How to clear your criminal record in South Africa

You clear a criminal record in South Africa by applying to have it expunged. For most adult convictions you can apply once 10 years have passed since the date of the conviction, provided you were not convicted and sentenced to imprisonment without the option of a fine at any point during that 10 year period. The application goes to the Director-General of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, and you make it yourself. There is no requirement to use an attorney.

Expungement is dealt with in section 271B of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977. The word means that the conviction and sentence are removed from the criminal record kept by the South African Police Service, so that a normal police clearance certificate comes back clear. It does not rewrite history and it does not undo the conviction. It removes the entry.

Check whether your dates work before you start. The expungement eligibility calculator will walk you through the waiting periods.

How expungement works, step by step

Step one: get a copy of your own criminal record. You apply to the SAPS Criminal Record Centre for a police clearance certificate. You go to a police station, your fingerprints are taken, and the certificate is posted or collected once processed. Fees and turnaround times change, so ask at the station or check the SAPS website rather than relying on what a friend paid two years ago.

Do this first, even if you are certain what is on your record. People are regularly wrong in both directions. Some find a conviction they never knew about, from an admission of guilt fine paid at a police station. Others find their record is already clear.

Step two: read the record properly. You need the case number, the court, the date of conviction, the offence and the sentence. The date of conviction is the date the clock runs from, not the date of the arrest and not the date you finished paying the fine.

Step three: check that you qualify. For an ordinary adult conviction the test is the 10 year period since the date of the conviction, and no conviction and sentence of imprisonment without the option of a fine during that period. A suspended sentence, a fine, community service or a caution does not usually block the application in the way direct imprisonment does, but the record itself will tell you what the sentence was.

Step four: complete the application form. The Department of Justice publishes the expungement application form. It asks for your personal details, your identity number, the details of the conviction and your reason for applying. Attach a certified copy of your identity document and the original police clearance certificate.

Step five: send it to the Director-General. The application goes to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. There is no charge by the Department for considering an expungement application. You pay only for the police clearance certificate and for certifying copies.

Step six: wait, then verify. If the application succeeds the Department issues a certificate of expungement and instructs SAPS to remove the entry. Once that is done, apply for a fresh police clearance certificate to confirm the record is actually clear. Do not assume it happened.

What expungement does and does not remove

An expungement removes the conviction from the criminal record held by SAPS. What it does not do:

• It does not remove the court file. Court records are separate.
• It does not remove entries on the National Register for Sex Offenders, which is created under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 and works on its own rules.
• It does not remove a listing from a credit bureau, a professional body's disciplinary record, or a private employer's internal notes.
• It does not undo a deportation, a visa refusal or a professional deregistration that already happened.

Some records are simply not expunged in the ordinary way. If your conviction was for a sexual offence, get advice before you spend money on an application.

Children and the Child Justice Act

If you were under 18 when the offence was committed and the matter was dealt with under the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008, different and shorter waiting periods apply. Many child matters are diverted, which means they are taken out of the formal court process on conditions and do not result in a conviction at all. Where there was a conviction, the Act provides its own expungement route with shorter periods than the adult 10 years.

If your only record is from something that happened when you were a teenager, check the child rules first. You may be eligible years earlier than you think.

A worked example

The names, dates and figures below are illustrative only.

Thabo is 34. In March 2013 he was convicted of theft in a district court after taking stock from a warehouse where he worked. He was fined R3 000, which his mother paid. He has had no trouble with the law since.

In 2026 he is offered a supervisor's job that requires a clean police clearance certificate. He applies for the certificate in January and it arrives in March, showing the 2013 conviction.

He counts from the date of the conviction in March 2013. Ten years passed in March 2023. He has not been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment without the option of a fine at any point since. He completes the expungement application form, attaches a certified copy of his identity document and the original clearance certificate, and posts the application to the Director-General.

Months pass. He follows up with a written enquiry quoting his identity number and the case number. In due course a certificate of expungement is issued. He then applies for a fresh police clearance certificate, which comes back clear, and gives that one to the employer.

His total outlay was the two clearance certificate fees, certification of copies and postage. He paid no attorney and no agent. What cost him was time, which is why the sensible move is to apply as soon as you are eligible rather than when a job offer is already on the table.

What to do this week

1. Apply for your police clearance certificate at your nearest police station. Nothing else can start until you have it.
2. Write down the date of your conviction, the court and the case number, from any court paperwork you still have.
3. Count 10 years from the conviction date and check whether anything since then involved a prison sentence without the option of a fine.
4. Use the expungement eligibility calculator to sanity check your dates.
5. Download the Department of Justice expungement form and read it before you fill anything in.
6. Tell your employer the truth if a form asks. A dishonest answer on an application form is a separate problem, and one that survives expungement.

Documents to gather

Your identity document and a certified copy of it. The original police clearance certificate from the SAPS Criminal Record Centre. Any court documents you still have, especially the charge sheet, the case number and proof of the sentence or the receipt for a fine. Proof of your current address. If the matter was dealt with when you were a child, anything showing your date of birth at the time and how the matter was finalised. If you paid an admission of guilt fine, the receipt if you kept it.

Keep a copy of everything you send. Applications get lost, and a follow up is far easier when you can attach the same bundle again.

A realistic timeline

Plan on the whole process taking many months from start to a clean certificate in your hand. It is not a same week fix. If you are already in a job application process, tell the employer that the application is in and offer proof that you submitted it.

Common mistakes and what they cost

• Counting from the wrong date. The clock runs from the date of the conviction, not from the arrest, the sentence being completed or the last payment on a fine. Counting wrongly means an application refused for being early.
• Paying an agent thousands of rand. Businesses advertise expungement services. You can apply yourself, at no cost to the Department, and the form is not complicated. Paying R8 000 for someone to post a form is a real loss.
• Assuming an admission of guilt fine is not a conviction. Paying a fine at a police station to avoid court can result in a conviction being recorded. Many people discover this years later at a clearance certificate stage.
• Not verifying afterwards. An approved application does not always mean the SAPS entry is gone. Get a fresh certificate.
• Lying on a job application in the meantime. A conviction that would have been forgiven is far more damaging once it becomes a dishonesty issue.

If you cannot afford an attorney

You do not need one. Expungement is a route the law deliberately gives ordinary people. You apply to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development yourself, and the Department charges nothing to consider the application. Your only costs are the SAPS clearance certificate, certifying copies and postage.

If you want help completing the form, a university law clinic or a community advice office will usually assist at no charge. Legal Aid South Africa is on 0800 110 110 and applies a means test, and it deals mainly with criminal defence rather than expungement, but its offices can point you in the right direction. If you are facing a live criminal charge rather than an old record, tell the court that you want a lawyer and cannot afford one. That is your right under section 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, and the court must deal with the request.

An attorney earns a fee only when the position is unclear: a register entry, a foreign conviction, or a record showing something you do not recognise. See what a criminal attorney costs first.

Frequently asked questions

People ask most often whether the 10 years runs from the conviction or the end of the sentence. It runs from the date of the conviction. They ask whether a fine still counts as a conviction, and it does, if a court convicted you. They ask whether an employer can still find out, and the honest answer is that a properly expunged record will not appear on a standard police clearance certificate, but nothing stops a news report staying online. And they ask whether it is worth applying when the record is old and minor. It is.