How it works in Minnesota

The steps

1. Request your record

   Ask the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for your own criminal history record by a data request: the BCA's Data Request by Data Subject form, signed before a notary, brought to the BCA with a government photo ID or mailed to Data Practices, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, 1430 Maryland Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN 55106 — or filed through the BCA's GovQA system. You may inspect the data at the BCA at no charge, or receive copies by mail or encrypted email; a fee applies only past 200 pages. Your own copy shows every offense, including any the BCA has already sealed under the Clean Slate Act or the cannabis law. (The notarized background check an employer or landlord asks for is a separate paid service.)

   Cost: No fee via personal data request — Bureau of Criminal Apprehension data request (the Data Request by Data Subject form): inspect at the BCA at no charge, or copies by mail or encrypted email with a fee only when the page count exceeds 200; the notarized Minnesota background check for an employer is a separate $8.00 service

2. Review your record

   Confirm there is no disqualifying information in your history. If there is something incorrect, follow the process to challenge the issue. If everything is accurate, make a copy for your file and keep the original somewhere safe.

3. Gather the petition's details

   Gather what the petition must state under Minn. Stat. § 609A.03, signed under oath: your full name and every other name you have used; your date of birth; every address from the date of the offense to the date of the petition; why you seek expungement, the law you rely on, and why the court should grant it; the details of the offense or arrest — the date and place, the court file number, the date of conviction or dismissal, the names of any victims or that there were none, and whether any order for protection, restraining order or no-contact order has ever barred you from contacting them (attach a copy of any such order); for a conviction, the steps you have taken toward rehabilitation; your full conviction record and your full charges record in every state and country, including pending charges, diversions and stays of adjudication; and every earlier request, anywhere, for a pardon, return of arrest records, expungement or sealing, granted or not. The court's Register of Actions for each case — from court administration, a courthouse public terminal or Minnesota Court Records Online — carries the court details; a certified copy costs the fee below. Keep proof of the date your sentence was discharged: the waiting periods run from it.

   Certified copy fee: $14.00 — The court's base fee for a certified copy of any instrument from a civil case or a criminal case; the page lists no county law library fee on a copy; an uncertified copy is $0.00.

4. Verify the final documents

   Check each item against your record and the court's file: the names, the addresses, the dates, and every charge and request listed. The petition form says it is mandatory to list all prior and pending criminal charges in this or any other state, as well as any stays of adjudication, continuances for dismissal, or pretrial diversions in any jurisdiction. Make copies of every original.

5. Prepare your petition

   Complete the petition — the court's Notice of Hearing and Petition for Expungement, form EXP102, one for each case — for the type of charge and outcome. The grounds and waiting periods are in Minn. Stat. § 609A.02: a petition may be filed to seal the records of an arrest, charge, trial or verdict if the case ended in your favor (no wait; a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental illness does not count); if you completed a diversion program or a stay of adjudication and have not been charged with a new crime for at least one year since; if you were convicted of a petty misdemeanor or misdemeanor, or sentenced within misdemeanor limits, and have not been convicted of a new crime for at least two years since discharge of the sentence; a gross misdemeanor, or a sentence within its limits, and three years; a felony under section 152.025 (fifth-degree controlled substance) and four years; a felony on the statute's list of felonies (fifty-three clauses) and four years; or a felony the court deemed a gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor under section 609.13 and four years for a listed offense, five years for any other. A first-time controlled substance case dismissed and discharged under section 152.18, and a juvenile certified and convicted as an adult, have their own grounds. A conviction for an offense that requires predatory offender registration under section 243.166 cannot be expunged. An arrest where no charges were filed, or every charge was dismissed before a finding of probable cause, needs no petition if you have no felony or gross misdemeanor conviction in the ten years before: under Minn. Stat. § 299C.11 the BCA or the arresting agency destroys the identification data on demand.

6. Finalize your petition

   Take the completed petition from Step 5, the documents from Step 3 and your record from Step 1, and add the proposed expungement order the petition must travel with — form EXP105, EXP106 or EXP107; the petition form says which. Double-check every file in the package is the original and keep a copy of the complete package for your personal file.

7. File your expungement petition

   File the petition with the district court that handled the case (the Attorney General's guide: the district court where you were convicted) and pay the filing fee, or ask the court to waive it: under Minn. Stat. § 609A.03 the fee may be waived if you cannot afford it, and must be waived when the case ended in your favor. Court administration gives you the hearing date to write on the Notice of Hearing and Petition. Then serve, by mail, the petition and the proposed expungement order on the prosecutor's office that handled the offense, on every other state and local government agency whose records the order would reach, and on the attorney for each; the prosecutor's office serves any victim who asked for notice. The hearing can be no sooner than 60 days after service — the court's FAQ and the Attorney General's guide say to mail at least 63 days before the hearing — so ask for a hearing date far enough out, and file your proof of service (form EXP104) once the envelopes are mailed.

   Filing fee: $310.00 — Per petition (one petition for each case). The court's base fee; some counties add a county law library fee under Minn. Stat. §§ 134A.09-134A.10 — the court's fee page computes the total by county. Waived when the case ended in your favor; may be waived for indigency (§ 609A.03, subd. 1; § 563.01, subd. 3).

8. Work with the court

   After you file and serve, each agency you served may object, and may send the court private data about you to answer the petition — it must tell you and the court it has, and you may ask the court to seal that data. You must go to the hearing unless the court tells you in writing that you need not. A victim of the offense may speak or write to the court about the harm and whether to grant expungement, and the judge must consider it. Under Minn. Stat. § 609A.03, if your case ended in your favor or you completed a diversion program or stay of adjudication, the court grants the petition unless an agency shows by clear and convincing evidence that the public's interest in keeping the record public outweighs your interest in sealing it; for any other record, you must show by clear and convincing evidence that sealing it would benefit you as much as it would cost the public, and the court weighs twelve listed factors — the offense and its severity, the risk you pose, the time since, your rehabilitation, your reasons, your record, your work and community record, the recommendations of police, prosecutors, corrections officials and victims, and any restitution still owed. The court's FAQ gives the judge up to 90 days after the hearing to decide. Respond promptly to anything the court asks for.

9. Receive the court's order

   Once the court rules, it issues an order granting or denying expungement. Under Minn. Stat. § 609A.03, a granted order is stayed for 60 days after it is filed, and through any appeal — you or an agency whose records it affects may appeal within 60 days of notice. An order sealing a conviction for a crime of violence must state that you may not ship, transport, possess or receive a firearm for life unless your rights are later restored. Read which agencies and records the order names. Keep a certified copy of the order for your own files.

10. Verify the record is expunged

    Under Minn. Stat. § 609A.03, the court administrator sends a copy of the order to each agency and jurisdiction whose records it affects and sends you a letter naming each one; if you asked for it in the petition, each agency must write to you confirming it received the order and that the record has been expunged. A sealed record is not destroyed or returned to you, and criminal justice agencies may still open it for an investigation, prosecution, sentencing or probation; the Department of Human Services and the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board may still see a conviction for a background study unless the order is directed to them. Confirm with the BCA by a data request — your own copy shows sealed offenses — and with the arresting agency. A landlord or employer has no duty to find or use an expunged record (section 609A.05). If a background-check company later produces an outdated report, your certified copy of the order is your authoritative reference.

If you have to mail anything, remember to keep a copy of whatever you send and to use a method with a tracking number like the USPS Flat Rate Envelope.