Understanding Pennsylvania Expungement Law: Act 56 and the Clean Slate Act

Pennsylvania's Approach to Criminal Record Relief

Pennsylvania has historically maintained one of the more restrictive expungement frameworks in the United States. For decades, the Commonwealth's law provided almost no mechanism for clearing conviction records — a policy that left hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians carrying the burden of old criminal history on background checks long after they had served their sentences and moved on with their lives.

The landscape began shifting meaningfully in 2018 with the passage of Act 56, commonly known as the Clean Slate Act. The legislation introduced a tiered system of automated and petition-based sealing that brought Pennsylvania more in line with national trends toward broader record relief. Understanding what the law covers — and equally important, what it does not cover — is essential for any Pennsylvania resident evaluating their options.

For a complete breakdown of eligibility requirements, forms, and filing locations, visit the Pennsylvania expungement guide.

Traditional Expungement: The Narrow Historic Path

Pennsylvania's traditional expungement statute, 18 Pa.C.S. § 9122, has always provided limited but important relief. Where it applies, expungement offers the most thorough form of relief available — records are physically destroyed or removed from state repositories, not merely hidden.

The clearest category of eligibility under § 9122 is arrests that did not result in conviction. When charges are withdrawn, when a nolle prosequi is entered, when a grand jury declines to indict, or when a defendant is acquitted at trial, the resulting arrest record may be expunged. This is true in Pennsylvania as in most states — the justice system generally recognizes that a person who was not convicted should not carry the permanent stigma of an arrest.

Completions of pre-trial diversionary programs are also expressly eligible. Pennsylvania operates several diversion programs, including ARD (Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition), which allows first-time offenders to complete a probationary program in exchange for dismissal of the underlying charges. When a participant successfully completes ARD and the charges are dismissed, those records may be expunged under § 9122. This is a meaningful pathway for people who were charged with relatively minor offenses and resolved them through diversion rather than conviction.

Summary offenses — the lowest tier of criminal offense in Pennsylvania — are also eligible for expungement, but the waiting period is substantial. A petitioner seeking to expunge a summary conviction must demonstrate that at least five years have passed since the conviction date and that they have been arrest-free throughout that period. Summary offenses include minor traffic violations, disorderly conduct, harassment, and similar low-level infractions. Despite the relatively minor nature of these offenses, the five-year crime-free requirement means that expungement is not available quickly even for the state's least serious categories of crime.

Two additional narrow categories round out traditional expungement eligibility. A person who is 70 years of age or older and has been arrest-free for at least 10 years following completion of their sentence may petition for expungement. And any offense may be expunged if the convicted person has been deceased for at least three years — a provision that allows families to clear a deceased loved one's record.

The Critical Limitation: Convictions Are Generally Not Expungeable

The single most important thing to understand about Pennsylvania expungement law is that conviction records for most offenses — including nearly all misdemeanors and virtually all felonies — are simply not eligible for traditional expungement under § 9122. This is a fundamental structural difference between Pennsylvania and states like California or Illinois, where conviction expungement is available across a broader range of offenses.

For years, this limitation meant that anyone convicted of a misdemeanor in Pennsylvania had no realistic path to clearing that record short of a governor's pardon. That gap is what the Clean Slate Act was designed to address, though it did so through sealing rather than expungement.

The Clean Slate Act: Automated Sealing Under § 9122.2

Act 56 of 2018 introduced automated sealing — a process that operates without any action from the individual — for qualifying records. This is codified at 18 Pa.C.S. § 9122.2 and represents a significant policy innovation: rather than requiring individuals to navigate a complex petition process, the law directs the courts and Pennsylvania State Police to automatically identify and seal eligible records.

The automated sealing system covers two primary categories. Non-conviction records — arrests not resulting in conviction — are automatically sealed after 10 years. Misdemeanor 2 and misdemeanor 3 convictions (the two less-serious tiers of misdemeanor in Pennsylvania) are automatically sealed after 10 crime-free years. In both cases, the sealing happens without the individual filing a petition, paying a fee, or even being aware that their record is being sealed.

The practical implication is significant. A person who was convicted of a second-degree misdemeanor in 2010 and has had no further criminal involvement since then became eligible for automated sealing by 2020. That person did not need to take any affirmative step — the sealing should have occurred through the automated system. Whether that system has performed reliably and consistently is a separate question, and individuals who believe they may be eligible for automated sealing are advised to verify their records rather than assuming the process has worked correctly.

Petition-Based Limited Access Under § 9122.1

For records that do not qualify for automated sealing, the Clean Slate Act also created a petition-based pathway at 18 Pa.C.S. § 9122.1. This provision allows individuals to petition courts for "limited access" orders — Pennsylvania's term for what most states call record sealing — covering a broader range of offenses.

First-degree misdemeanors, which are the most serious misdemeanor tier in Pennsylvania and which are not covered by the automated sealing system, may be addressed through a § 9122.1 petition after 10 crime-free years. Certain third-degree felony convictions are also eligible for petition-based sealing under this provision, making Pennsylvania's law somewhat more generous than it might first appear for individuals who have maintained a clean record over a decade.

The petition process under § 9122.1 requires filing in the Court of Common Pleas of the county where the conviction occurred. The Pennsylvania State Police must be served with the petition, as they maintain the state's central criminal history database. The prosecution then has an opportunity to respond, and the court evaluates the petition based on the statutory criteria.

What "Sealing" Means in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania does not use the word "expungement" for most conviction-based relief. The terminology used in both the automated and petition-based systems is "limited access" or "sealing," and it is important to understand what this means in practice.

When a record receives limited access status in Pennsylvania, it is removed from the PATCH system — the Pennsylvania State Police Access To Criminal History, which is the public-facing database used by most employers and landlords conducting background checks. To a standard public background check, the record will no longer appear.

However, the record is not destroyed. Law enforcement agencies, courts, and prosecutors retain full access. Licensing boards — including those overseeing medicine, law, nursing, education, real estate, and other professions — also typically retain access to sealed records for the purpose of evaluating professional license applications. This is a critical limitation for anyone seeking a professional license in Pennsylvania: sealing a record does not mean that licensing boards must or will ignore it.

Offenses That Cannot Be Sealed or Expunged

The Clean Slate Act does not apply universally. Pennsylvania law maintains a list of offenses that are ineligible for either automated sealing or petition-based limited access regardless of how much time has passed.

Felony 1 and felony 2 convictions — the two most serious felony tiers — are not eligible for sealing under the Clean Slate framework. Violent offenses, firearms offenses, most sex offenses, and crimes against children are expressly excluded. The legislature concluded that for these categories of offense, the public's interest in maintaining accessible records outweighs the individual's interest in sealing. A person with a first-degree felony conviction in Pennsylvania has no statutory pathway to sealing that record absent a governor's pardon.

DUI convictions occupy a nuanced position under Pennsylvania law. Standard DUI convictions are generally not eligible for sealing under the Clean Slate Act. However, certain DUI convictions that were resolved through an ARD diversion program may be expungeable under § 9122 if all ARD completion requirements were met and charges were dismissed.

Practical Gaps and What to Watch For

One important practical issue is the reliability of the automated sealing system. Because § 9122.2 automated sealing is supposed to happen without individual action, there is no built-in notification mechanism to tell a person that their record has been sealed — or to alert them when it has not been sealed despite meeting the eligibility criteria. Technical failures, data matching problems, and administrative backlogs have resulted in some eligible records not being sealed on schedule.

For this reason, any Pennsylvania resident who believes they may be eligible for automated sealing should obtain a copy of their criminal history from the Pennsylvania State Police to verify whether the sealing has taken effect. If eligible records have not been sealed, the individual can follow up with the Pennsylvania State Police or consult with an attorney to address the gap.

Another important consideration involves out-of-state employers and federal background check services. Even after sealing, some background check companies maintain databases that may reflect the underlying conviction. Federal employers and agencies conducting FBI checks operate outside Pennsylvania's limited-access framework entirely. Sealing a Pennsylvania record removes it from the state's PATCH system but does not guarantee that every private background check service has updated its database to reflect the change.

Federal and Interstate Considerations

Pennsylvania sealing and expungement operate within the state's own criminal justice infrastructure. Federal databases — including the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) — are separate systems. While the Pennsylvania State Police is supposed to notify federal repositories when records receive limited-access status, the actual update of federal systems can be inconsistent or delayed.

For individuals pursuing employment with federal agencies, the military, or positions requiring federal security clearances, even a sealed Pennsylvania record may surface in a federal background investigation. This does not mean that sealed records are necessarily disqualifying for federal purposes, but it does mean that the protection offered by Clean Slate sealing is more limited in federal contexts than it is for private employment.

How to Proceed in Pennsylvania

For records that may qualify for automated sealing, the first step is confirming whether sealing has already occurred by requesting a personal criminal history report from the Pennsylvania State Police. For records that require a petition — particularly first-degree misdemeanor convictions and eligible third-degree felonies — the process requires filing in the appropriate Court of Common Pleas, serving the State Police, and waiting for the prosecution to respond.

Legal aid organizations in many Pennsylvania counties offer free or reduced-cost assistance with Clean Slate petitions. The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project and Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, among others, have dedicated record sealing clinics. Pennsylvania also provides standardized petition forms through the court system, which reduces some of the complexity of the filing.

The Clean Slate Act represented a meaningful step forward for Pennsylvania record relief, but it stopped well short of creating a comprehensive expungement framework. For many Pennsylvanians — particularly those with felony convictions above the third-degree level — the pathway to clearing a record runs through the governor's pardon power rather than the court system. Understanding the boundaries of the law is essential to setting realistic expectations and choosing the most appropriate avenue for relief.