Florida record sealing and expungement, answered

Expungement destroys the record. Sealing hides it.

With an expungement, agencies physically destroy their copies and FDLE retains one confidential copy that is effectively unreachable. With a sealing, the record continues to exist but is closed to the public.

Which one you qualify for is not a choice you get to make — it is decided by how your case ended. If your charges were dropped, dismissed, or never filed, you are in expungement territory. If you took a plea and the judge withheld adjudication, you are in sealing territory. There is no way to talk your way from one to the other.

It means you pled guilty or no contest, but the judge chose not to formally convict you. You are not a convicted felon, and you usually keep your civil rights.

It does not mean nothing happened. A withhold sits on your public record and shows up on background checks. It is also the single most important fact in your case, because it is the line between sealing and expungement.

If you are not sure what happened in your case, the certified disposition from the clerk of court will say. Our screening tool will walk you through reading it.

Once in your lifetime, for court-ordered sealing or expungement. That is the rule that surprises people most.

It is not once per case — it is once, total, for your whole life in Florida. If you seal a case now, you cannot seal or expunge a different one later.

This is exactly why choosing the right case matters. If you have two records and only one can ever be cleared, you want the one that is actually hurting you. A few of the other routes — self-defense expungement, juvenile diversion, administrative expungement — do not consume that lifetime allowance.

Yes, and this is the most common reason applications get denied.

If you have ever been adjudicated guilty of any criminal offense anywhere — not just the case you want cleared — you cannot get a court-ordered sealing or expungement in Florida. A twenty-year-old conviction in a county you have not lived in since still counts.

People forget these. A DUI at 19. A reckless driving charge that "got reduced". A driving-while-license-suspended ticket that was actually a criminal charge, not a traffic ticket. Any of those, if you were adjudicated guilty, ends the analysis.

Before you spend the $75 FDLE fee, it is worth being certain. Our screening asks about this specifically.

Ordinary tickets — speeding, running a light, a civil infraction — do not.

But some driving offenses are crimes, not tickets, and FDLE treats them as convictions. DUI. Reckless driving. Driving while your license was suspended, cancelled, or revoked, with some exceptions.

If you were adjudicated guilty on any of those, court-ordered sealing and expungement are closed to you. Many people genuinely do not know the difference, because it felt like a ticket at the time.

Because an arrest and a conviction are different records, and dropping the charge does not erase the arrest.

The arrest record stays in public databases indefinitely unless someone affirmatively removes it. Background-check companies scrape those databases and keep their own copies, which is why an arrest from years ago keeps resurfacing on job applications.

A dropped charge is good news — it usually means you qualify for the strongest relief available. But it does not clean itself up.

You can start gathering documents, but you cannot apply yet.

Florida requires that all court supervision be complete before FDLE will issue a certificate of eligibility. You will also need a certified copy of the order terminating your probation, which you can only get after it ends.

If your probation ends soon, this is a good time to collect your certified disposition and get your fingerprints done, so the packet is ready to mail the week your supervision closes.

Yes. Florida lists specific offenses that cannot be sealed or expunged if you entered a plea or were found guilty — and for these, a withhold does not save you.

The list includes sexual offenses, offenses against children and vulnerable adults, domestic violence, drug trafficking, and most violent felonies, among others.

Note the precise rule: the bar attaches to a plea or a finding of guilt. If you were charged with a disqualifying offense but the charge was dropped or dismissed, it generally does not bar you. That distinction matters and is worth getting right.

There are two stages, and people routinely think there is only one.

Stage one — FDLE. You apply to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a Certificate of Eligibility. This means a notarized application, certified dispositions for every charge, a fingerprint card taken by a law enforcement agency, a $75 fee, and — if you are seeking expungement — a section completed and signed by the State Attorney.

Stage two — the court. The certificate does not clear anything by itself. Once it arrives, you file a petition, a sworn affidavit, and a proposed order with the court in the county where you were arrested. The judge signs the order, the clerk distributes certified copies, and only then is the record actually sealed or expunged.

The certificate expires twelve months after it is issued. If you sit on it, you pay the $75 again.

Realistically, several months from start to finish.

Gathering certified dispositions and getting fingerprinted is usually the fastest part, measured in weeks. For an expungement, the State Attorney's section adds time that varies enormously by circuit. FDLE's own processing then takes its own time, and the court stage after that depends on your judge's calendar.

Anyone promising you a specific number of days does not control FDLE, the State Attorney, or the court. What we can control is that your packet is complete and correct the first time, because an incomplete packet is rejected and you start over.

For expungement only, Section B of the FDLE application must be completed and signed by the State Attorney or Statewide Prosecutor in the circuit where you were charged.

They certify that the case is eligible — that no charging document was filed, or that it was dismissed or nolle prosequi'd. Their signature does not mean they support your petition, and they can still oppose it in court.

Sealing applications do not require this section. It is an expungement-only step, and forgetting it is a common reason packets come back.

At a law enforcement or criminal justice agency — usually your county sheriff's office or a local police department. Many charge a small fee for the service.

FDLE requires their specific fingerprint form, not a generic card. It must carry your name, date of birth, signature, and the signature and agency ORI number of the official who took the prints.

We generate that form pre-filled with your information so the agency only has to take the prints and sign.

In most situations, yes — and this is the practical point of the whole exercise.

Once a record is sealed or expunged, Florida law lets you lawfully deny the arrest on most employment and housing applications.

There are exceptions, and they are real. When you are applying to a criminal justice agency, seeking admission to The Florida Bar, applying for certain professional licenses, or seeking a job working with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, you must disclose. Applying to be a police officer while denying a sealed arrest is its own serious problem.

A sealed record remains visible to a defined set of agencies: law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, certain licensing boards, The Florida Bar, and employers in specific sensitive fields.

An expunged record is much harder to reach. Agencies destroy their copies; FDLE keeps one confidential copy that requires a court order to access.

For ordinary purposes — a job application, an apartment, a loan, a background check run by a commercial service — both sealing and expungement do the job.

This is the part nobody warns people about.

Private data brokers scraped your record while it was public, and they keep their own copies. A court order sealing or expunging your record binds government agencies. It does not automatically reach into a private company's database in another state.

In practice, most reputable background-check companies refresh from official sources and the record drops off over the following months. The disreputable ones need to be contacted directly. We provide a removal-request letter and a list of the major brokers as part of every completed matter.

There are costs you pay us, and costs you pay the government. The government costs exist no matter who prepares your paperwork:

• FDLE processing fee — $75. Non-refundable, by money order, cashier's check, or personal check. FDLE does not take cash, cards, or gift cards.
• Certified dispositions — usually a few dollars per charge, from the clerk of court in the county where you were charged.
• Fingerprinting — varies, often free to modest at a sheriff's office.
• Court filing fees — varies by county at the petition stage.

Our fee covers the eligibility analysis and preparing every document correctly. You will see the exact amount before you pay anything, and the eligibility check itself is free.

You can. The forms are public and FDLE will mail them to you for free.

People still get help for two reasons. First, the $75 FDLE fee is non-refundable, and an application that is denied — or rejected as incomplete — costs you that money and several months. Second, the one-in-a-lifetime limit means that if you have more than one record, picking the wrong one is not a mistake you can undo.

If your case is straightforward and you are confident, do it yourself. Run our free eligibility check first either way — it costs nothing and it will tell you which route you are actually on.