Can a Texas DWI Be Expunged or Sealed in 2026? Eligibility, the 0.15 Cliff & the HB 3582 Deferred Rule

1. The Two Doors: Expunction vs. §411.0731 Nondisclosure

Texas treats DWI record clearing through two distinct remedies. They are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one wastes filing fees and resets the clock.

Expunction under Chapter 55A of the Code of Criminal Procedure physically destroys the arrest record at every named agency. It is reserved for cases where the system did not convict you — a dismissal, a no-bill, an acquittal, an unfiled arrest, or a successfully completed Class C deferred adjudication.

Nondisclosure under Government Code Chapter 411 seals the record from most public view but keeps it visible to law enforcement, prosecutors, and the authorized recipients listed in §411.0765. For first-time DWI convictions, the controlling section is §411.0731. For first-time DWI deferred adjudication under HB 3582, the controlling section is §411.0726.

The general rule: take expunction when it is available (destruction beats sealing every time), and fall back to the appropriate nondisclosure subsection when it isn’t.

2. When a Texas DWI Can Be Expunged

Expunction lives or dies on the disposition. If the State dropped the case, lost the case, or never filed in the first place, the path opens.

Dismissed or no-billed DWI

A DWI charge that was dismissed by motion, dismissed at a pretrial hearing on Fourth Amendment grounds, or no-billed by a grand jury is eligible for expunction under art. 55A.053 once the statute of limitations on the underlying offense expires — that is, once the State can no longer re-file the case. For Class A and Class B misdemeanor DWIs, the limitations period is two years from the offense date under art. 12.02. For felony DWIs (third or subsequent under §49.09, intoxication assault under §49.07, intoxication manslaughter under §49.08), the wait is governed by the Chapter 12 felony tiers and is typically three years for the general felony catch-all.

Acquittal at trial

A not-guilty verdict creates an immediate right to expunction under art. 55A.002. The court is supposed to inform you on the spot. There is no waiting period and no filing fee on the criminal side; we still file the civil expunction petition to make sure DPS, the arresting agency, and every consumer reporting agency in the chain actually receives the order.

Arrest without a filed charge

If you were arrested for DWI but the prosecutor never filed information or sought an indictment, art. 55A.052 controls. The wait is one year from the arrest date for a Class A or B misdemeanor DWI and three years for a felony DWI. The prosecutor can sign a written certification that shortens the wait to zero.

Class C deferred completion

Class C deferred adjudications — relevant for a small subset of public-intoxication-style charges connected to DWI arrests — are immediately expunction-eligible under art. 55A.051 on discharge.

3. When a Texas DWI Can Be Sealed Under §411.0731

§411.0731 is the only nondisclosure path for a first-time DWI conviction. The statute reads as a series of cumulative gates — if any one of them is closed, the petition fails.

Eligibility under §411.0731 requires every one of these to be true:

• This was your first DWI conviction. Any prior DWI, BWI, FWI, or intoxication-related conviction closes the door.
• The conviction was under Penal Code §49.04 (driving while intoxicated). §49.04(d) Class A enhancements, §49.045 (child passenger), §49.07 intoxication assault, and §49.08 intoxication manslaughter are not eligible.
• The BAC reflected in the judgment was under 0.15.
• The offense did not involve an accident with another person, regardless of who was at fault.
• You have completed your sentence, including community supervision, fines, and any court-ordered conditions.
• You have no other convictions or deferreds during the qualifying wait period (other than a single Class C non-moving violation).
• The applicable waiting period has run.

The waiting period is where the interlock rule changes the math. We cover it in detail in the next section.

4. The 0.15 BAC Cliff

§49.04(d) of the Penal Code elevates a DWI to a Class A misdemeanor when an analysis shows a BAC of 0.15 or more at the time of testing. §411.0731 carves out Class A DWIs from nondisclosure eligibility. Translated to practical terms:

Two things to know about the 0.15 number. First, the BAC that matters is the one in the judgment of conviction — not the roadside breath reading, not the police narrative, not what the prosecutor said at a hearing. If your plea was to a base §49.04 with no 0.15 finding, the judgment does not trigger the bar even if the police report mentioned a higher number. Second, if you refused the breath or blood test, there is typically no BAC in the record, and the 0.15 bar usually does not apply — refusal is, counterintuitively, sometimes a better factual posture for nondisclosure than a low-but-recorded BAC.

We pull the underlying judgment before opening a §411.0731 file. A surprising number of clients believe their case was enhanced when in fact it wasn’t, and vice versa.

5. The Interlock Rule: Six Months Saves Three Years

§411.0731(c) builds in a single, brutal incentive. The default post-completion waiting period for DWI nondisclosure is five years. But if you used an ignition interlock device for at least six months as part of your community supervision, the wait drops to two years.

The interlock requirement matters even for clients whose probation conditions did not originally include one. We have had clients voluntarily install interlock for six months mid-probation specifically to qualify for the reduced wait — the math works out spectacularly well.

Already finished probation without an interlock?

If your sentence is already complete and you never had a qualifying six months of interlock, the five-year wait is the number. You cannot retroactively install an interlock to shorten the wait. Plan around the actual filing date and start the conversation about what you can do in the meantime — certain restricted occupational licenses, FCRA disputes against private reporting agencies for old or inaccurate reporting, and explanation strategies for ongoing background checks.

6. HB 3582 and the DWI Deferred Adjudication Door

For three decades, Texas was the only state that flatly refused to allow deferred adjudication on DWI cases. That changed with HB 3582, which took effect September 1, 2019 and added a narrow deferred-adjudication door to Penal Code §49.04. The rules are tight, but for a first-time defendant who fits the profile, this is the most useful change in Texas DWI law in a generation.

Who qualifies for HB 3582 deferred

• First DWI in a lifetime — no prior DWI, BWI, FWI, or boating-while-intoxicated conviction or deferred.
• Charged under §49.04 (not §49.045, §49.07, or §49.08).
• BAC under 0.15 (Class A enhancements under §49.04(d) are excluded).
• No accident or collision involving another person.
• Defendant did not hold a commercial driver license at the time of the offense.

What happens at the end of probation

A successfully completed HB 3582 deferred adjudication discharges without a final conviction. It is not expunction-eligible — Class A and B deferreds never are — but it routes to a Government Code §411.0726 nondisclosure. The §411.0726 waiting period for a DWI deferred is the same two-year/five-year framework as §411.0731, with the same interlock cut-down.

For first-time defendants who fit the profile, accepting an HB 3582 deferred and front-loading six months of interlock can produce a sealed record only two years after probation ends — without the conviction itself ever entering their record.

7. The CDL Trap and the FMCSA Lifetime Database

Every DWI client who drives commercially gets the same warning on the first call. A Texas nondisclosure does not reach federal commercial driving records. Even a perfectly executed §411.0731 nondisclosure leaves the DWI fully visible to:

• The federal Commercial Driver License Information System (CDLIS) operated by AAMVA, which Texas DPS reports to as a matter of federal mandate.
• The FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, which carries a five-year refund cycle but is independently searchable by every commercial employer.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation’s lifetime safety-data infrastructure.

A CDL holder convicted of a first DWI — even in a personal vehicle — faces a one-year CDL disqualification under 49 C.F.R. §383.51, two years on enhanced facts, and a lifetime disqualification on a second offense. None of those consequences are lifted by Texas nondisclosure. We are honest with CDL clients up front about what record clearing can and cannot do for the federal commercial driving file.

8. Five Mistakes That Kill DIY DWI Petitions

The pattern of denied DWI petitions we clean up after the fact is remarkably consistent. The same handful of mistakes accounts for most of them.

Mistake 1 — Using the police report BAC instead of the judgment

Petitions sometimes attach the police report’s breathalyzer reading and ask the court to find that 0.15 was not exceeded. The court doesn’t care what the police report says. The number that controls is the BAC in the judgment, period. Build the petition around the judgment.

Mistake 2 — Missing prior intoxication cases

§411.0731 requires this to be a first-time DWI conviction. That includes BWI (boating while intoxicated) and FWI (flying while intoxicated) priors that many clients forget to mention. A 1998 BWI in Galveston County will surface during the DA review and torpedo the petition.

Mistake 3 — Treating ALR as part of the criminal case

The Administrative License Revocation hearing is a separate civil proceeding. Its outcome does not affect criminal expunction or §411.0731 eligibility. Many clients confuse a winning ALR hearing with a criminal dismissal — they are not the same thing.

Mistake 4 — Forgetting that other convictions reset the §411.0731 clock

§411.0731 disqualifies anyone who picked up a conviction or deferred during the waiting period itself, with a narrow carve-out for a single Class C non-moving violation. A theft-by-check picked up during year three of a five-year wait restarts the conversation entirely.

Mistake 5 — Assuming the order ends the work

A signed §411.0731 order seals the conviction in the criminal records system, but private background-check vendors do not automatically update. We track every order through DPS and send certified copies to the major consumer reporting agencies (Checkr, Sterling, HireRight, GoodHire, and others) to make sure the sealing is reflected on the products that actually affect job applications.

9. A 90-Second DWI Decision Tree

Run your case through these questions in order. Stop at the first one that applies.

1. Was the case dismissed, no-billed, or acquitted? → Expunction (Chapter 55A). Wait runs from the offense date for the limitations period.
2. Was it a Class C deferred completed successfully? → Expunction on discharge (art. 55A.051).
3. Did you complete an HB 3582 DWI deferred adjudication? → §411.0726 nondisclosure. Two-year wait with six months of interlock; five-year wait without.
4. Was this a first-time §49.04 conviction with BAC under 0.15 and no accident? → §411.0731 nondisclosure. Same two-year/five-year split.
5. Was there a 0.15+ finding, an accident, an enhancement, or a prior intoxication case? → Neither expunction nor §411.0731. Other strategies (pardon, FCRA disputes against private reporters, occupational licensing arguments) may exist but require a different conversation.

We had finished probation in late 2020 and assumed nothing could be done until 2025. The interlock had been a six-month condition on the front end. When we ran the §411.0731 math, the petition was actually ready to file the same year. Signed in under four months. — Client, Tarrant County, 2026

10. Frequently Asked Questions