Colorado record sealing · Rules v2026.2, current through July 1, 2026
Find out if Colorado will let you clear your record.
Roughly three in ten Coloradans have an arrest or a conviction on record. Relief is written into the statute, and almost nobody can find the door.
The Check reads Colorado's sealing law and gives you a dated answer with the statute it comes from. It is free, and it never asks who you are.
Free, about four minutes, and it never asks who you are. No account, no name, no email.
You can file now.
Your supervision ended.
You could file a motion to seal.
The Gap — 5 years you do not have to wait
The state would reach this case on its own.
You can file now. The state would not get to this case until April 2030 — that is 5 years of a record you do not have to carry.
This is what an Answer looks like. The dates here are an example; yours are computed from your own case.
The state tells you how to file. It never tells you whether you qualify.
Hire a lawyer
Colorado firms charge $1,000 to $3,500 for one record. The paperwork itself is a handful of free PDFs.
Do it yourself from the state's website
Every form is published free. Nothing there answers the only question you have, which is whether you qualify.
Wait for Clean Slate
Colorado will auto-seal over 100,000 records, and that is good law. It is also years slower than filing a motion yourself.
Ask a nonprofit or a public defender
Real expertise, no capacity. Sealing clinics are periodic and thin outside the Front Range.
So eligible people stay marked for years longer than the law requires. The wall is not the paperwork. The wall is knowing whether you qualify.
You can usually file years before the state gets to you.
Clean Slate seals records automatically, on its own clock. Filing a motion runs on a shorter one. The years between the two are the Gap, and they are years you spend marked for no reason.
Waiting periods, side by side
| Your case | You can file after | The state reaches it after | The Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Civil infraction | 1 year | 4 years | 3 years |
| Petty offense | 2 years | 7 years | 5 years |
| Misdemeanor | 3 years | 7 years | 4 years |
| Felony, where eligible | 5 years | 10 years | 5 years |
Waiting periods run from the later of your final disposition or your release from supervision, as C.R.S. § 24-72-706 requires. A new conviction, an open case or unpaid restitution changes the answer.
Some offenses are excluded by statute and no waiting period helps. The Check says so plainly, cites the exclusion, and sells you nothing.
Nobody else in Colorado does this arithmetic for your case. The court does not mail you the order, and the district attorney's notice goes to your last known address.
Six questions, then your Answer.
Each question maps to something the statute requires. Every one of them accepts “I am not sure”, which widens your Answer instead of stopping the Check.
- 1 / 6How did the case end — convicted, dismissed, or arrested and never charged.
- 2 / 6What was the charge. Say it however you would say it out loud.
- 3 / 6Which court, and which county.
- 4 / 6When the case finished, and when probation, parole or jail ended.
- 5 / 6Anything since then — a new conviction, an open case, restitution owed.
- 6 / 6Any other cases. Add one in about thirty seconds.
Your Answer is one of these. All of them are free, including the bad ones.
You can file now
The relief path, the form numbers, and the statute the answer comes from.
You can file now, years early
Your Eligibility Date, the Automatic Date, and the Gap between them in years and months.
This may already be sealed
How to check the Colorado Sealed Case Search, and what to do if it has not happened.
Not yet eligible
The exact month you become eligible. Leave an email and we send one Reminder that month.
Excluded by statute
Which subsection excludes it, and the paths that genuinely remain. Nothing is sold on that screen.
Target time to your Answer: under four minutes. No account. No name. No email.
The answer is free. The paperwork is $49.
We do not paywall the verdict. The Check and your Answer are free forever, in English and Spanish, on every relief path we launch.
The Filing Packet is one payment of $49. Your JDF forms filled in with your case details and county caption, a numbered walkthrough, the current fee for your court, and the step most people miss — confirming the state actually sealed it.
Money that is not ours
Neither one goes to us, and both are on your free Answer screen before there is anything to buy. Nobody should discover a court fee after paying us.
Hardship
If you cannot pay the $49, write to the inbox below and the packet is free. No means test, no documentation, no explanation.
What we are, and what we are not.
Unburdened is not a law firm. This is legal information and document preparation, never legal advice.
We never predict what a judge will do. We state what the statute requires and what your record shows.
Every rule carries its statutory citation and the date the law was checked, so an attorney can audit it and any Answer can be reconstructed.
Colorado amended sealing law in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2024. Most Colorado sealing pages on the internet are quietly out of date.
Spanish ships with English, in the same release. Not later.
The Check is open.
There is nothing to sign up for and no list to join. If you know someone who has been turned down for a job or an apartment and never told why, send them this page.
hello@unburdened.nanocorp.app