Are Juvenile Records Automatically Sealed in California?

Some juvenile records in California are sealed automatically, and some are not. Under Welfare and Institutions Code section 786, the court seals your records on its own once you satisfactorily complete probation, informal supervision, or a diversion program, and the same applies when a petition is dismissed or found not sustained. Serious offenses listed under section 707(b) can still be sealed automatically but carry weaker protection afterward, and juvenile sex offenses that require registration under Penal Code section 290.008 cannot be sealed at all. For anything that didn’t seal on its own, you can petition the court under section 781 at no cost.

Automatic Sealing After Probation

Section 786 is the main automatic pathway. When you satisfactorily complete probation, informal supervision, or any other court-ordered term, the court must dismiss the petition and order the records sealed. That order reaches the juvenile court file, law enforcement agencies, the probation department, and the Department of Justice. You don’t file anything. You don’t pay anything.¹

“Satisfactory completion” doesn’t mean a spotless record. You meet the standard if, during your supervision period, you had no new wardship findings and no convictions for a felony or a dishonesty-related misdemeanor, and you substantially followed the reasonable conditions the court set. The statute is written to accommodate the ordinary struggles of a young person on probation; substantial compliance with orders that were realistically within your ability is enough.¹

Automatic Sealing for Dismissed Cases and Diversion

The automatic process isn’t limited to completed probation. If the prosecution drops your case, or the court finds the petition not sustained after a hearing, the court must order the related records sealed. It sends the sealing order to every agency holding records in your case and sets a date by which those records must be destroyed. You and your attorney are notified.¹

Diversion has its own automatic track. Since January 1, 2018, if you satisfactorily completed a pre-petition diversion program, the probation department must seal your records and tell the arresting agency and any diversion program operator to do the same. Probation is required to let you know whether your records were sealed. If they refuse because they decided you didn’t complete the program, you can ask the court to review that decision. Since January 1, 2021, the same protection covers law enforcement diversion programs where you were never referred to probation at all.²

Where Automatic Sealing Weakens or Stops

Section 707(b) offenses are California’s most serious juvenile offenses, including murder, robbery, arson, kidnapping, torture, and forcible sexual assault, among others. Having a 707(b) offense doesn’t block automatic sealing by itself. If you complete probation, section 786 still applies. But the sealed record is weaker afterward: if you are later charged with a felony, the prosecution can ask the court to unseal a 707(b) record. Ordinary sealed records stay sealed in almost all circumstances; 707(b) records do not.²

One category can never be sealed at all. If you were 14 or older when you committed a sex offense listed in section 707(b) and are required to register as a sex offender under Penal Code section 290.008, the record is permanently ineligible for sealing, whether through the automatic process or a petition.²

If Your Record Didn’t Seal Automatically

Section 781 lets you petition the court to seal a record the automatic process didn’t reach. You’re eligible once five or more years have passed since juvenile court jurisdiction ended, or at any time after you turn 18, whichever comes first. If no petition was ever filed in your case, the five-year clock runs from the date you were cited to a probation officer or taken before a law enforcement officer.³

The court has to find two things before granting a petition: that you have not been convicted of a felony or a dishonesty-related misdemeanor since jurisdiction ended, and that you have been rehabilitated. A later conviction isn’t necessarily permanent. If it was dismissed, vacated, pardoned, or reduced to a non-dishonesty misdemeanor, you can still petition.³

Petitions involving a 707(b) offense committed at 14 or older come with tighter age and completion rules. If you were committed to the Division of Juvenile Facilities, you must be 21 and have completed post-release supervision. If you were not committed there, you must be 18 and have completed all probation supervision on that offense. Those extra requirements sit on top of the standard rehabilitation showing. They fall away if the 707(b) charge was ultimately dismissed or reduced to a misdemeanor.³

There is no filing fee. The form is Request to Seal Juvenile Records (Form JV-595), available from the California Courts website. You’ll need your full name and date of birth, the case number for each offense you want sealed, the arrest date, and the date the case closed. The form asks you to explain how you’ve been rehabilitated, and that explanation is where you make your case.⁴

What Sealing Actually Does

Once your records are sealed, the law treats the arrest and proceedings as though they never happened. You can legally answer “no” when an employer, school, landlord, or licensing agency asks whether you have a criminal record. The statute puts it plainly: “the arrest and other proceedings in the case shall be deemed not to have occurred and the person who was the subject of the petition may reply accordingly to an inquiry.”⁵

If the sealed record had required you to register as a sex offender, the sealing order will state that you no longer have to register.²

When a Sealed Record Can Still Be Seen

Sealing is strong but not absolute. California law leaves several windows open.

If a new delinquency petition is filed against you, the court can review your sealed records to decide an appropriate disposition, and can review them if the prosecution seeks to transfer you to adult court.
If your sealed record involves a 707(b) offense and you’re later charged with a felony, the prosecution can ask to unseal it.
Records sealed through the petition process under section 781, rather than automatically under section 786, can be accessed by the prosecution, probation, or the court in a later felony case, and they are not destroyed after sealing.
If competency is raised in a new juvenile case, probation, the prosecutor, your attorney, and the court can access prior competency-related records.
If a prosecutor believes something in your sealed record would help someone charged with a crime in another case, they can ask the court to release it.

The other thin spot is federal. California’s sealing statutes bind state agencies. The military treats sealed juvenile records as if they aren’t sealed and requires full disclosure at enlistment, and federal security clearance investigations can also reach behind the seal.²

Immigration is its own analysis. As a general rule, a juvenile court finding is not a “conviction” for immigration purposes, so it usually won’t trigger deportation or block naturalization the way an adult conviction would. If you were under 18 but charged and convicted as an adult, that conviction still counts for immigration purposes even if California later seals the record. And there’s a trap worth knowing: if a case was dismissed because you completed a rehabilitative program rather than because of insufficient evidence, USCIS may still treat the underlying judgment as a conviction. An automatic dismissal after successful probation could fall into that bucket. If your status is on the line, talk to an immigration attorney before assuming a sealed juvenile record is invisible.⁶

1
California Legislative Information. California Welfare and Institutions Code 786 – Wards Modification of Juvenile Court Judgments and Orders
2
California Courts. Guide to Sealing Juvenile Court Records
3
California Legislative Information. California Code Welfare and Institutions Code WIC 781
4
California Courts. Request to Seal Juvenile Records
5
California Legislative Information. California Code WIC 786 – Wards Modification of Juvenile Court Judgments and Orders
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual: Adjudicative Factors