How it works in North Carolina

The steps

1. Get fingerprinted

   This step and the next are optional. The court's own record check rides your petition, so if you already know every charge, file number and disposition you can skip to step 4. If you want the State Bureau of Investigation's copy of your North Carolina record first, its Right to Review packet says to have your fingerprints taken at your local police department or sheriff's office on an FD-258 Applicant Fingerprint Card. Bring a driver's license or other government-issued photo ID, and give the officer page 4 of the packet. The agency sets its own fee for the prints.

   Fingerprint fee: Varies by agency — Set by the police department or sheriff's office that takes your prints on the FD-258 card; the Bureau's packet names no fee for them, and a state list of local agencies dated July 2022 shows $0 to $30, most often $10 — call the agency first. The prints serve the optional Right to Review only; the petition's own record check needs none.

2. Request your record

   Mail the packet's request form, your fingerprint card and a certified check or money order for the fee, payable to the NC State Bureau of Investigation, to its Criminal Information and Identification Section, Attention: Applicant Unit — Right to Review, 3320 Garner Road, Raleigh, NC 27610. The packet says requests are accepted only by US Mail, cash and personal checks are not accepted, and the card must not be folded. The search covers the Bureau's North Carolina file only, not federal or other states' records. The results come back to you by first-class mail on the Bureau's letterhead, with a copy of any matching record attached; the Bureau cannot send them to anyone else. Questions go to (919) 582-8660.

   Record request fee: $14.00 — By US Mail only, with a certified check or money order payable to the NC State Bureau of Investigation and your fingerprints on an FD-258 card; the results come to you alone by first-class mail.

3. Review your record

   Check the record against what you remember, charge by charge, with each file number and disposition. If it is wrong or incomplete, the packet says you may challenge it with the Right to Review Request Criminal History Written Exception form: the Bureau audits the record with the arresting agency, tells you the result in writing, and you may ask for an administrative hearing if you disagree. Keep the letter and the record with your papers — the Bureau says every charge, file number and disposition must be on the petition, each in detail.

4. Gather your case details

   Gather the case information from the court file: each file number, the date of arrest, each offense and its date, the disposition and its date, and the arresting agency. The clerk of superior court in the county of the case can print it for you. The State Bureau of Investigation says every charge, file number and disposition must be on the petition, each in detail, and the court's instruction sheet says to complete the form from the court file and to name the arresting agency and any other State or local agency that holds a record of the case. No certified copy is required with an expunction petition; if you want a certified copy of the disposition for your own file, the clerk charges a certificate fee plus a copy fee per page.

   Certified copy fee: $3.00 to certify; $2.00 first page; $0.25 each additional page — The clerk's certificate under seal plus the copy fee per page (G.S. 7A-308(a)(9) and (12)); no certified copy is required with an expunction petition, so this is only for a copy you want for your own file.

5. Verify the final documents

   Review each document against the court file for accuracy. Make copies of every original and keep one set for yourself: the court's instruction sheet says that once the case is expunged the clerk has no record of it and cannot provide any paper from it, the expunction order included.

6. Prepare your petition

   Use the Administrative Office of the Courts' form for the statute you file under — the courts' expunction page lists each statute with its form and instruction sheet, and the State Bureau of Investigation says the wrong form may significantly delay the process or result in a rejection. Which statute fits depends on how the case ended, the offense and your age at the time. Under G.S. 15A-146, a charge that was dismissed, or ended in a finding of not guilty or not responsible, can be expunged by petition at any time, and the court may grant it without a hearing; since December 1, 2021 a case in which every charge was dismissed without leave or by the court, or ended not guilty or not responsible, is expunged by operation of law 180 to 210 days after its final disposition — except a felony charge dismissed under a plea agreement — so check with the clerk before you file for one. Under G.S. 15A-145.5, a nonviolent misdemeanor or felony conviction can be expunged after a wait that runs from the date of conviction or from the end of any active sentence, period of probation or post-release supervision, whichever is later: three years for one nonviolent misdemeanor; seven years for more than one, counted from your last conviction other than a traffic offense not listed in the petition; ten years for one nonviolent felony; fifteen years for one felony under G.S. 14-54(a), breaking or entering a building; and twenty years for two or three nonviolent felonies, counted from the most recent conviction in the petition, which must have been committed within the same 24-month period. Convictions from the same session of court count as one. Nonviolent excludes a Class A through G felony or a Class A1 misdemeanor; an offense with assault as an essential element; an offense that requires sex offender registration, whether or not you must still register; the sex-related or stalking offenses the statute lists; a felony drug offense involving methamphetamine, heroin, or possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine; the offenses under G.S. 14-12.12(b), 14-12.13, 14-12.14 and 14-401.16, an offense punished under G.S. 14-3(c), and breaking or entering under G.S. 14-54(a1); a felony committed with a commercial motor vehicle; and an attempt at any of these. An impaired driving offense is not eligible under this section. You must also have no other conviction, other than a traffic violation, during the waiting period — and for a felony petition no misdemeanor conviction in the five years before it — no outstanding warrant, pending case, indictment or probable-cause finding for a felony, and no unpaid restitution order or judgment. The petition carries your affidavit of good moral character, affidavits from two people not related to you or to each other who know your character and reputation, a statement that it is a motion in the cause in your case, an application for the Bureau's record check and warrant search, an affidavit that no restitution is outstanding, and an affidavit about any petition you have filed or will file in another county; the instruction sheet says you may use form AOC-CR-158 for the affidavits. Convictions from more than one county take a petition in each county, all filed within 120 days. The section allows one expunction of misdemeanors and one of felonies: a person granted one cannot expunge a later offense under it, and cannot expunge more misdemeanors or felonies under it except by the 120-day multi-county petitions or, for an expunction granted on a petition filed before December 1, 2021, offenses committed before that order — up to two more felonies within the same 24 months as the expunged one. Other doors have their own forms and waits: G.S. 15A-145 for a first misdemeanor committed before 18, or alcohol possession before 21, two years after the conviction or the end of probation; G.S. 15A-145.4 for a first nonviolent felony committed before 18, four years after the conviction or the sentence, with 100 hours of community service and a high school diploma or its equivalent; G.S. 15A-145.8A for a misdemeanor or Class H or I felony committed at 16 or 17 before December 1, 2019, once the sentence is served; G.S. 15A-145.2 and 15A-145.3 for drug, drug paraphernalia and toxic vapors cases at 21 or under; G.S. 15A-145.6 for a prostitution conviction after three years; G.S. 15A-145.9 for a nonviolent offense a trafficking victim was coerced or deceived into; and G.S. 15A-147 and 15A-149 for identity theft and a pardon of innocence.

7. Finalize your petition

   Assemble the petition from step 6 with its affidavits and the application for the record check, and the case information from step 4; add the Bureau's record from step 2 if you got one. List on the petition the arresting agency and any other State or local agency that holds a record of the case — the instruction sheet says not to list the courts, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Adult Correction or the Division of Motor Vehicles, which are notified automatically, and not to list a private background-check company, which the clerk never notifies. The Bureau says a petition without the statute it is filed under, your signature and a judge's signature is rejected. Keep a copy of the whole package.

8. File your expungement petition

   File the petition with the clerk of superior court in the county where you were convicted — for a dismissed or not guilty charge, the county where the charge was brought — and pay the filing fee, or file the court's Petition to Proceed as an Indigent (form AOC-G-106) if you cannot. Under G.S. 15A-145.5 the fee is waived for an indigent petitioner; under G.S. 15A-146 there is no fee for a dismissed or not guilty charge unless the dismissal followed a deferred prosecution agreement or a conditional discharge, and the costs of expunging the records are never taxed against you. Follow the clerk's instructions for getting a judge's signature on the Request By Judge and for forwarding the petition to the State Bureau of Investigation. The petition is served on the district attorney, who has 30 days to object — the court may allow 30 more for good cause — and must make best efforts to tell any victim, who may attend the hearing.

   Filing fee: $175.00 — Paid to the clerk of superior court when you file; waived for an indigent petitioner (the court's Petition to Proceed as an Indigent, form AOC-G-106). No fee for a charge that was dismissed or ended not guilty or not responsible unless the dismissal followed a deferred prosecution agreement or a conditional discharge; $52.50 for a petition under G.S. 15A-145.8A (an offense at 16 or 17 before December 1, 2019); no cost for a trafficking victim's petition under G.S. 15A-145.9.

9. Work with the court

   The State Bureau of Investigation runs the record check and the search for outstanding warrants and pending cases and sends the results to the Administrative Office of the Courts, which adds its search of the confidential expunction file and mails the sealed record to the clerk. The court's instruction sheet says it is your responsibility to find out when the form has come back and to ask the clerk or the district attorney to schedule the hearing. The judge may ask a probation officer to verify your conduct since the conviction and reads any affidavit or testimony from officers, the district attorney and victims, who may attend. For a conviction the court decides after a hearing; for a dismissed or not guilty charge it may decide without one. The courts say expunctions may take several months.

10. Receive the court's order

    If the petition is granted, the court orders you restored, in the contemplation of the law, to the status you occupied before the arrest, indictment or information, and orders the charge or conviction expunged from the court's records. The clerk certifies copies of the order and sends one to you and one to each agency named under G.S. 15A-150; if you move before then, tell the clerk in writing. Keep your certified copy. The courts' page says the clerk destroys the file, order included, and cannot give you another copy later, while G.S. 15A-151 now keeps an expunged court record as the clerk's confidential file that you or your lawyer may ask to see — so treat your copy as the only sure one. For a petition filed on or after December 1, 2017 you can later apply to the Administrative Office of the Courts for a certificate verifying the expunction (form AOC-G-260, sworn before a notary). If the petition is denied, the order states the reason; the courts say an appeal may be possible on a short deadline, so ask a lawyer at once.

11. Verify the record is expunged

    Under G.S. 15A-150, the clerk sends a certified copy of the order to the sheriff, chief of police or other arresting agency; the Division of Motor Vehicles when applicable; any State or local agency your petition named; the Department of Adult Correction's Combined Records Section; and the State Bureau of Investigation, which forwards it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each agency must purge every entry made as a result of the charge or conviction, and a State agency must tell any private company licensed to its bulk data to delete the record — under G.S. 15A-152 such a company must delete it within the time its license sets, or within ten business days of the notice. Three records are kept: the Administrative Office of the Courts' confidential expunction file and the clerk's confidential court file under G.S. 15A-151, and any investigative records the arresting agency keeps for a charge expunged under G.S. 15A-146; prosecutors can see the confidential file, and under G.S. 15A-151.5 a conviction expunged on or after July 1, 2018 may still count as a prior conviction if you are sentenced for a later offense. Under G.S. 15A-153, you may omit the expunged arrest, charge or conviction when anyone asks, without committing perjury; an employer or school may not require you to disclose it or knowingly ask about it, and a State or local agency must tell you first that you need not mention it — except for law enforcement certification, where expunged convictions must still be disclosed. The State Bureau of Investigation sends no notice when it is done, and its page names the months of petitions and orders it is working through; the courts say to call the clerk if court sources still show the case a few weeks after the order, and to contact a private website yourself with a copy of the order, since an expunction does not reach every private source. Check the arresting agency and the Bureau too, and keep the certified copy as your proof.

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.