DUI expungement

Four different legal remedies get advertised under one word, they do four different things to a record, and in most of the states we have read none of them reaches an impaired-driving conviction at all. The exclusions are not buried. Three of these states name the DUI statute in the text of the sealing law.

Written from primary sources · Editor-reviewed · Law current as of September 20, 2026

By the duistatelaws.com editorial team · Published September 19, 2026 · Last reviewed September 20, 2026 · 8 min read

6 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content

Key takeaways

Four remedies, not one: expungement, sealing, set aside and dismissal after probation. They are not interchangeable.
Georgia and Colorado name the exclusion in the statute. Florida closes the door indirectly by forbidding withheld adjudication.
California's Penal Code 1203.4 dismissal leaves the conviction usable as a prior and leaves the license action intact, by its own terms.
Arizona's set aside releases you from the penalties of the conviction and leaves the conviction on the record.
A case that ended without a conviction is a different question with a much better answer.

Four remedies, four different things

Before any state-by-state answer is useful, the words have to mean something. They are used loosely in advertising and precisely in statutes, and the precise versions are:

Expungement: The record is destroyed or removed. In practice most American statutes described as expungement are closer to sealing, and the states that use the word narrowly — Texas is one — reserve it for cases that never produced a conviction.
Sealing or record restriction: The record continues to exist but is withheld from most public and private searches. Courts, law enforcement and specified licensing bodies keep access. This is what Colorado and Georgia provide, and both exclude impaired driving from it.
Set aside: The judgment of guilt is set aside and the person is released from the penalties and disabilities flowing from the conviction. The conviction itself stays, visibly. This is Arizona's remedy under section 13-905.
Dismissal after probation: The plea is withdrawn, a not-guilty plea entered, and the accusation dismissed — after which the statute may still permit the conviction to be used for specified purposes. This is California's Penal Code section 1203.4.

The difference that matters to most people is not philosophical. It is whether the case still counts as a prior if there is a next one, and whether it has to be disclosed. On both questions the last two remedies answer differently from the first two.

What each state actually offers

Post-conviction relief available for an impaired-driving conviction, by state. Law current as of September 19, 2026.
State	What is available for a conviction	Authority
Texas	a DWI conviction cannot be expunged	Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.102
California	dismissal under Penal Code § 1203.4	Cal. Penal Code § 1203.4
Georgia	a DUI conviction cannot be restricted or sealed	O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(j)(4)(B)(xviii)
Florida	no court may withhold adjudication for a DUI	Fla. Stat. § 316.656(1)
Colorado	a DUI conviction cannot be sealed	C.R.S. § 24-72-706(2)(a)(III)
Arizona	a set aside, not an expungement	A.R.S. § 13-905

The three states that say no in the statute

Colorado has a broad sealing provision at section 24-72-706 and then a list of what it does not apply to. Item (2)(a)(III) is “a conviction for a violation of section 42-4-1301 (1) or (2)” — DUI, DWAI and DUI per se, by section number. Items (I) and (II) of the same list exclude class 1 and class 2 misdemeanor traffic offenses and class A and class B traffic infractions, which closes the adjacent routes as well.

Georgia restricts records under section 35-3-37, and the exclusion list at subsection (j)(4)(B) contains “any serious traffic offense in violation of Article 15 of Chapter 6 of Title 40”. That is the article the DUI statute sits in. There is no waiting period that changes this and no program that unlocks it.

Florida reaches the same result without mentioning records. Its sealing regime is built on adjudication having been withheld, and section 316.656(1) says that no court may suspend, defer or withhold adjudication of guilt for a violation of section 316.193. Every Florida DUI conviction is therefore an adjudication of guilt, and outside the sealing regime by construction.

The two states that offer something less than the word

California. Section 1203.4 is real relief and it is worth having. It is also explicit about its own limits, in two places in the same section. The conviction “may be pleaded and proved” in any subsequent prosecution “and shall have the same effect as if probation had not been granted”, so a dismissed DUI remains a prior inside California's ten-year window. And the relief is granted “except as provided in Section 13555 of the Vehicle Code”, which preserves the DMV's action against the license.

Arizona. Section 13-905 sets aside the judgment and releases the person from the penalties and disabilities resulting from the conviction. The conviction remains on the record. Arizona also has a sealing statute at section 13-911, added later, which is a separate application with separate eligibility. Neither touches the transportation-code record of the suspension or the interlock requirement, which lives in a different title.

Texas, where the question is about the disposition

Texas expunction is available where a case ended without a conviction. A DWI conviction is not in that category and cannot be expunged. What Texas added in 2019 was deferred adjudication for first-offense DWI under Code of Criminal Procedure article 42A.102, on narrow terms — a test result of 0.15 or more rules it out — which can lead to an order of non-disclosure rather than to an expunction. A deferred DWI still counts as a prior if there is a later offense.

Asking about a case that has not ended yet

Enter the ZIP code where the arrest happened and we will start the review from there.

Why this is a question for the beginning of a case, not the end

Every exclusion above is written by section number or by offense category. None of them is written by conduct. That has one practical consequence and it is the most useful sentence on this page: a case that resolves under a different section is not inside the exclusion.

A Colorado case that ends as something other than section 42-4-1301(1) or (2) is not on the sealing exclusion list. A Georgia case that ends outside Article 15 of Chapter 6 of Title 40 is not a serious traffic offense for restriction purposes. A Florida case that ends as reckless driving is not a violation of section 316.193, so section 316.656 does not apply to it and the ordinary sealing rules do — although section 316.656(2)(a) forbids a judge from accepting a plea to a lesser offense where a breath or blood test showed 0.15 percent or more, which closes that route in the highest-reading cases.

So the moment at which the permanence of the record is decided is the moment the charge is resolved, not the moment somebody applies for relief years later. By the time the application is being considered, the answer was fixed long ago.

What you still have to disclose

This is the part worth being careful about, because getting it wrong can be worse than the original conviction. None of these remedies is a license to answer a direct question falsely, and some of them say so.

California's section 1203.4 states that the order “does not relieve them of the obligation to disclose the conviction in response to any” question in the categories the statute goes on to list. Arizona's set aside leaves the conviction visible, so a question asking whether you have ever been convicted has an answer that has not changed. Sealing statutes generally keep access for courts, law enforcement and specified licensing bodies, which is why professional license applications ask differently from employment applications.

What the form asks, and what your state's statute permits you to answer, is a question for a lawyer licensed where the conviction happened. It is not one a national page can answer, and this one is not trying to.

Common questions

Can a DUI be expunged?

In most of the states we have read, no. Georgia excludes serious traffic offenses from record restriction by name. Colorado's sealing statute lists the DUI section number in its exclusions. Florida forbids withholding adjudication for a DUI, which closes sealing indirectly. Texas expunction reaches cases that ended without a conviction, so it does not reach a DWI conviction. California and Arizona offer something, and neither of them is an erasure.

What is the difference between expungement and sealing?

Expungement destroys or removes the record; sealing leaves it in existence but hides it from most public and private searches while keeping it visible to courts, law enforcement and certain licensing bodies. States use the words inconsistently, so the useful question is not what the remedy is called but what the statute says happens to the record and who can still see it.

Is a California 1203.4 dismissal an expungement?

It is routinely advertised as one and it is not. Penal Code section 1203.4 permits the plea to be withdrawn and the accusation dismissed after probation is completed, and then says the conviction may still be pleaded and proved in a later prosecution with the same effect as if probation had never been granted. It also preserves Vehicle Code section 13555, so the DMV's license action is untouched.

What is an Arizona set aside?

A remedy under A.R.S. section 13-905 in which the court sets aside the judgment of guilt, dismisses the accusation or information, and releases the person from the penalties and disabilities resulting from the conviction. The conviction stays on the record and stays visible. Arizona has a separate sealing statute at section 13-911 with its own eligibility rules.

Does a reduced charge help?

It is usually the only thing that does. The exclusions in these statutes are written by section number or by offense category, so a case that resolves under a different section is outside them. That is why the disposition matters more than the sentence, and it is why the question is asked before the case ends rather than years afterwards.

If the case was dismissed, is that different?

Yes, substantially. Texas expunction is available where a case ended without a conviction — a dismissal, an acquittal, or an arrest that never led to a charge. Most states have an equivalent route for non-convictions. The exclusions on this page are about convictions, which is a different question with a much worse answer.

How long a DUI stays on your record — the three separate records and their three clocks
DUI law by state — the statute each of these answers came from
Refusing a breathalyzer — the roadside decision and what it actually trades
How we verify — what was read, from where, and when

Sources

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 42A.102 — read in force 2026
Cal. Penal Code § 1203.4 — read in force 2026
O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(j)(4)(B)(xviii) — read reproduction current as of 2024-03-28 — official text at the state portal
Fla. Stat. § 316.656(1) — read in force 2026
C.R.S. § 24-72-706(2)(a)(III) — read in force 2026 — official text at the state portal
A.R.S. § 13-905 — read in force 2026