If an expunged record turned up on a background check, you can force its removal by disputing the report with the consumer reporting agency that produced it. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires those agencies to follow reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of their reports, and a conviction a court has erased or sealed is not accurate information. Send the agency a written dispute with a certified copy of your expungement order, and it has 30 days to investigate and correct the file. If it refuses, you can sue in federal court.
The reason expunged records keep resurfacing has to do with how background check companies build their databases. They buy criminal records in bulk from court databases, data brokers, and public records aggregators. A snapshot pulled last year will not reflect a court order entered last week, and there is no federal mechanism that automatically pushes an expungement out to every private company holding a copy of the old record. Closing that gap is on you.
The Law That Backs Your Dispute
Two provisions of the FCRA do the heavy lifting. The first, 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b), requires every consumer reporting agency to follow reasonable procedures to assure “maximum possible accuracy” of the information in a report.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681e – Compliance Procedures That standard applies to every type of consumer report, whether pulled for credit, rental screening, or employment. Reporting a conviction a court has ordered destroyed or sealed is hard to square with a rule demanding the highest achievable accuracy.
The second, 15 U.S.C. § 1681k, adds a stricter layer for employment background checks. When an agency reports public record information likely to hurt a job applicant’s chances, it must either notify the applicant that the information is being reported, or maintain strict procedures to keep the data complete and up to date.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681k – Public Record Information for Employment Purposes For criminal records, “up to date” means the agency reports the record’s current public record status at the time of the report. An expunged record has no current public record status. That is the point of expungement.
The distinction between expungement, sealing, setting aside, and vacating matters in your state’s own law, but under the FCRA the practical effect is the same: the record is no longer available to the public or to a background check company requesting it from the court. A consumer report that includes a record the reporting company could not obtain directly from the court that maintains it is reporting information without a public record foundation.
What the CFPB Said in 2024, and What Changed in 2025
In January 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an advisory opinion stating that reporting an expunged or sealed record is “misleading and inaccurate” and that agencies without procedures to filter out such records are not meeting the FCRA’s accuracy standard.3Federal Register. Fair Credit Reporting – Background Screening On May 12, 2025, the CFPB withdrew that advisory along with a batch of other guidance.4Federal Register. Interpretive Rules, Policy Statements, and Advisory Opinions – Withdrawal
The withdrawal did not change the statute. Section 1681e(b) still says what it always said, and courts can still reach the same conclusion the advisory articulated. What changed is that the federal agency enforcing the FCRA no longer has an on-the-books interpretation tying expunged records to inaccuracy, so the strongest argument now lives in court rather than in an agency enforcement action.
Gather Your Documents Before You Dispute
Do not send a dispute letter until your package is complete. The single most important document is a certified copy of the expungement or sealing order from the court clerk where the case was handled. Order more than one copy. You will likely need to send one to every agency holding the outdated record, and court clerks charge fees for certified copies that vary by jurisdiction.
Next, request a full copy of your consumer file from the agency that produced the report. Federal law gives you the right to see everything in the file, including the sources of the information and who has requested your report within the past two years for employment purposes or the past year for other purposes.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681g – Disclosures to Consumers Reviewing the file shows you exactly how the expunged information is described and whether other outdated records are hiding in there too.
Then write a clear, dated cover letter identifying the specific record that was expunged, the court that issued the order, and the date of the order. Include your full name, date of birth, and Social Security number so the agency can match the dispute to the right file. Attach high-quality copies of the court order, not the originals.
One thing to check while you have the paperwork in front of you: the adverse action notice, if you got one. When an employer denies you a job based on a background check, the FCRA requires the employer to identify the reporting agency by name, address, and phone number, and to tell you about your right to a free copy of the report and to dispute inaccuracies.6Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports for Credit Decisions – What to Know About Adverse Action and Risk-Based Pricing Notices That notice tells you which agency to contact.
File the Dispute and Track It
Send the dispute through a channel that creates proof of delivery. Certified mail with return receipt requested establishes the exact date the agency received your materials, which starts the clock on its legal deadline. Most large agencies also accept disputes through online portals where you can upload documents directly; either way, keep copies of everything you send.
Once the agency receives your dispute, it has 30 days to investigate and resolve the issue.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy During that window, the agency must contact the source of the information and determine whether the disputed record is inaccurate. If you submit additional documents during the 30-day period, the agency can extend the deadline by up to 15 additional days, though not if it has already found the information inaccurate or unverifiable.
Within five business days of finishing the investigation, the agency must send you written notice of the results, an updated copy of your report, information about how the investigation was conducted, and a reminder of your right to add a dispute statement to your file.
If the record is deleted, ask the agency to notify anyone who received the flawed report within the prior two years for employment purposes, or within the prior six months for any other purpose. That does not automatically reverse a lost job opportunity, but it puts corrected information in front of the people who saw the bad version.
If the Agency Refuses to Remove the Record
Sometimes the investigation ends and the record is still there. You have two moves.
The first is your right to add a brief written statement to your file explaining the dispute. The agency can limit the statement to 100 words, but if it imposes that limit, it must help you write a clear summary, and future reports must include either your full statement or a summary of it. Treat this as a fallback, not a solution. It tells future report recipients that you dispute the record; it does not remove it.
The second is a lawsuit. The FCRA lets you sue in federal court with no minimum dollar amount required for the claim.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681p – Jurisdiction of Courts, Limitation of Actions A willful violation opens the door to statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per violation without proof of specific financial harm, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance A negligent violation limits recovery to actual damages you can prove, such as lost wages from a job you did not get, along with attorney’s fees.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681o – Civil Liability for Negligent Noncompliance
An agency that receives a certified expungement order, investigates, and still refuses to delete the record is in much worse legal territory than one that reported the record before anyone flagged it. Willfulness does not require malice; knowingly disregarding a legal obligation is enough. That is why the certified court order and the paper trail on your dispute matter so much.
The deadline to sue is the earlier of two years from the date you discovered the violation, or five years from the date it occurred. If the agency actively misled you about whether it corrected the record, the two-year discovery clock does not start until you uncover the misrepresentation.
Filing a CFPB Complaint
Before or alongside a lawsuit, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB forwards the complaint to the company, which generally responds within 15 days, and you have 60 days to review the response and provide feedback.11Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Learn How the Complaint Process Works A complaint is not a substitute for a lawsuit, but it creates an official paper trail and sometimes prompts a faster resolution than a dispute letter alone.
Fingerprint and FBI Background Checks Are Different
The dispute process above applies to consumer reporting agencies, the private companies that sell background reports. It does not apply to federal fingerprint-based background checks. If you applied for a government position, a childcare role, or certain licensed professions, the employer may have run your fingerprints through the FBI’s criminal history database, which is a separate system.
For state-level offenses, the FBI directs individuals to contact the state identification bureau where the arrest occurred, because the rules for removing state arrest data from federal databases depend on state law.12Federal Bureau of Investigation. Identity History Summary Checks Frequently Asked Questions Federal arrest records are only removed from the FBI’s files at the request of the submitting agency or by federal court order. If your expungement was for a state offense and the record is surfacing in an FBI check, you may need to get the state agency that originally submitted the arrest data to request its removal.
Check Your File Before You Apply Next Time
Anyone who has obtained an expungement should check what the major background check companies have on file, rather than waiting to be blindsided during the next job application. You have the right to request your file from any consumer reporting agency, and doing it before you apply lets you catch problems while the stakes are low.
Keep multiple certified copies of your expungement order in reserve. You will likely need to send one to each agency that holds the outdated record, and the dispute process moves faster when the court document is in the initial letter. If you know which agencies are commonly used by employers in your field, start there. The FCRA gives you the tools to close the gap between what the court did and what private databases still show, but only if you use them.