Court processes that erase or restrict access to a criminal record, available only in defined circumstances that vary by state.
Expungement and sealing are the mechanisms by which a criminal record can be erased or closed to public access. The two are different: sealing typically restricts who can see a record while it continues to exist, and expungement more nearly erases it - but states use the words inconsistently, so the label matters far less than what the state's statute actually does.
Eligibility is the whole question. It generally depends on the offence, how the case ended, how much time has passed, and whether there have been subsequent convictions. Arrests that never led to conviction, and dismissed cases, are frequently the easiest category and are also the ones people most often assume disappeared on their own. They usually do not.
Even a successful expungement is rarely absolute: defined agencies and licensing bodies may retain access, and a growing number of states now clear some records automatically without an application.
The practical value of advice here is that eligibility is checkable in advance, and a great many people who assume they do not qualify do. It is also the area where commercial "record clearing" offers most often outrun what the law in a given state actually allows.
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