Washington: Adult Conviction Expungement and Record-Sealing Eligibility

Requirements one by one

Relief name and legal effect

Washington calls the remedy vacation. Under § 9.94A.640(1), a felony
vacation lets the court withdraw a guilty plea or set aside a guilty verdict,
then dismiss the information or indictment. Section 9.96.060(1) uses the same
structure for misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors and also vacates the judgment
and sentence. Neither statute describes destruction of every record.

Vacation releases the person from most penalties and disabilities caused by
the offense. The person may state that the conviction never occurred, including
on employment applications and, for a misdemeanor, housing applications. The
statutes nevertheless preserve later-prosecution use and require a separate
firearm-rights analysis.

Automatic or clean-slate relief

Washington has no general automatic process for adult convictions. Sections
9.94A.640(1) and 9.96.060(2) say that the person may apply to the sentencing
court, and both make the ordinary decision discretionary even after the listed
requirements are met.

Narrow provisions use mandatory language for particular histories, including
specified cannabis or substance-use cases and a prison-riot provision tied to
juvenile confinement. Those special routes do not turn the general felony and
misdemeanor system into automatic clean-slate relief.

Convictions eligible by petition

For a felony, § 9.94A.640 starts with an offender who has been discharged under
§ 9.94A.637. The ordinary timing branches address Class B and Class C felonies.
The statute generally excludes violent offenses and crimes against persons,
but expressly allows three listed offenses to remain eligible when the
conviction had no firearm, deadly-weapon, or sexual-motivation enhancement:
second-degree assault, third-degree assault not committed against a law-
enforcement or peace officer, and second-degree robbery.

Section 9.96.060(2) begins broadly: every person convicted of a misdemeanor or
gross misdemeanor may apply. The exclusions and completion rules below then
determine whether a particular conviction remains eligible.

Excluded offenses and statuses

Pending charges block both general routes. For felonies, the main offense bar
covers violent offenses and crimes against persons except the three expressly
listed exceptions.

For misdemeanors, § 9.96.060(2) excludes violent offenses and attempts, DUI,
actual physical control while under the influence, operating a railroad while
intoxicated, and specified prior-offense situations. It also excludes the
listed obscenity, child-sexual-exploitation, and sex-offense chapters except
failure to register. Domestic-violence cases have separate history, notice,
affidavit, treatment, and protection-order restrictions.

Waiting period and when it starts

The felony clock uses the latest of sentencing, release from full or partial
confinement, or release from community custody. A Class B felony requires ten
years and no new crime during the ten years before applying. A covered Class C
felony generally requires five years and no new crime during the prior five
years. The elapsed-time subsection expressly excepts Class C felony DUI and
physical-control convictions from that five-year elapsed-time bar, while the
separate five-year no-new-crime condition still applies.

For an ordinary misdemeanor, three years must pass from the latest of
sentencing, release from total or partial confinement, or release from
supervision or probation. The person also must have no new state, federal,
tribal, or out-of-state crime during the three years before applying.

A domestic-violence misdemeanor uses a different five-year clock. It runs from
completion of the original sentence conditions, including ordered treatment,
but excludes payment of financial obligations from the event that starts the
clock. Financial obligations remain a separate completion condition.

Sentence, restitution, and new-record conditions

A felony applicant first needs a discharge under § 9.94A.637. That section
generally ties discharge to completion of every sentence condition, including
legal financial obligations, and provides motion procedures when a certificate
was not otherwise issued.

For a misdemeanor, § 9.96.060(2)(a) separately requires completion of all
sentence terms, including financial obligations. No pending charge may exist,
and the applicable conviction-free period must be satisfied. A domestic-
violence applicant also must accurately address prior domestic-violence
history and any ordered treatment, prosecutor notice, and qualifying current
or recently violated restraint order.

Petition process and decision standard

The application goes to the sentencing court. Section 9.94A.640(1) says the
court may clear the felony record after finding the statutory tests met.
Section 9.96.060(2) expressly says the court may, in its discretion, vacate a
qualifying misdemeanor or gross-misdemeanor record.

For a domestic-violence misdemeanor, the applicant must give written notice of
the vacation petition to the prosecuting attorney's office that prosecuted the
case and provide that notification to the court. The general statutes do not
make eligibility alone a promise that the court will grant relief.

Who can still see or use the record

After vacation, State Patrol and local law enforcement may not disseminate or
disclose the conviction to anyone except other criminal-justice enforcement
agencies. For a misdemeanor vacation, the clerk sends the order to State
Patrol and any local police agency holding the record; those agencies update
their records and transmit the order to the FBI.

The statutes do not make the conviction legally irrelevant everywhere. They
preserve use in a later criminal prosecution, and vacation does not itself
restore firearm rights. Section 9.94A.640 also says a conviction vacated on or
after July 28, 2019 can qualify as a prior conviction for a new recidivist
offense and can establish an ongoing pattern of abuse for the stated sentencing
purpose.

Boundaries and alternative relief

This page compares the ordinary adult-conviction vacation routes. Sections
9.94A.640 and 9.96.060 also contain special routes for specified victims,
treaty-fishing cases, cannabis or substance-use cases, prostitution records of
homicide victims, and a prison-riot offense committed during juvenile
confinement. Those narrow routes do not define general eligibility.

Juvenile records, nonconviction records, pardons, innocence-based remedies,
and federal, tribal, military, or out-of-state convictions follow different
rules and remain outside this survey.

What trips people up

Vacation is not a blanket court-file sealing order. The statutes restrict
State Patrol and local-law-enforcement dissemination and update criminal-
history records. They do not say that every court and agency record is
destroyed or inaccessible for every purpose.

The clock may start well after conviction. Release from confinement,
community custody, supervision, or probation can be later than sentencing and
therefore control the waiting period.

Domestic-violence timing and payment are separate. The five-year clock
excludes financial-obligation payment from its start event, but the general
misdemeanor completion rule still requires the financial obligations to be
satisfied before vacation.

Common questions

Can a person say the vacated conviction never happened? Yes. Both general
vacation statutes allow that response, including on employment applications;
the misdemeanor statute also names housing applications.

Does vacation restore firearm rights? No. Sections 9.94A.640(4) and
9.96.060(8) expressly preserve separate firearm-restoration requirements.

Does the conviction disappear from every government system? No. The
misdemeanor order is transmitted to State Patrol, local police, and the FBI,
and the statutes preserve criminal-justice access and later-prosecution uses.

Statutes and sources

• Wash. Rev. Code § 9.94A.640 — felony application, offense exclusions,
  five- and ten-year clocks, legal effect, retained uses, and special routes.
  https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.94A.640
  (accessed 2026-07-19)
• Wash. Rev. Code § 9.94A.637 — certificate of discharge and sentence and
  financial-obligation completion rules.
  https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.94A.637
  (accessed 2026-07-19)
• Wash. Rev. Code § 9.96.060 — misdemeanor and gross-misdemeanor eligibility,
  exclusions, three- and five-year clocks, legal effect, record transmission,
  disclosure limits, and special routes.
  https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.96.060
  (accessed 2026-07-19)