Expunging a Criminal Record in Texas — Who Qualifies, What It Does, and How the Process Works

A criminal record in Texas is public information. Employers, landlords, professional licensing boards, and anyone with internet access can find records of arrests, charges, and convictions through background check services, court databases, and the Texas Department of Public Safety’s public criminal history portal. For many people, a record from years or even decades ago continues to affect employment opportunities, housing applications, and professional advancement long after the legal matter was resolved.

Texas law provides two mechanisms for limiting or eliminating that public record — expunction and orders of nondisclosure — but the eligibility rules for each are specific, the two remedies accomplish different things, and not every charge or conviction qualifies for either. Understanding exactly where you stand under Texas law is the starting point for determining whether your record can be cleared.

What Expunction Actually Does

An expunction under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55 is the more complete of the two remedies. A successful expunction order requires all agencies that have records related to the arrest — law enforcement agencies, the district attorney’s office, the courts, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and any other entities that received information about the arrest — to destroy those records entirely. After an expunction is granted and carried out, you can legally deny that the arrest occurred on job applications, housing applications, and professional licensing applications. The arrest is treated as if it never happened.

This is different from a record being sealed or hidden from public view — expunction is destruction of the underlying records, not merely restricted access to them.

What Expunction Does Not Do

Expunction has meaningful limitations that are important to understand before assuming a record is fully cleared. Federal records are not subject to Texas expunction orders. If an arrest generated a record in a federal database — including FBI criminal history records maintained through the National Crime Information Center — a Texas expunction order does not reach those records. This is particularly relevant for people seeking federal employment, federal contracting positions, or security clearances, where federal background checks access databases that operate independently of state-level expunction.

Private background check companies that scraped and archived public court records before the expunction order was issued are required to update their databases after receiving notice of the expunction, but compliance is not always immediate or complete. Monitoring your own background check results through a service like checkr.com or running a self-check through the Texas DPS after expunction is granted can help identify any databases that have not yet updated.

Who Qualifies for Expunction in Texas

Expunction eligibility under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55 is more limited than most people expect. The most common qualifying situations are the following.

• Charges that were never filed. If you were arrested but the prosecutor declined to file charges — and the applicable statute of limitations has expired — you may qualify for expunction. The waiting period before filing depends on the offense level: for a Class C misdemeanor, the limitation period is two years; for a Class A or B misdemeanor, two years; for most felonies, three years.
• Charges that were dismissed. If your case was dismissed by the prosecutor or by the court, you may qualify for expunction — but the dismissal must have occurred without a finding of guilt and without a deferred adjudication order. If the case was dismissed after you successfully completed deferred adjudication, you do not qualify for expunction — you qualify for a different remedy, an order of nondisclosure, discussed below.
• Acquittals. If you were tried and found not guilty, you qualify for expunction of all records related to that charge immediately — there is no waiting period.
• Convictions that were later pardoned. If you were convicted but subsequently received a full pardon from the Governor of Texas or the President of the United States, you may qualify for expunction of the pardoned offense.
• Certain Class C misdemeanor convictions. Texas law allows expunction of a conviction for a Class C misdemeanor — the lowest level of criminal offense, typically charged as a fine-only offense — under specific circumstances. This is a narrow exception that does not extend to Class A or B misdemeanor convictions or any felony conviction.

What Does Not Qualify for Expunction

The most important thing to understand about Texas expunction law is what it does not cover. Convictions — guilty pleas or jury verdicts — for Class A misdemeanors, Class B misdemeanors, and felonies are not eligible for expunction regardless of how old the conviction is, how successfully the person has rebuilt their life, or how minor the offense appears in retrospect. Texas has no general expunction remedy for convictions above the Class C level.

Family violence convictions are specifically excluded from both expunction and nondisclosure eligibility. A DWI conviction — including a first-offense misdemeanor DWI — is not eligible for expunction, and a DWI that resulted in deferred adjudication is not eligible for an order of nondisclosure. This is one of the most consequential limitations in Texas expunction law because it affects a large number of people who completed their DWI sentence years ago and incorrectly believe their record can be cleared.

Orders of Nondisclosure — The Alternative When Expunction Is Not Available

An order of nondisclosure under Texas Government Code Chapter 411 does not destroy records — it seals them from public access. After a nondisclosure order is granted, the records are removed from public-facing databases including the DPS public criminal history portal, and the person can legally deny the existence of the arrest and charge on most private employment and housing applications. However, government agencies, licensing boards, law enforcement, and certain regulated industries retain access to the sealed records.

Nondisclosure is available in cases that resolved through deferred adjudication community supervision — where the defendant pleaded guilty or no contest, successfully completed a probationary period, and was dismissed without a conviction — for most offense types. Waiting periods apply depending on the offense level: there is no waiting period for most misdemeanors that resulted in deferred adjudication, while felony deferred adjudication carries a five-year waiting period before a nondisclosure petition can be filed.

The Texas Legislature amended the nondisclosure statutes in 2017 to create a streamlined process for first-offense DWI convictions — not deferred adjudication, but actual convictions — where the sentence did not include confinement and the BAC was below 0.15. This is a limited remedy that seals the record from public view but does not restore it to the status of a non-conviction for federal purposes or for licensing boards that retain access to sealed records.

How the Expunction Process Works in Bexar County

Filing for expunction in Bexar County requires preparing and filing a petition in the district court that had jurisdiction over the original case, serving notice on every agency that received records related to the arrest, and attending a hearing at which the court determines eligibility. The court then issues an order requiring all notified agencies to destroy their records within a specified timeframe — typically 60 to 180 days from the order date.

The process requires accurate identification of every agency that received records — which is more comprehensive than most petitioners initially realize and includes agencies that may not be obvious, such as the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, campus police if the arrest occurred on university property, and any private bail bond companies involved in the case.

If you believe your record may qualify for expunction or nondisclosure in San Antonio or Bexar County, call Barton & Associates at 210-500-0000. We evaluate expunction and nondisclosure eligibility at no charge and can advise you on exactly where your specific case stands under current Texas law. Consultations are free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day.