DWI expungement in Texas

Can a DWI be expunged in Texas?

Only if it did not end in a conviction that stands. Code of Criminal Procedure art. 55A.051 opens expunction to an arrest where the person has been released, the charge has not resulted in a final conviction and is no longer pending, and there was no court-ordered community supervision under chapter 42A other than for a Class C misdemeanor.

The third condition is the one that catches most DWI cases. Deferred adjudication is community supervision under chapter 42A, so a DWI that ended in deferred adjudication ends with the case dismissed and still fails art. 55A.051, because supervision was ordered. Every plea and every guilty verdict fails on the second condition instead.

The routes that stay open all describe a case that did not end in a conviction:

• Article 55A.002 entitles a person tried for the offense and acquitted by the trial court to have all records and files relating to the arrest expunged, subject to art. 55A.151.
• Article 55A.003 reaches someone tried, convicted, and then pardoned or otherwise granted relief on the basis of actual innocence, where the pardon or order says so on its face.
• Article 55A.052(a) covers an arrest that never produced an indictment or information: 180 days from the arrest for a Class C misdemeanor, one year for a Class B or A misdemeanor, three years for a felony, or sooner where the attorney representing the state certifies the records are not needed for any criminal investigation or prosecution.
• Article 55A.053 covers an indictment or information dismissed or quashed on the grounds it lists, and art. 55A.054 covers an arrest the state can no longer prosecute because the limitations period has expired.

A first DWI is a Class B misdemeanor, so the one-year figure in art. 55A.052(a)(2) is the waiting period on a charge that was never filed. The offense levels themselves are in the guide to Texas DWI penalties.

The chapter number matters as much as the rule. Chapter 55A was added by Acts 2023, 88th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 765 (H.B. 4504), and took effect on January 1, 2025. Expunction used to live in chapter 55, so a page that cites chapter 55 was written before that date and has not been checked since.

What is nondisclosure, and who qualifies after a first DWI?

Sealing rather than erasing, and a first DWI conviction can reach it. Government Code § 411.0731(a) applies to a person placed on community supervision after a conviction under Penal Code § 49.04, other than an offense punishable under subsection (d) of that section, which is the 0.15 level.

Subsection (a)(2) also decides which kind of supervision counts. It reaches a person placed on supervision under a provision of chapter 42A other than Subchapter C, which is the deferred adjudication subchapter, and it says so while expressly including a provision that requires a term of confinement as a condition of supervision and one that allows supervision after part of a sentence has been served. Deferred adjudication has its own section, and it is covered further down.

Subsection (b) then sets who may petition: a person whose community supervision is not revoked and who completes the period of community supervision, including any term of confinement imposed and payment of all fines, costs, and restitution imposed. That person must satisfy § 411.0731 and § 411.074, and must never have been previously convicted of or placed on deferred adjudication community supervision for another offense other than a traffic offense that is punishable by fine only.

Two years, or five: § 411.0731(f) allows the petition “only on or after: (1) the second anniversary of the date of completion of the community supervision, if the person successfully complied with a condition of community supervision that, for a period of not less than six months, restricted the person’s operation of a motor vehicle to a motor vehicle equipped with an ignition interlock device; or (2) the fifth anniversary of the date of completion of the community supervision, if the court that placed the person on community supervision did not order the person to comply with a condition of community supervision described by Subdivision (1) for the period described by that subdivision.”

Two more conditions sit outside the DWI section. Section 411.074(a) requires that the person not be convicted of or placed on deferred adjudication for any offense other than a fine-only traffic offense during the supervision and during the waiting period that follows it. Subsection (b) puts a list of registration, violent and family-violence offenses out of reach of any order under the subchapter; a DWI is not on that list, and a separate conviction can still be.

And one more closes the door on the facts of the case. Section 411.0731(e) bars the court from issuing the order where the attorney representing the state presents evidence sufficient to the court demonstrating that the commission of the offense resulted in a motor vehicle collision involving another person, including a passenger in a motor vehicle operated by the person seeking the order.

A DWI resolved by deferred adjudication runs on a parallel section. Section 411.0725(a)(2) excludes offenses under Penal Code § 49.04 and § 49.06 from the general deferred adjudication route, and § 411.0726 is the section written for them. It reaches a misdemeanor deferred adjudication discharged and dismissed under art. 42A.111, carries the same collision bar in subsection (e), and allows the petition on or after the second anniversary of the date of completion of the supervision and the discharge and dismissal.

How do you tell which one your case qualifies for?

By how the case ended, not by how long ago it was. An acquittal or a charge that was never filed points at expunction. A conviction points at nondisclosure, if anywhere. A conviction at 0.15 or more, or a second offense, points at neither.

The interlock row is the one worth reading before sentencing rather than after. Six months of a device is what separates a two-year wait from a five-year one under § 411.0731(f), and a device ordered as a condition of supervision under art. 42A.408 is the ordinary way that condition arrives. When Texas requires the device, and for how long, is in the guide to Texas ignition interlock law.

Every row above is a question of eligibility to file, not of what a court will decide. Under § 411.0731(d) the court issues the order after notice to the state and an opportunity for a hearing, and only on its own determination. Nothing on this page can tell you how that determination will go; a Texas attorney reading your judgment can tell you what you are eligible to ask for.

What does an order of nondisclosure actually do?

It closes the record to the public and not to everyone. Government Code § 411.0765(a) lets a criminal justice agency disclose sealed criminal history record information only in the cases it lists, and subsection (b) names the noncriminal justice agencies and entities that may still receive it.

Subsection (a) keeps the record available to other criminal justice agencies, for criminal justice or regulatory licensing purposes, to the person the record belongs to, and to the agencies subsection (b) lists. That list runs to 32 subdivisions. It names the State Board for Educator Certification; a school district, charter school or private school; the Texas Medical Board; the Board of Law Examiners; the State Bar of Texas; the Department of Family and Protective Services; a municipal or volunteer fire department; and the Texas Board of Nursing, among others.

Expunction is the stronger remedy for exactly that reason. Article 55A.401 prohibits the release, maintenance, dissemination or use of the expunged records and files for any purpose, and it lets the person arrested deny the occurrence of the arrest and the existence of the expunction order. A sealed record is still a record; an expunged one is treated as one that is not there.

Why does finishing your class come first?

Because § 411.0731(b) starts the clock at a completed supervision, not at sentencing. It reaches a person whose community supervision is not revoked and who completes the period of community supervision, including any term of confinement imposed and payment of all fines, costs, and restitution imposed.

The education program is one of the conditions inside that period. Article 42A.403(a) requires a defendant placed on community supervision for an offense under §§ 49.04–49.08 to successfully complete, before the 181st day after the date community supervision is granted, a program regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. For a first offense that program is the 12-hour DWI Education class, and art. 42A.404(a) sends anyone punished under § 49.09 to the 32-hour repeat offender program instead.

Missing that deadline does its damage before any of this comes up. Transportation Code § 521.344(e) directs the director to revoke the license once the date for successful completion has passed according to department records, and art. 42A.406(d) charges $100 to reinstate a license revoked over an educational program requirement imposed under art. 42A.403. A revocation is also the kind of thing a motion to revoke supervision is built out of, and a revoked supervision is not a completed one.

So the order of operations is fixed by the statutes rather than by advice. Finish the conditions, finish the supervision, then count two years or five from the date of completion. What the first offense requires, deadline by deadline, is in the guide to a first DWI in Texas.

What we can settle for you is the narrow part: which program your order names. Read it to us over the phone, or send a photo of it, and you will know which class satisfies art. 42A.403 or art. 42A.404 in your case before you pay anyone for a seat.