A dismissed misdemeanor can affect employment, but federal law puts real limits on how. Background check companies generally cannot report an arrest or dismissed charge once seven years have passed, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has long held that an arrest without a conviction should not, by itself, be used to deny someone a job. So the question of whether a dismissed misdemeanor will affect employment usually comes down to three things: whether it shows up on the report at all, how the employer is allowed to treat it if it does, and whether you use the protections the law gives you.
Why the Charge Still Shows Up
Background check companies pull from court records, and a dismissed misdemeanor usually sits in those records indefinitely. The arrest, the charge, and the dismissal are all part of the public court file unless a court order removes or restricts access. The case ended in your favor, but a screening report can still list it.
Federal law caps how long that can continue. The Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibits background check companies from including arrest records more than seven years old in a report used for employment.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 – Section 1681c The seven-year clock runs from the date of the arrest, not the date of the dismissal. A charge dismissed last year can still appear on a report today.
One exception matters. The seven-year limit does not apply when the position pays an annual salary of $75,000 or more.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 – Section 1681c For higher-paying roles, a dismissed charge from any point in your past can legally appear on a screening report. Some states have stricter rules that remove this exception or shorten the reporting window, but seven years is the federal floor for most jobs.
What an Employer Can Actually Do With It
Seeing a dismissed misdemeanor on a report and using it to reject you are two different things. The EEOC’s position is that the fact of an arrest does not establish that criminal conduct occurred, and rejecting someone based on an arrest record alone is not job-related or consistent with business necessity.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act A dismissed charge sits below even an arrest that led to conviction: the system reviewed the allegations and declined to pursue them.
An employer can look into the conduct underlying the arrest and decide whether that conduct makes you unfit for the specific position. The EEOC draws the line there: the conduct matters, not the arrest itself. In practice, most employers are cautious about relying on conduct from a dismissed case because the evidence was never tested at trial.
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, any hiring policy that screens applicants based on criminal history must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. Policies that disproportionately exclude people of a particular race or national origin draw extra scrutiny.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act A blanket “we don’t hire anyone with any criminal record” rule is the kind of policy most likely to fail that test.
When an employer does weigh criminal history, the EEOC expects an individualized assessment of three things: the nature and seriousness of the offense, how much time has passed since the offense or completion of any sentence, and the nature of the job sought. For a dismissed misdemeanor, where there was no conviction and no sentence, the first two factors weigh in your favor.
How to Answer the Application Question
Whether you have to disclose a dismissed misdemeanor on a job application depends entirely on the wording of the question. Many applicants assume they must volunteer everything, when the question may not even reach their situation.
An application that asks “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” does not require you to disclose a dismissed misdemeanor. You were not convicted, and the charge was a misdemeanor. “Have you ever been convicted of any crime, misdemeanor or felony?” still does not apply, because a dismissal is not a conviction. The broadest version, “Have you ever been charged with or convicted of any crime?”, does technically reach a dismissed misdemeanor, because you were charged.
Read the exact wording. If the question asks only about convictions, a dismissed charge is not a conviction and you can truthfully answer no. If the question asks about charges, arrests, or criminal history broadly, and your jurisdiction has no law limiting the question, the dismissed charge likely falls within scope. If the record has been sealed or expunged, many states specifically allow you to deny the charge altogether, but that right depends on your state’s expungement statute rather than any federal rule.
The Adverse Action Process
If an employer decides to pass on you because of something in a background check, federal law gives you a chance to respond before the decision becomes final. This two-step process is one of the FCRA’s most useful protections, and most applicants have never heard of it.
Before making a final decision, the employer must send a pre-adverse action notice that includes a copy of the background check report and a summary of your rights under the FCRA.3Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know That is your window to review the report, flag errors, and explain context — for instance, that a charge was dismissed. The federal statute sets no fixed waiting period, but the point is to give you a reasonable chance to respond.
If the employer still decides not to hire you, a second notice, the adverse action notice, must follow. It has to include the name and contact information of the background check company, a statement that the company did not make the hiring decision, and a reminder that you can dispute inaccurate information and request a free copy of your report within 60 days.3Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know An employer who skips either step has violated the FCRA.
Getting the Record Sealed or Expunged
Sealing and expungement are the most reliable ways to keep a dismissed misdemeanor off future reports. Sealing restricts public access so the record no longer appears in standard court searches. Expungement goes further and removes it from public access entirely. Either one keeps most background check companies from finding and reporting the charge.
In many jurisdictions, dismissed cases are sealed automatically. Others require you to file a motion and sometimes attend a hearing. Some states impose waiting periods after dismissal; others allow immediate filing. Court filing fees for expungement of a dismissed misdemeanor range from nothing to roughly $600, depending on the jurisdiction.
Eligibility tends to be more straightforward for dismissed charges than for convictions. Courts are far more willing to seal a case the prosecution abandoned than one that ended in a guilty verdict. The type of offense can still matter, since some states carve out exceptions for certain categories even when dismissed. Once a record is sealed or expunged, most states allow you to deny the charge ever happened when a private employer asks.
When the Record Still Appears After Expungement
Getting a court to seal your record does not automatically update the private databases background check companies rely on. These companies buy bulk data from courts, sometimes years in advance, and store it independently. Your dismissed charge may have been scraped into a private database long before you got it sealed. Updates can take six months to a year, and some companies may never update unless directly compelled.
If a sealed or expunged record still appears, you can dispute it directly with the reporting company. Under the FCRA, the company must investigate and correct or delete inaccurate information within 30 days. That period can be extended by 15 additional days if you submit new information during the investigation.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 – Section 1681i After expungement, run a background check on yourself through one of the major consumer reporting agencies to see what persists, and be ready to dispute anything that should no longer appear.
Where Expungement Does Not Help
Expungement shields you from most private employers, but it does not erase your history from licensing boards, security clearance investigators, or certain financial regulators.
The federal SF-86 form used for security clearance investigations requires you to report criminal charges regardless of whether the record was sealed, expunged, or dismissed. The only narrow exception is for convictions under the Federal Controlled Substances Act where a court issued an expungement order under specific statutory authority. Everything else, including a dismissed misdemeanor from 20 years ago, must be disclosed. Leaving it out creates a bigger problem than the charge itself, because the investigation is as much about honesty as about conduct.
In the securities industry, FINRA’s Form U4 requires disclosure of misdemeanor charges, including dismissed ones, but only for specific categories: offenses involving investments, fraud, false statements, wrongful taking of property, bribery, perjury, forgery, counterfeiting, or extortion. A dismissed misdemeanor for disorderly conduct would not trigger disclosure on the U4; one involving fraud or financial misconduct would, even though dismissed. The form lists “dismissed” as a disposition option, making clear that reporting is expected regardless of outcome.5FINRA. Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer (Form U4)
State licensing boards for healthcare, law, education, and other regulated professions often run their own background checks using fingerprint-based searches that pull from state and federal criminal databases. Those databases may still contain records after a court-ordered expungement. Many boards require disclosure of all criminal history, including dismissed and expunged charges, and treat failure to disclose more harshly than the underlying charge. If you’re pursuing a licensed profession, check your specific board’s disclosure rules before assuming expungement has resolved the issue.
If a Dismissed Charge Costs You the Job
If a dismissed misdemeanor cost you an offer, you have several avenues depending on what went wrong.
If the background check was inaccurate, listing your charge as a conviction, or including a record that should have been removed after expungement, file a dispute with the consumer reporting agency. The agency must investigate and correct or delete the information within 30 days.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 – Section 1681i If the agency ignores the dispute or fails to fix the error, you can sue in state or federal court. Remedies include actual damages, statutory damages, and attorney’s fees.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
If the employer skipped the adverse action process, rejecting you without first providing the report and a chance to respond, that is an independent FCRA violation, even if the report itself was accurate.
If you suspect the employer used your dismissed charge as a pretext for discrimination, or applied a blanket criminal history exclusion that disproportionately affects people of a particular race or national origin, file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Successful Title VII claims can result in court-ordered reinstatement, back pay, and other equitable relief.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – Section 2000e-5 The EEOC may pursue the claim on your behalf or issue a right-to-sue letter allowing you to take the case to court yourself.
Some states add protections on top of federal law, requiring employers to show a direct relationship between the offense and the job before using criminal history in hiring. Where those laws exist, violations can bring fines and civil liability. The specifics depend on your state, but the federal floor described above applies everywhere.