Automatic Expungement in California: Who Qualifies and Limits

Automatic expungement in California clears qualifying convictions and arrest records without any application, filing fee, or court appearance on your part. The Department of Justice reviews its criminal history database every month under Penal Code 1203.425 and grants relief to people who meet the eligibility rules, including most misdemeanors and many non-serious, non-violent felonies. Serious felonies, violent felonies, and offenses requiring sex offender registration are excluded from the automatic process.

What the State Actually Does to Your Record

California does not technically expunge anything. The formal name is “automatic record relief,” and it works by notation rather than deletion. When the DOJ grants relief, it adds a marker to your criminal history record indicating that relief was granted, and it sends electronic notice to the superior court that handled your case. The record itself remains in the DOJ’s database.¹

The statute describes the relief as “including dismissal of a conviction,” so the court does enter a dismissal order.² For most private employment and licensing background checks, the DOJ uses the relief notation to withhold the conviction from disclosure. That is what makes the practical effect meaningful even though nothing is erased.

Who Qualifies for Automatic Conviction Relief

Three baseline conditions apply to everyone. You must not be required to register as a sex offender, you must have no active record of local, state, or federal supervision, and you must not appear to be currently serving a sentence or facing pending criminal charges.²

Misdemeanors and Infractions

If you were placed on probation for a misdemeanor and completed the full term without revocation, relief is granted once probation ends. There is no separate waiting period. If you were convicted of a misdemeanor or infraction but not placed on probation, relief kicks in one calendar year after the date of judgment, provided you have completed your sentence.²

Felonies

Felony relief takes longer. You must have completed all terms of incarceration, probation, mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision, and parole, and then four more years must pass without a new felony conviction. The original conviction must have occurred on or after January 1, 1973. This includes felony convictions that resulted in a state prison sentence.²

Unpaid Restitution Does Not Block Relief

Owing victim restitution does not disqualify you. Under Penal Code 1203.4, unpaid restitution and outstanding restitution fines cannot be used as grounds to deny post-conviction relief, and a California appeals court confirmed the rule in People v. Murphy.³ If you otherwise meet the criteria, automatic relief should still be granted.

Convictions That Are Excluded

Three categories fall outside the automatic process:

Sex offenses requiring registration under the Sex Offender Registration Act (Penal Code 290 and related sections).
Serious felonies as defined in Penal Code 1192.7(c), including offenses such as robbery and arson.
Violent felonies as defined in Penal Code 667.5, including offenses such as murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

These exclusions apply to the automatic process only.² For some convictions the automatic system does not reach, you may still petition the court for discretionary relief under Penal Code 1203.4, which requires filing a motion and persuading a judge.³

Automatic relief can also be blocked if a prosecuting attorney or probation department files a petition showing that granting relief would pose a substantial threat to public safety. This is rare, but it means eligibility is not an absolute guarantee.²

Arrests That Never Led to a Conviction

A separate statute, Penal Code 851.93, handles arrest records without a conviction. The DOJ reviews these monthly and grants relief when the criteria are met.⁴

Misdemeanor arrest with charges dismissed: relief once the dismissal is reflected in DOJ records.
Misdemeanor arrest with no charges filed: one calendar year after the arrest date, with no conviction arising from it.
Felony arrest with no charges filed: three calendar years after the arrest date, extending to six years for offenses punishable by eight or more years in prison.
Successful completion of a pretrial or posttrial diversion program tied to the arrest.

As with convictions, the arrest record is not deleted. It receives a relief notation, and the DOJ then withholds it from most background check disclosures.¹

How to Confirm Your Record Was Cleared

The DOJ does not notify you when relief is granted. It only sends electronic notice to the courts.¹ You have two ways to check:

Request your own DOJ criminal history through the “Criminal Records — Request Your Own” process, which uses a Live Scan fingerprint submission. If relief has been granted, the notation will appear on the record.
Contact the superior court that handled your case and ask whether it received notice from the DOJ and updated its records accordingly.

If you believe you qualify but no notation appears, the DOJ advises submitting a Claim of Alleged Inaccuracy or Incompleteness form (BCIA 8706). The system depends on the accuracy of the DOJ’s electronic records, so a missing probation completion date or other data gap can cause eligible records to be overlooked.¹

What Automatic Relief Does for You at Work

The main practical benefit shows up on job applications. Under Labor Code 432.7, employers cannot ask you to disclose, and cannot seek from other sources, information about a conviction that has been dismissed under Penal Code 1203.4, 1203.4a, or 1203.425.⁵ On most private-sector applications, you can legally answer “no” when asked whether you have been convicted of a crime.

California’s Fair Chance Act adds another layer. Employers with five or more employees cannot ask about conviction history at all before making a conditional job offer, and even after a conditional offer they cannot consider convictions that have been sealed, dismissed, expunged, or statutorily eradicated.⁶

The rules do carve out exceptions. Labor Code 432.7 permits employers to ask about specific convictions when federal law requires it, when the position involves firearms, or when a particular conviction legally bars someone from the position. Law enforcement agencies, certain healthcare employers, and financial institutions subject to federal regulations fall into these categories.⁵

Where Automatic Relief Stops Working

Several situations are outside the reach of an automatic dismissal, and misreading the scope is where people get hurt.

Firearms

A dismissal under Penal Code 1203.4, whether automatic or by petition, does not restore the right to own, possess, or control a firearm. If your conviction was a felony or a qualifying misdemeanor that triggered a firearm prohibition, that prohibition remains in place after the dismissal.³

Professional Licensing

Government agencies authorized to run fingerprint-based background checks can still see the conviction. The DOJ decides disclosure case by case, depending on the authorizing statute. Nursing boards, teaching credential agencies, and other regulated licensing bodies may review your full record even after automatic relief.¹

Future Criminal Cases

If you are charged with a new crime, prosecutors can use the dismissed conviction as a prior for sentencing enhancement. Dismissal does not erase the conviction from the court’s perspective in a later criminal proceeding.

Immigration

If you are not a U.S. citizen, a California automatic dismissal does not eliminate the conviction for federal immigration purposes. The Immigration and Nationality Act defines “conviction” independently of state law. Under INA section 101(a)(48), a conviction exists whenever a court entered a formal judgment of guilt, or when you entered a guilty plea and the judge imposed any punishment, penalty, or restraint on your liberty, even if the plea was later withdrawn or the charges dismissed.⁷

USCIS policy states that a vacated or dismissed judgment is still a conviction for immigration purposes if the dismissal was granted for rehabilitative reasons or to avoid immigration consequences, rather than because of a defect in the original proceedings. California’s automatic relief is rehabilitative by design, which places it squarely in the category federal immigration authorities disregard.⁷ If you have a conviction with immigration exposure, talk to an immigration attorney before assuming automatic relief has fixed anything.

Private Background Checks and Federal Records

Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, records of criminal convictions can be reported indefinitely. The seven-year limit on reporting non-conviction arrests does not apply to convictions.⁸ Federal courts have held that even expunged or dismissed convictions remain “records of convictions of crimes” under the FCRA and may be reported by background check companies. California’s employer protections mean that most California employers cannot lawfully use a dismissed conviction against you even if it appears on a report, but the protections weaken when you apply for jobs in other states or with federal employers.

The FBI maintains separate federal databases that may not update when California grants relief. If your fingerprints were taken at arrest, that record may exist federally, independent of the state record. For positions requiring a federal background check, including some government jobs, military service, and roles requiring security clearance, the original conviction information may still be accessible.

International Travel

Foreign countries apply their own admissibility standards. Canada, for example, assesses whether the offense would be a crime under Canadian law and may not treat a California dismissal as eliminating the conviction. The Canadian government advises checking with the relevant visa office about whether a foreign pardon or discharge will be accepted, and a border services officer can still deny entry on other grounds.⁹

For TSA PreCheck, eligibility hinges on whether you were convicted, pled guilty, or were found not guilty by reason of insanity for specific listed offenses. TSA looks to the original conviction rather than a later state-level dismissal, so automatic relief may not change the result if the underlying offense is on TSA’s list.¹⁰

1
State of California – Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General. Automatic Record Relief – Penal Code sections 851.93 and 1203.425
2
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1203.425
3
California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 1203.4 – Dismissal of Accusation
4
California Legislative Information. California Code Penal Code PEN 851.93
5
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 432.7
6
California Legislative Information. California Code Government Code GOV 12952
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual – Volume 12 Part F Chapter 2 – Adjudicative Factors
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
9
Government of Canada. Overcome Criminal Convictions
10
Transportation Security Administration. Disqualifying Offenses and Other Factors