Adult Conviction Expungement and Record-Sealing Eligibility in Missouri

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Relief name and legal effect

Missouri calls the remedy expungement, but § 610.120 says closed records are not destroyed. They leave public-facing court, agency, and law-enforcement systems and are kept separately and confidentially for authorized uses.

The order generally restores the person's civil rights and treats the arrest, plea, trial, or conviction as if it had not occurred. The statute specifically names voting, public office, and jury service, while preserving the later uses and disclosure duties below.

Automatic or clean-slate relief

Current law requires a petition. Section 610.140(2) directs the person to a Missouri court where the person was charged or found guilty. The 2026 Senate clean-slate package proposed future automation, but it stopped after a committee do-pass vote and did not become law.

Convictions eligible by petition

The petition may list one or more eligible Missouri crimes. Crimes committed as part of the same course of conduct may be grouped and count only at the highest level for lifetime-limit purposes.

Across a lifetime, § 610.140(13) permits no more than three misdemeanors or ordinance violations carrying an authorized jail term and no more than two felonies. Any number of infractions may be expunged.

Excluded offenses and statuses

The exclusion list is extensive. Major categories include Class A and dangerous felonies, sex-registration offenses, felonies with death as an element, felony assault, misdemeanor or felony domestic assault, felony kidnapping, chapter 566 offenses, intoxication-related traffic or boating offenses, commercial- driver motor-vehicle offenses, and many enumerated abuse, public-trust, firearm, and safety crimes.

Eligibility depends on the exact statute and date. A broad offense description is not enough where § 610.140(3) lists specific sections and historical successors.

Waiting period and when it starts

A felony requires three years and a misdemeanor, municipal violation, or infraction requires one year. The clock starts when the person completes every authorized disposition imposed for the target crime, not simply on the date of conviction.

During that same period, the person must not be found guilty of another misdemeanor or felony. The statute excepts violations of the listed traffic chapters from that new-record screen.

Sentence, restitution, and new-record conditions

Every obligation tied to the disposition must be satisfied, including fines and restitution. No charge may be pending. The person's habits and conduct must show no threat to public safety, and expungement must be consistent with public welfare and the interests of justice.

Petition process and decision standard

The petition names every known court, prosecutor, law-enforcement agency, repository, or other record holder. The prosecutor has thirty days after service to object. If an objection is filed, the court holds a hearing within sixty days unless the parties agree otherwise; a victim may be heard.

Once the objective timing, new-record, payment, and pending-charge conditions are met, pleading the public-safety and public-welfare criteria creates a rebuttable presumption. The prosecutor bears the burden to rebut it. If every criterion is satisfied, the court must grant expungement and must issue an order granting or dismissing the petition within six months. Section 488.650 sets a $250 surcharge that the judge may waive for an indigent petitioner.

Who can still see or use the record

Closed records remain available for criminal-justice administration and employment, fingerprint and provider screening, specified law-enforcement licenses, driver administration, regulated care, federal investigations, and the other uses listed in § 610.120.

The person may usually answer "no" to an employer after no public crime record remains. Disclosure is still required for later courts and for specified professional licenses, firearm permits, emergency-services and law-enforcement work, federally insured financial institutions, insurance, and jobs whose law requires excluding certain convictions. The expunged crime may count as a prior in later sentencing.

What trips people up

Expungement does not mean destruction. Missouri closes and separates the records but preserves them for the statutory users.

The clock starts after the disposition is completed. Probation, custody, or another authorized term can make that later than conviction.

The lifetime cap counts crimes, not just petitions. Grouped same-course crimes receive special counting treatment, while unrelated crimes count toward the three-misdemeanor and two-felony limits.

Common questions

Must restitution be paid? Yes. Section 610.140(6)(3) includes fines and restitution among the obligations that must be satisfied.

Can an employer be told no conviction exists? Usually the person may answer "no" after expungement leaves no public crime record, but the statute lists regulated jobs and legally required exclusions where disclosure remains.

Can the conviction still affect a later criminal case? Yes. The person must disclose it to a court when asked or when later charged, and it may be used as a prior offense in sentencing.

Statutes and sources

• Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.140 — eligible petitions, exclusions, waiting periods, completion conditions, process, presumption, effect, disclosures, and limits. https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=610.140 (accessed 2026-07-19)
• Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.120 — closed-record treatment and retained access. https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=610.120 (accessed 2026-07-19)
• Mo. Rev. Stat. § 488.650 — $250 surcharge and indigency waiver. https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=488.650 (accessed 2026-07-19)