Dallas County Expunction Expo: Eligibility, Costs, and How to Apply

The Dallas County Expunction Expo is a free annual clinic where volunteer attorneys help eligible residents permanently erase an arrest from their Texas criminal record. It is organized by the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s Office together with the District Clerk’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office, and it walks accepted applicants from paperwork through a judge’s signature at no cost for legal representation.¹ Once a judge signs the expunction order, the arrest is destroyed from government databases, and you can legally deny it ever happened.

Only Dallas County cases are eligible.² If your arrest happened in another Texas county, the Expo cannot help you, though the same underlying state expunction law applies wherever you file.

Who Qualifies

Texas expunction law, not the Expo itself, decides who is eligible. In general, you qualify if:

You were arrested but the prosecutor never filed a case against you.
Charges were filed and later dismissed.
You went to trial and were acquitted.
You completed deferred adjudication for a Class C misdemeanor. This is the only offense level where deferred adjudication leads to expunction.

Convictions and community supervision are the clearest disqualifiers. If you pleaded guilty or were found guilty and received any sentence, including probation or jail time, that record cannot be expunged.³ Court-ordered community supervision on anything above a Class C misdemeanor also blocks eligibility.

Being accepted into the Expo is not a guarantee. After your volunteer attorney reviews the case, the county respondents run their own review and can oppose the petition if they believe the law does not support it.²

Waiting Periods by Offense Level

Even a qualifying arrest has to age before you can file. The clock runs from the date of arrest:

Class C misdemeanors: 180 days.
Class A and B misdemeanors: one year.
Felonies: three years.

These windows give the prosecutor’s office time to decide whether to pursue charges. Dismissed felonies carry an extra rule: if the statute of limitations for the offense has not yet expired, you generally cannot file for expunction unless the prosecutor certifies that the records are no longer needed for any investigation or prosecution.³ The Expo has an advantage here, because the office that would provide that certification is already at the table.

What It Costs

The legal work is free. Volunteer attorneys handle the petition and filing at no charge. What you may still owe is the $350 court filing fee, plus possible costs to serve the respondent agencies that hold your records. If you cannot afford the fee, your assigned attorney can help you apply for a waiver based on your finances.² Hiring a private attorney outside the Expo typically runs several hundred to several thousand dollars on top of the same filing fee.

How and When to Apply

The application window is short. For the 2025 cycle, it opened at 8:00 a.m. on July 8, 2025, and closed at 5:00 p.m. the next day. The Expo runs on an annual cycle: applications open in summer, volunteer attorneys review cases over the following months, and expunction orders are signed in early January. Orders in the 2025 cycle were scheduled to be signed before the Expo’s conclusion on January 10, 2026.¹

You can apply three ways during the open window:

Online at dallascounty.org/expunction.
In person at designated community locations announced for that year’s cycle.
By phone at the Dallas DA’s Office, 214-875-4999, during business hours.

Have your date of birth, Social Security number, and current address ready. Gather what you know about each case: date of arrest, the offense charged, and any case numbers. If you have more than three qualifying cases, the DA’s Office and your volunteer attorney will track down the additional details after you are accepted.²

If you need to look up your own case history first, the District Clerk’s online records portal shows felony and misdemeanor filings, disposition dates, and charge details without requiring registration.⁴

What Happens After You Apply

Once the application window closes, volunteer attorneys and paralegals begin reviewing submissions. They cross-reference your information against criminal history records to confirm there are no disqualifying convictions and that your waiting periods have run. This review takes several months.

If you are accepted, you receive a notice and are assigned a specific volunteer attorney. You meet, review the petition together, and sign the filing. Your attorney prepares and files the paperwork. The respondent agencies that hold your records then run their own review and either agree or object. If no one objects, a judge signs the expunction order.²

After the Order Is Signed

Every government agency named in the order must either return the arrest records to the court or, if that is impractical, permanently redact identifying information. The District Clerk keeps returned files in a restricted area closed to inspection and may destroy them entirely.⁵ For the 2025 cycle, respondents were expected to begin expunging records roughly six weeks after the January 10, 2026, signing date.² Clearing every database typically takes at least three months and often longer, depending on volume. You get a copy of the signed order for your own records.

Private Background Check Companies

A court order binds government agencies. It does not automatically reach commercial background check companies and people-search websites, which pull from public records and can lag a court order by months or years. To finish the cleanup, you may need to contact each company directly, send them a copy of your expunction order, and request removal. Skip this step and a third-party background check for a job could still turn up the arrest a judge has already ordered destroyed.

Limits: Federal Databases and Nondisclosure

A Texas expunction is powerful but not unlimited. FBI fingerprint databases operate independently of state court orders. Thorough federal background checks, particularly the Level 2 variety used for security clearances, law enforcement positions, immigration proceedings, and jobs involving children or the elderly, can still reveal arrests a Texas court has ordered destroyed. Keep a copy of your order on hand if you know one of these checks is coming.

Some people who arrive at the Expo expecting an expunction turn out to qualify only for an order of nondisclosure. A nondisclosure order seals a record from public view rather than destroying it. Law enforcement agencies, licensing boards, and certain government entities can still see it. It applies mainly to offenses that ended in deferred adjudication and to some dismissals for Class A and B misdemeanors and certain felonies. If you completed deferred adjudication for anything above a Class C misdemeanor, expunction is off the table but nondisclosure may still be available. Your volunteer attorney can tell you which type of relief fits your case.

1
Dallas County. 2025 Expunction Expo Kick Off Press Release
2
Dallas County. Dallas County Expunction Expo 2025 Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
3
State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 55.01 – Right to Expunction
4
Dallas County. Online Record Search
5
Office of the Attorney General of Texas. Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0402