Automatic and bulk sealing in Virginia

By operation of law, with no court order

• Any criminal or civil offense that concluded with a final disposition as a charge or conviction of former §18.2-250.1 (marijuana possession) is sealed without the entry of a court order. The Central Criminal Records Exchange, courts, law-enforcement agencies and the DMV must identify and seal those records (§19.2-392.6:1, effective July 1, 2026).
• A record of a traffic infraction under Title 46.2 that is not punishable as a criminal offense is deemed sealed after 11 years from the date of final disposition, unless federal or state law prohibits it (§19.2-392.17).
• The DMV has narrow carve-outs: it must not seal a record in violation of federal record-retention requirements or federal program requirements that require a licence suspension, and it will not seal a traffic infraction while certain driver-improvement suspensions are recent.

Listed misdemeanors: automatic, but an order is still entered

§19.2-392.6 orders the automatic sealing of specific misdemeanor convictions with an offense date on or after January 1, 1986: misdemeanor violations of §18.2-96 and §18.2-103, §§18.2-119, 18.2-120 and 18.2-134, a misdemeanor violation of §18.2-248.1, and §18.2-415.

Two conditions decide it. Seven years must have passed since the date of conviction, and in that period the person must not have been convicted of any law requiring a report to the Central Criminal Records Exchange, in Virginia or anywhere else, excluding traffic infractions under Title 46.2. If the person was convicted of another offense on the same date that is not eligible for automatic sealing, that conviction is not automatically sealed.

The section does not stop anyone from petitioning under §19.2-392.12 or §19.2-392.12:1 instead.

Misdemeanor acquittals and dismissals

County guidance describes automatic sealing under §19.2-392.11 for misdemeanor cases that ended in acquittal, nolle prosequi or dismissal, with an offense date on or after January 1, 1986 and no convictions or arrests within the past three years. It is part of the same bulk process that started on October 1, 2026.

The start date is not a delivery date

October 1, 2026 is when the bulk process could begin, not when every eligible record changed. Orders have to be entered, clerks' systems and the Central Criminal Records Exchange updated, and the effect checked case by case. Guidance published for the start date advised waiting until after January 1 before treating a charge as sealed, and noted that a clerk's office cannot advise whether a specific case is going to be sealed.

If a charge is on track to be sealed automatically, filing a petition can be unnecessary — and under §19.2-392.12 you only get two granted petitions in a lifetime.