records proving the outcome of your case. Identity-theft cases need documentation from DPS or the arresting agency confirming the error. Pardons need a certified copy of the governor’s pardon. The district attorney or any listed agency can object, typically by arguing a disqualifying conviction, a still-pending charge from the same episode, or an active investigation.

What the Order Does Once You Have It

A granted expunction is more than a deletion. Under Article 55.03, once the order is final you may deny the occurrence of the arrest and deny the existence of the order itself. On a job application, a housing application, or in a civil deposition, you can truthfully answer “no” when asked whether you have been arrested.³

One exception: if you are questioned under oath in a criminal proceeding about an expunged arrest, you cannot deny it outright. You may state only that the matter in question has been expunged.³

After the order is final, the court clerk sends a certified copy to the DPS Crime Records Service and to every entity named. Each must destroy all records and files related to the arrest, both paper and electronic. A government officer or employee who knows of the order and releases, shares, or uses the expunged records commits a Class B misdemeanor. So does anyone who knowingly fails to destroy or redact records covered by the order. A Class B misdemeanor in Texas is punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,000.⁴

Enforcement against private background check companies is another matter. Some scraped the arrest data before your order and keep reporting it. If an expunged arrest shows up on a background check, send the reporting company a copy of your order and demand removal. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires consumer reporting agencies to follow reasonable procedures for maximum possible accuracy, and a company that keeps reporting an expunged arrest after being informed is exposed to liability.⁵

Where a Texas Expunction Does Not Reach

A Texas expunction erases records from state and local databases. Federal agencies run on their own rules and are not bound by state court orders.

Immigration

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does not recognize state expunctions when deciding whether someone has a conviction for immigration purposes. Under USCIS policy, an expunged conviction for a controlled substance violation or a crime involving moral turpitude still counts. The Board of Immigration Appeals has held that a state court action dismissing or vacating a conviction under a rehabilitative statute has no effect on the underlying conviction for immigration purposes. If you are not a U.S. citizen, talk to an immigration attorney before assuming an expunction solves an immigration problem.⁶

Security Clearances and Federal Employment

The SF-86, the questionnaire for national security positions, requires you to report criminal history regardless of whether the record has been sealed, expunged, or otherwise stricken from the court record, or the charge was dismissed. The only exception is for certain convictions expunged under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Failing to disclose a state-expunged arrest on an SF-86 can be treated as deliberate falsification, itself a basis to deny or revoke a clearance. Federal investigators will find the record regardless, because federal databases retain information that state orders cannot reach.

Nondisclosure: The Alternative if You Had Probation

Many people looking up expunction actually need an order of nondisclosure. If you pleaded guilty or no contest, received deferred adjudication community supervision, completed it successfully, and had your case dismissed, you do not qualify for expunction. You may qualify to seal the record through nondisclosure under the Texas Government Code.⁷

Nondisclosure is weaker than expunction. It seals records from the general public and most private employers, but government agencies and certain licensed entities like schools, hospitals, and law enforcement can still see them. You also cannot deny the arrest the way you can after expunction.

Waiting periods depend on the offense:

Most misdemeanors: immediately upon discharge and dismissal
Certain misdemeanors involving violence, weapons, or sexual conduct under Penal Code Chapters 20, 21, 22, 25, 42, 43, or 46: two years after discharge and dismissal
Felonies: five years after discharge and dismissal

⁸

Some offenses are permanently ineligible for nondisclosure no matter how long you wait, including sex offenses requiring registration, murder, capital murder, human trafficking, injury to a child or elderly person, stalking, violation of a protective order, and any offense involving family violence.⁹

What It Costs

The court filing fee for an expunction petition is the same fee charged for any ex parte civil filing in district court. On top of that you pay to serve notice on every agency listed, through certified mail or secure electronic transmission, and service costs multiply with each additional agency.¹⁰

Attorney fees for a straightforward Texas expunction typically run about $1,000 to $3,000 for misdemeanor cases and $2,000 to $4,500 or more for felony-level arrests. Complex situations with multiple arrests, contested hearings, or records spread across several jurisdictions cost more. You can file on your own, but the petition requirements are unforgiving. Missing an agency or failing to verify the petition properly can produce an incomplete expunction that leaves records intact in some databases, and the point of the statute is total erasure.

1
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure CRIM P Art 55.01
2
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure CRIM P Art 55.02
3
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 55.03 – Effect of Expunction
4
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure CRIM P Art 55.04
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681e – Compliance Procedures
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Policy Manual Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors
7
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 411.0715 – Procedure for Deferred Adjudication Community Supervision
8
State of Texas. Texas Government Code GOV’T Section 411.0725
9
State of Texas. Texas Government Code GOV’T Section 411.074
10
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 102.0061 – Fees in Expunction Proceedings