Texas Nondisclosure Statute: Eligibility, Sealing, and Limits

Eligibility for a Texas nondisclosure order depends on three things: the offense itself, how your case was resolved, and whether the required waiting period has passed without new trouble. Some nonviolent misdemeanor deferred adjudications seal automatically. Felonies and more serious misdemeanors require a petition and a judge’s discretion. First-time DWI convictions have their own narrow track. And a fixed list of offenses can never be sealed at all.

What a Nondisclosure Order Does

A nondisclosure order under Chapter 411, Subchapter E-1 of the Texas Government Code stops criminal justice agencies from releasing a sealed record to the general public. Standard background checks run by employers and landlords should not turn it up. Law enforcement keeps full access, and so do more than 30 state licensing and regulatory bodies.

This is not expungement. Expungement destroys the record; nondisclosure leaves it intact and restricts who can see it. The conviction or deferred adjudication still exists in the state’s files, which matters for federal purposes and for any agency the statute lets through.

Automatic Sealing for Nonviolent Misdemeanor Deferred Adjudication

If you completed deferred adjudication for a nonviolent misdemeanor, Section 411.072 requires the court to issue the order on its own once you receive discharge and dismissal, provided at least 180 days have passed since the court placed you on deferred adjudication.¹

“Nonviolent” is a term of art. The automatic track does not apply to DWI or boating while intoxicated, and it excludes misdemeanors under Penal Code chapters covering kidnapping, sexual offenses, assault, offenses against the family, disorderly conduct, public indecency, weapons, and organized crime. A family violence finding in the case is also disqualifying.¹

You also cannot have any prior conviction or deferred adjudication other than fine-only traffic offenses. One prior knocks you out of the automatic track, though the petition track may still be open. The statutory fee is $28, paid to the court clerk.¹

Petition-Based Sealing After Deferred Adjudication

If your offense falls outside the automatic track, Section 411.0725 lets you petition the court for an order after completing deferred adjudication. This covers felonies and misdemeanors excluded from Section 411.072. DWI runs on its own statute.²

The waiting period tracks the severity of the offense:

Most misdemeanors: you can petition immediately after discharge and dismissal.
Misdemeanors involving kidnapping, sexual offenses, assault, family offenses, disorderly conduct, public indecency, or weapons: two years after discharge and dismissal.
Felonies: five years after discharge and dismissal.

Throughout the entire span from sentencing forward, including any waiting period, you cannot pick up a new conviction or deferred adjudication for anything other than a fine-only traffic offense.²

Meeting the technical requirements is not enough on this track. The court must find that the order is in the best interest of justice. Judges weigh the offense, criminal history, and evidence of rehabilitation. A prosecutor can object and force a hearing. Even a fully qualifying petitioner can be turned down.²

First-Time DWI Convictions

Before 2017, a DWI conviction closed the door on nondisclosure. Section 411.0731 opened a narrow one. The offense must have been a Class B misdemeanor, meaning your blood alcohol concentration was below 0.15 and the charge was not enhanced. You must have received regular community supervision after conviction, not deferred adjudication.³

Additional conditions apply. You must have completed community supervision without revocation and paid all jail time, fines, costs, and restitution. You cannot have prior convictions or deferred adjudications beyond fine-only traffic offenses. And if the offense involved a motor vehicle collision with another person, including an uninjured passenger in your own car, you are ineligible.³

The waiting period turns on whether you used an ignition interlock device:

Two years after completing community supervision if you successfully used an interlock for at least six months.
Five years after completing community supervision if you did not use one, or used it for less than six months.

As with the petition track for deferred adjudication, the judge has discretion, and the prosecutor may present opposing evidence.³

Two smaller pathways exist alongside these. Section 411.0726 covers certain misdemeanor convictions where the sentence was community supervision rather than deferred adjudication, and Section 411.0727 covers people who complete a veterans treatment court program. Each carries its own eligibility rules and exclusions.⁴

Offenses That Can Never Be Sealed

Section 411.074 is a hard bar. Conviction or deferred adjudication for any offense on this list means no nondisclosure order, on any pathway. Having one of these in your history also blocks nondisclosure for other, otherwise-eligible offenses:⁵

Any offense requiring sex offender registration
Aggravated kidnapping
Murder and capital murder
Trafficking of persons and continuous trafficking
Injury to or endangerment of a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual
Violating protective orders in family violence, sexual assault, stalking, or trafficking cases
Stalking
Any offense involving family violence, whether charged as such or with a family violence finding by the court

Some offenses people expect to see here are not on the list. Aggravated assault, robbery, and drug charges are not categorically excluded under Section 411.074. Eligibility for those turns on the pathway, the waiting period, and the judge’s best-interest finding. An aggravated assault with a family violence finding, though, falls under the family violence bar.⁵

Filing and Costs

You file the petition with the clerk of the court that handled your original case, using the same criminal case number.⁶ The petition should identify the offense, the date you completed your sentence or supervision, and the basis for eligibility.

The statutory fee is $28.¹ County-level filing fees are additional and vary. If you cannot afford the costs, you can ask the court to waive them on financial hardship grounds.

The clerk forwards the petition to the judge and the prosecutor. If the prosecutor opposes, the court sets a hearing. Evidence of rehabilitation, such as steady employment, community involvement, and completion of treatment, strengthens the case. When granted, the order goes to the Texas Department of Public Safety for distribution to other agencies.

Who Can Still See the Record

A nondisclosure order blocks public access but not agency access. Section 411.0765 lets criminal justice agencies see the record, and it authorizes disclosure to more than 30 noncriminal justice entities for regulatory and licensing purposes.⁷

The permitted recipients include:

Education: the State Board for Educator Certification, the Texas Education Agency, school districts, charter schools, and private schools
Healthcare: the Texas Medical Board, the Texas Board of Nursing, the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, hospitals, and health services agencies
Legal profession: the Board of Law Examiners and the State Bar of Texas
Financial regulation: banking, securities, and credit union commissioners, and regulated financial institutions
Public safety: the Texas Private Security Board, fire departments, and the Department of Family and Protective Services
Other: the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the Health and Human Services Commission, and county clerks handling guardianship proceedings

If you work in or plan to enter a field regulated by any of these bodies, a nondisclosure order will not hide your record from the licensing authority. The order helps with most private-sector jobs and housing, not with regulated professions.⁷

Federal Limits

Firearms

Federal law uses its own definition of “conviction.” Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), a conviction that has been expunged, set aside, or pardoned is not a conviction for firearm purposes unless the order expressly restricts firearms.⁸ A Texas nondisclosure order is not an expungement or a set-aside. It seals the record but does not vacate the conviction or restore civil rights. Federal courts and the ATF are unlikely to treat it as lifting a firearm disability. If your offense would otherwise bar you from possessing firearms under federal law, do not assume nondisclosure changes that.

Security Clearances

The Standard Form 86 for federal security clearance investigations requires disclosure of criminal history “regardless of whether the record in your case has been sealed, expunged, or otherwise stricken from the court record, or the charge was dismissed.”⁹ Omitting a sealed record can be treated as deliberate falsification, often more damaging than the underlying offense. A narrow exception exists for certain federal drug convictions expunged under 21 U.S.C. § 844 or 18 U.S.C. § 3607.

Immigration

For non-citizens, a Texas nondisclosure order does not eliminate a conviction for immigration purposes. Federal immigration authorities are not bound by state sealing orders. The Board of Immigration Appeals recognizes state-level relief only when it corrects a substantive or procedural defect in the original case, not when it is granted for rehabilitative reasons.

When Sealed Records Still Appear on Background Checks

Section 411.0851 requires private background check companies to destroy criminal history information once they receive notice of a nondisclosure order. A company that keeps disseminating a sealed record after notice is liable for damages, court costs, and attorney’s fees.¹⁰

In practice, sealed records still surface. DPS updates its database, but private vendors pull from county records, third-party databases, and older cached reports, and some do not refresh promptly. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has said that consumer reporting agencies that report expunged or sealed records without procedures to prevent it are not using reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.¹¹

If a sealed record appears on a background check, you can dispute it directly with the reporting agency. Under the FCRA, the agency must conduct a reasonable investigation and correct or remove inaccurate information. If it ignores the dispute or keeps reporting the record, you may have claims under both the FCRA and Section 411.0851.¹²

When You Still Have to Disclose

A nondisclosure order is not blanket permission to say the offense never happened. For most private-sector jobs and housing, you can truthfully answer “no” to a general criminal history question, because those entities are barred from accessing the record. When a licensing board listed in Section 411.0765 asks, you must answer honestly. False information to a licensing authority that has legal access to your sealed record can lead to denial or revocation.

Federal applications follow the same logic. A security clearance form, a federal licensing application, or immigration paperwork that specifically asks about sealed, expunged, or nondisclosed records should be treated as requiring full disclosure. The order shields you from the public, not from anyone the statute or federal law lets through.

1
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.072 – Procedure for Deferred Adjudication Community Supervision Certain Nonviolent Misdemeanors
2
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.0725 – Procedure for Deferred Adjudication Community Supervision Felonies and Certain Misdemeanors
3
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.0731 – Procedure for Community Supervision Following Conviction Certain Driving While Intoxicated Convictions
4
Justia. Texas Government Code Chapter 411 Subchapter E-1 – Order of Nondisclosure of Criminal History Record Information
5
Texas Statutes. Texas Government Code 411.074 – Required Conditions for Receiving an Order of Nondisclosure
6
Texas Office of Court Administration. Overview of Orders of Nondisclosure
7
Texas Statutes. Texas Government Code 411.0765 – Disclosure by Criminal Justice Agency
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions
9
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Common SF-86 Errors and Mistakes
10
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 411.0851 – Duty of Private Entity to Update Criminal History Record Information Civil Liability
11
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Fair Credit Reporting Background Screening
12
Federal Trade Commission. What Tenant Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act