Two different remedies

Texas offers two ways to address a criminal record, and they are not interchangeable.

Expunction destroys the records. The arrest, the charge, and the court file are ordered deleted by every agency that holds them, and you may generally deny that the arrest ever occurred.

An order of nondisclosure seals the records from public view. Law enforcement, prosecutors, and certain licensing agencies can still see them, but private employers and background check companies cannot.

Which one is available depends almost entirely on how the case ended. Expunction is the better remedy, and most people who qualify for it do not realize they do.

Expunction — now Chapter 55A

The Texas expunction statutes were recodified from Chapter 55 into Chapter 55A of the Code of Criminal Procedure by House Bill 4504, effective January 1, 2025. The substance largely carried forward, but the article numbers changed, and petitions and orders still citing the old chapter are increasingly encountered.

You are generally entitled to an expunction where:

• You were acquitted at trial
• You were convicted but subsequently pardoned or granted relief on the basis of actual innocence
• The charge was dismissed and the applicable waiting period has run
• You were arrested but no charge was ever filed and the waiting period has run
• The case was no-billed by the grand jury
• You completed a pretrial diversion program
• You were arrested as a result of identity theft by another person

Waiting periods where no charge was filed

Article 55A.052 sets the periods that must elapse from the date of arrest where no indictment or information was presented:

Offense level	Waiting period from arrest
Class C misdemeanor	180 days
Class A or B misdemeanor	1 year
Felony	3 years

Expunction may be available sooner where the prosecutor certifies the records are not needed for a pending investigation, and there are separate rules where a charge was filed and later dismissed.

Deferred adjudication is the common trap. Completing deferred adjudication is not a conviction, which leads many people to believe the record is clear. It is not — the arrest and the charge remain publicly visible. Deferred adjudication for a Class C misdemeanor can support an expunction. Deferred adjudication for any other offense generally supports only a nondisclosure.

What an expunction accomplishes

Every agency holding the records — the arresting agency, the Department of Public Safety, the court clerk, the prosecutor, and the private background-check companies that bought the data — is ordered to delete them. Once the order is entered, you may generally deny that the arrest occurred, including on employment and housing applications, subject to narrow exceptions in a criminal proceeding.

Practically, the value is in what stops appearing: the background check that ends a job offer, the apartment application that is declined, the professional license application that requires explanation years after a case that went nowhere.

Orders of nondisclosure

Where expunction is unavailable, Government Code Chapter 411, Subchapter E-1 governs orders of nondisclosure:

Automatic nondisclosure — § 411.072. For certain first-time, nonviolent misdemeanor deferred adjudications, the order issues without a petition when the conditions are met. No filing, no fee, no hearing. Many people eligible under this provision never learn the order exists, and some pay to file a petition they did not need.

Petition-based nondisclosure — § 411.0725. For deferred adjudications involving felonies and misdemeanors outside § 411.072. Requires a petition, a filing fee, and in most cases a waiting period after discharge and dismissal — commonly two years for certain misdemeanors and five years for felonies.

DWI deferred adjudication — § 411.0726. Added by House Bill 3582, effective September 1, 2019, covering certain driving while intoxicated and boating while intoxicated misdemeanors resolved by deferred adjudication.

DWI conviction with community supervision — § 411.0731. The “Second Chance Law,” House Bill 3016, effective September 1, 2017. A first-time DWI conviction with community supervision may be sealed after a two-year waiting period where an ignition interlock device was a condition for at least six months, and otherwise after five years. Section 411.0736 addresses DWI convictions without community supervision.

Certain offenses are categorically ineligible for nondisclosure — including offenses requiring sex offender registration, family violence offenses and cases with an affirmative finding of family violence, murder, capital murder, injury to a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual, abandoning or endangering a child, violation of a protective order, and stalking.

The process

An expunction is a civil proceeding. A petition is filed in the district court naming every agency that may hold records, the agencies are served and given an opportunity to respond, and the court holds a hearing. If the order is granted, certified copies go to each agency. Start to finish, an uncontested expunction in Hidalgo County commonly takes a few months.

A nondisclosure petition is filed in the court that handled the original case. The State may contest it, and for discretionary nondisclosures the court must find that granting the order is in the best interest of justice.

Either way, the first step is obtaining and reading the actual disposition. A surprising number of people are wrong about how their case ended — they recall probation when the record shows deferred adjudication, or a dismissal when the file shows a plea. Eligibility turns entirely on that detail, and it takes one records request to establish.