Sealing Your Record
ORC 2953.32 — what can come off, and when
Sealing and expungement are two different remedies and Ohio treats them differently. Sealing restricts public access while the record continues to exist in law enforcement systems. Expungement is destruction. Senate Bill 288 made expungement a distinct remedy for adult conviction records rather than a word people used loosely for sealing.
Who handles this in Ohio: Ohio State Bar Association lawyer referral; and legal aid programs and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
The waiting period starts at final discharge, not at conviction. Final discharge means everything is finished: the sentence, any supervision, and the financial obligations. An unpaid fine or an unfinished probation term keeps the clock at zero, which is the single most common reason someone applies too early.
- A minor misdemeanor reaches eligibility six months after final discharge.
- Other misdemeanors, and felonies of the fourth or fifth degree, reach it one year after final discharge, where none of them is a felony offense of violence.
- One or two felonies of the third degree reach it three years after final discharge.
- First and second degree felonies are generally not eligible at all.
- Felony offenses of violence, sexually oriented offenses where registration applies, and offenses against a child under thirteen are generally excluded.
- Traffic offenses including OVI are generally not eligible, which surprises people more than anything else on this list.
A case that ended without a conviction is a different and easier path than a conviction. Dismissals, acquittals, and cases that went through intervention in lieu of conviction and were completed are handled on their own terms, under their own section, rather than under the conviction waiting periods.
- A dismissal or an acquittal carries no waiting period of the kind a conviction does.
- A no bill returned by a grand jury has its own clock: an application may be filed at any time after two years from the date the no bill was reported.
- None of it is automatic. A case ending in a person's favor does not close the record by itself, and an application is what starts it.
The order reaches the DNA specimen as well as the paperwork. Where a complaint, indictment or information is dismissed, a no bill is entered, or a person is found not guilty, the court shall issue an order to the superintendent of the bureau of criminal identification and investigation directing that the DNA specimen in the bureau's possession, and the DNA records and profiles built from it, be expunged or sealed along with the official records. Almost nobody knows a sample is still sitting there after a case ends, and fewer know the order is supposed to reach it.
Eligibility here turns on the exact offense, its degree, and the whole record rather than on any single rule, and this area was substantially rewritten by Senate Bill 288. A lawyer reading your actual record is worth more than any chart, this one included.
Sources for this section (5)
- ORC 2953.32 — Sealing or expungement of a conviction, eligibility and waiting periods
- ORC 2953.31 — Sealing and expungement, definitions
- ORC 2953.33 — Sealing or expungement where a case ended without a conviction
- ORC 2951.041 — Intervention in lieu of conviction
- ORC 2901.07 — DNA specimen collection, and the order that expunges a specimen and its profile
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.