How Long Does It Take to Seal a Criminal Record in Arizona?

A study of 270 granted sealing applications, 2023 to 2026. Cases handled by AZ Record Removal, owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law.

The short answer

The median Arizona record sealing application takes 90 days from filing to the judge's order. Half of all applications land between 61 and 152 days.

The full range runs from 7 days to 594 days. About 51 percent are granted within 90 days, 83 percent within 180 days, and 97 percent within a year.

The 60-day rule that sets the floor

Arizona law blocks a judge from ruling for 60 days after you file. Under A.R.S. § 13-911(D), a court cannot grant or deny a sealing application until 60 calendar days have passed, with one exception: the court receives notice that both the prosecutor and any victims who requested notice do not object.

That exception is the single biggest lever on your timeline, and the data shows it.

• 66 applications, 24 percent, were granted in under 60 days. Median 35 days. The fastest was 7 days.
• 204 applications, 76 percent, took 60 days or more. Median 114 days, which is 54 days of court queue stacked on top of the statutory floor.

No objection means roughly a month. An objection, or simple silence from the prosecutor, means roughly four months. Nothing else in this dataset moves the number that much.

Where you file changes the timeline more than what you did

Court type predicts speed better than charge severity. Justice courts clear sealing applications fastest. Superior courts are slowest, and they handle every felony.

Individual courts vary far more than the type averages suggest. Among courts where this firm filed at least five applications, the median ranged from 30 days to 351 days. That is an elevenfold spread for the same legal remedy under the same statute.

Courts with fewer than five applications are excluded from this table to protect client privacy. They remain counted in every total above.

Felony or misdemeanor

Felony records take about 40 days longer at the median. Felonies also clear the 60-day floor far less often, which fits: felony cases carry more victims entitled to notice and more prosecutor review.

By class, the most serious felonies are slowest. Class 2 felonies ran a median of 172 days and Class 3 felonies 152 days, against 74 days for Class 1 misdemeanors and 52 days for Class 3 misdemeanors. The middle classes overlap heavily and several have small samples, so treat fine-grained class comparisons as directional rather than precise.

How long you wait before you can apply

The processing time above starts the day you file. Getting to that day takes longer. A.R.S. § 13-911(E) sets the waiting period, measured from the date you complete the non-monetary terms of your sentence and the court discharges you.

Two more gates apply. Under § 13-911(G) you must have paid all fines, fees and restitution before you file. Under § 13-911(F), a later felony conviction adds five years on top of that offense's own waiting period.

Arrests that never led to charges, dismissed charges, and not-guilty verdicts have no waiting period under § 13-911(A). If your case ended without a conviction, you are eligible now.

What sealing does, and what it does not do

Sealing closes your case records to the public. The court clerk and the Department of Public Safety mark the records sealed, and background checks stop surfacing them.

Sealing does not erase the record from the internet. News articles, mugshot aggregators, and private background databases that copied your case before it was sealed are not bound by the court's order. Removing those takes separate work.

Sealing is also not absolute. Under § 13-911(B), a sealed record still counts as a historical prior felony, still enhances a later sentence, including under the DUI statutes at §§ 28-1381 and 28-1382, and remains admissible to impeach you as a witness.

Sealing, set-aside, and expungement are three different things

People search for "expungement" in Arizona far more than any other term. Arizona has narrow expungement, so most people searching that word need one of the other two remedies.

• Sealing, A.R.S. § 13-911. Closes the case records to public view. Available for convictions after a waiting period, and immediately for dismissals, acquittals and uncharged arrests.
• Set-aside, A.R.S. § 13-905. Vacates the judgment of guilt and dismisses the charges. The record stays visible, but it shows the conviction was set aside. Often paired with a Certificate of Second Chance.
• Expungement, A.R.S. § 36-2862. Marijuana offenses only, under Proposition 207. Arizona has no general expungement statute.

Many records qualify for more than one remedy, and the order you file them in changes the result.

Marijuana expungement works differently, and it is the strongest remedy Arizona offers

If your case involved a small amount of marijuana, six plants or fewer at home, or marijuana paraphernalia, Proposition 207 expungement under § 36-2862 is a better outcome than sealing and it moves faster. Three differences matter.

The prosecutor carries the burden. On a sealing application the judge weighs your interests against public safety and has broad discretion. On an expungement petition, § 36-2862(B)(3) says the court shall grant it unless the prosecuting agency proves by clear and convincing evidence that you are not eligible. The default is yes.

It is faster. The prosecuting agency gets 30 days to respond under § 36-2862(B)(1). There is no 60-day floor like the one sealing carries. In this firm's cases, marijuana expungements ran a median of 37 days against 90 for sealing.

You do not have to pay your fines first, and filing first can save you the balance. This is the one record-clearing remedy in Arizona with no payment precondition. Sealing requires every fine, fee and restitution amount paid before you file, under § 13-911(G). Section 36-2862 sets no such requirement, so you can file with money still owed.

The order you do it in is worth real money. In this firm's cases, when an expungement is granted while a balance is still outstanding, that balance is wiped out along with the case. Pay it off first and none of it comes back to you, because the court does not issue refunds on an expunged case.

So on an old marijuana case, do not save up to clear the balance before you file. File first. This is specific to Proposition 207 expungement. On a sealing or a set-aside the opposite is true: you have to pay everything before you file, and nothing gets written off.

Expungement also restores your civil rights, including the right to possess firearms, under § 36-2862(C)(1)(c), unless something else in your history independently disqualifies you.

What changed in Arizona law in 2026

Arizona passed two record-relief bills in 2026. Both were signed on June 5, 2026, and both take effect September 12, 2026. Neither is in force yet. Anyone telling you the law has already changed is wrong.

HB 2749 creates a new way to turn an old felony into a misdemeanor. The bill adds A.R.S. § 13-604.01. Once it takes effect, a court will be able to enter judgment as a Class 1 misdemeanor on an old Class 4, 5 or 6 non-dangerous felony. You will need all of the following: no prior felony conviction, no victim involved in the offense, every court-ordered term and monetary obligation complete, at least five years since the conviction with no later felony and no later misdemeanor involving a victim, and a finding that the change serves the interest of justice.

This matters because Arizona's existing designation statute, § 13-604, reaches only Class 6 felonies and is generally used at or near sentencing. HB 2749 opens a path years after the fact, and it reaches Classes 4 and 5 as well. The honest limit is the no-victim requirement, which rules out a large share of felony convictions. The eligible group is smaller than the headline suggests.

HB 2198 is a one-line change to the sealing statute. It amends § 13-911(E) so that a petty offense becomes sealable immediately, with no waiting period, once the non-monetary conditions are done and everything financial is paid. A petty offense is one where the maximum penalty is a fine with no jail. Arizona charges these rarely, so the practical reach is small. It is a genuine improvement for a narrow group, not a broad expansion.

What did not pass matters more. SB 1140 would have created Arizona's first general misdemeanor expungement under a new § 13-922, covering most misdemeanors outside domestic violence, sex offenses, DUI and violent crime. It passed the Senate, then stalled in House Rules on March 30, 2026 and never reached the governor. It is dead for this session. If you have been told Arizona now has general expungement, that is the bill people are thinking of, and it did not become law.

Why this firm has this data

Arizona publishes no statewide numbers on record sealing. The Administrative Office of the Courts reports caseloads by broad case type, and sealing applications are not broken out. This report exists because the firm tracked the filing date and the order date on every sealing application it filed.

Zachary Divelbiss, the firm's founder, has six criminal convictions from when he was young. When Arizona's sealing and set-aside laws took effect, he filed on his own record first, before selling the service to anyone. He describes the result as feeling complete again. He talks about it openly because he wants people to know the remedy is real.

His experience is his own. Judges have discretion on every application, and no lawyer can guarantee an outcome.

Method and limits

Read this section before citing any number above.

• What the sample is. 270 sealing applications granted under A.R.S. § 13-911, covering 260 distinct client cases across 47 Arizona courts. Orders entered between May 2023 and July 2026. Every figure is calculated from the filing date on the application and the date on the signed order.
• These are this firm's cases, not Arizona's. Nothing here describes statewide outcomes. A court's median in this table reflects the applications this firm filed there, which is not a random sample of that court's docket.
• Granted applications only. This dataset records grants. It carries no denials, so it supports timing, court coverage and charge mix. It does not support any grant-rate or success-rate claim, and this report makes none.
• Recent filings are undercounted. An application filed in 2026 that takes 300 days has not been decided yet, so it cannot appear here. That pulls recent-year medians down. Comparing filing cohorts, the 2023 cohort ran a median of 66 days and the more complete 2024 cohort 125 days. The 2025 and 2026 cohorts are still open and their medians will rise.
• Small samples are marked. Courts with fewer than five applications are excluded from the court table. Charge classes with small counts are flagged in the text. The marijuana expungement median of 37 days rests on 19 cases.
• Updated annually. Figures current through July 21, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

How long does record sealing take in Arizona?
The median is 90 days from filing to order, based on 270 granted applications this firm filed between 2023 and 2026. Half fall between 61 and 152 days.

Can it be done faster than 60 days?
Yes, but only one way. A.R.S. § 13-911(D) bars a ruling for 60 days unless the prosecutor and any noticed victims tell the court they do not object. About 24 percent of these applications cleared that bar, with a median of 35 days.

Why do some cases take over a year?
Court queue, prosecutor response time, and the Department of Public Safety report the court orders under § 13-911(H). The slowest application in this dataset took 594 days.

Does sealing remove my record from Google?
No. Sealing closes court and Department of Public Safety records to the public. It does not reach news sites, mugshot aggregators, or private databases that copied the case earlier.

How long do I have to wait before I can apply?
From discharge: two years for a Class 2 or 3 misdemeanor, three years for a Class 1 misdemeanor, five years for a Class 4, 5 or 6 felony, and ten years for a Class 2 or 3 felony. Dismissals, acquittals and arrests without charges have no waiting period.

Do I have to pay off my fines first?
For sealing and set-aside, yes. Under § 13-911(G) all fines, fees and restitution must be paid when you file, and nothing is written off. Marijuana expungement under § 36-2862 is the exception. There is no payment requirement, and in this firm's cases a balance still outstanding when the expungement is granted has been wiped out along with the case. Money you already paid is not refunded. On a marijuana case, file before you pay, not after.

Is sealing the same as expungement?
No. Arizona expungement under § 36-2862 covers marijuana offenses only. For everything else the remedies are sealing under § 13-911 and set-aside under § 13-905.

Did Arizona pass general expungement in 2026?
No. SB 1140 would have created it, but the bill stalled in House Rules and never reached the governor. Two narrower bills did pass, HB 2749 and HB 2198, and both take effect September 12, 2026.

The court form is titled "Petition to Seal Criminal Case Records." This report uses "application" throughout for readability. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every sealing decision rests with the judge. This report is general information about Arizona law, not legal advice, and reading it creates no attorney-client relationship.