Can a DUI Be Expunged in South Carolina? No — and Here’s What Actually Can Come Off Your Record

Expungement & Record Relief · North Charleston, SC

Updated September 2026 · 15 min read · By Rad Deaton, Deaton Law Firm, LLC

No. A DUI cannot be expunged in South Carolina. S.C. Code § 22-5-910(A) ends with the sentence “this section does not apply to an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle,” so a DUI or DUAC conviction is permanent. Dismissals, acquittals and completed diversion can still be cleared — a few automatically, most only on application. North Charleston defense lawyer Rad Deaton explains which door your case is on.

That is the short answer, and it is worth being blunt about, because a lot of what you will read online is wrong. Out-of-state articles talk about “waiting ten years.” General search results promise “record sealing.” Neither exists for a South Carolina DUI. There is no waiting period that eventually opens the door, no judge with discretion to open it anyway, and no separate sealing or record-restriction petition sitting behind it.

What there is — and this is the part almost nobody writes about — is a whole set of doors that stay open for other charges, and one hard rule about when you have to walk through them. In South Carolina, the disposition of your case decides which doors exist at all. What you do afterward still matters — finishing a program, staying conviction-free for the required years, filing the application on time — but only inside the door the disposition left open. That means the most important decision about your record gets made before you ever plead.

Here is the full map: what is permanently closed, what is still open, what each route costs, and why the timing matters more than anything else.

Key points at a glance

• DUI and DUAC convictions are never expungeable. § 22-5-910(A) excludes “an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle.” So does the youthful-offender statute, § 22-5-920(B)(2)(a).
• DUI cannot go through diversion either. § 17-22-50(A)(2)(b) bars DUI and DUAC from Pretrial Intervention by name, and § 17-22-520(C)(11) bars them from the Alcohol Education Program by statute number.
• ADSAP is not a record remedy. Enrolling is a condition of getting an interlock restricted license, and completing it is a condition of full license restoration. It clears nothing.
• What does clear: dismissals, acquittals, no-bills and nolle prosequi (§ 17-1-40); completed PTI (§ 17-22-150) or conditional discharge (§ 44-53-450); certain low-level convictions after three clean years (§ 22-5-910); certain drug convictions (§ 22-5-930).
• A pardon is not an expungement. South Carolina’s own pardon agency says the conviction “will still appear on your criminal history.”
• The plea decides the record. Eligibility is measured against “the offense that the person pled guilty to or was convicted of committing” (§ 17-22-910(B)). A DUI reduced to reckless driving is still a motor-vehicle offense and is never expungeable. A reduction to a non-driving charge clears that exclusion — but it only opens a route if the charge you actually plead to qualifies under an expungement statute on its own terms.

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The Hard Answer to “Can a DUI Be Expunged in South Carolina?” — No, and § 22-5-910 Says So in One Sentence

South Carolina’s general expungement statute for convictions is S.C. Code § 22-5-910. Subsection (A) sets out who qualifies — and then, in its final sentence, shuts that route to anyone convicted of a driving offense:

“However, this section does not apply to an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle.”

That single line is the whole answer. A conviction for driving under the influence under § 56-5-2930, or for driving with an unlawful alcohol concentration (DUAC) under § 56-5-2933, is an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle. It is therefore outside the statute, permanently.

Why “it was only a magistrate-court charge” doesn’t rescue it

This is the part that surprises people, and it is worth walking through carefully, because the numbers make it look like a DUI should qualify.

Section 22-5-910(A) allows expungement of a conviction “carrying a penalty of not more than thirty days imprisonment or a fine of one thousand dollars, or both.” Now compare a first-offense DUI. Under § 56-5-2930(A)(1), a first offense with an alcohol concentration below 0.10 is punished “by a fine of four hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than forty-eight hours nor more than thirty days” — and the same subsection says that “a first offense charged for this item may be tried in magistrates court.”

So on the raw numbers, a first-offense DUI below 0.10 fits inside the ceiling: not more than thirty days, not more than a thousand dollars, tried in magistrate court. It looks like exactly the kind of low-level conviction the statute was written for.

It still cannot be expunged. The penalty is not what disqualifies a DUI — the exclusion sentence is. Get that distinction right and the rest of South Carolina record law stops being confusing.

The youthful-offender route closes the same way

People sometimes ask whether being young at the time helps. South Carolina does have a separate expungement path for people sentenced under the Youthful Offender Act — § 22-5-920 — with a five-year wait after completing the sentence, including probation and parole.

It uses the same carve-out. Section 22-5-920(B)(2) says the section “does not apply to: (a) an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle.” Same words, same result.

Expungement exists only where a statute creates it

There is no general “clean slate” petition in South Carolina, and no judicial power to expunge a conviction that no statute reaches. The Legislature built a catalog instead: § 17-22-910(A) identifies, by section number, the expungement authorities the solicitors’ offices administer — fraudulent check, conditional discharge, § 22-5-910, youthful offender, drug convictions under § 22-5-930, failure to stop for a blue light, pretrial intervention, non-conviction dispositions under § 17-1-40, juvenile expungements, the alcohol education program, the traffic education program, and the Youth Challenge Academy — and then leaves the list open with a catch-all for “any other statutory authorization” at item (13).

Not one of the enumerated authorities reaches a DUI or DUAC conviction, and no other statute supplies one.

And there is a telling exception that proves how this works. One driving offense does get its own expungement — § 56-5-750(F), failure to stop for a law enforcement vehicle. After a first-offense misdemeanor conviction under that statute, a person may apply three years after completing all the terms of the sentence, provided there is no other conviction in that window, it was not classified as a felony, and the route has not been used before. When the General Assembly wants a driving offense to be expungeable, in other words, it writes the provision into that offense’s own statute. It has never written one into § 56-5-2930 or § 56-5-2933. And the Governor’s office states plainly that in South Carolina the Governor “has no authority to expunge a criminal record” — a record is cleared only “through an application to the court, which must be signed by a judge.”

A plea to reckless driving does not solve the problem

Here is where a lot of people get hurt. Reducing a DUI to reckless driving can be a real win — it is a different offense with different consequences, and it may be the right resolution in a given case. But it does not make the record expungeable, because reckless driving is also an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle. The exclusion in § 22-5-910(A) is written by category, not by offense name.

For example: two people each start with a first-offense DUI. One pleads to reckless driving. One pleads to a non-driving charge. Both avoid a DUI conviction. Only the second one can still have a route to a clean record — and only if that non-driving charge qualifies under an expungement statute in its own right. We come back to that distinction in detail below, because it is the single most useful thing in this article.

What “permanent” actually means day to day

A DUI conviction stays on your South Carolina criminal history indefinitely and shows up on ordinary background checks. It also keeps working against you inside the criminal law itself. Under § 56-5-2930(D), a prior DUI or DUAC — including one from another state — counts as a prior offense, and “only those violations which occurred within a period of ten years including and immediately preceding the date of the last violation constitute prior violations.” A conviction stays on the record forever; it counts for penalty enhancement for ten years.

That ten-year window is where the “you can expunge a DUI after ten years” myth comes from. It is a look-back period for charging a second offense, not a countdown to a clean record.

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The Second Trap: DUI and DUAC Are Barred From Pretrial Intervention by Name (§ 17-22-50)

The most common follow-up question is: fine, I can’t expunge a conviction — so can I avoid the conviction through a diversion program and expunge it that way?

For most first-time, non-violent charges, that is exactly the strategy, and it works. For a DUI, the Legislature closed that door too — expressly.

S.C. Code § 17-22-50(A) lists who “must not be considered for intervention.” The list includes a person who “previously has been accepted into an intervention program,” and a person charged with:

“(b) driving under the influence or driving with an unlawful alcohol concentration; (c) a traffic-related offense which is punishable only by fine or loss of points;”

DUI and DUAC are named in the statute itself. This is not local practice or one solicitor’s policy. It is the same in the Ninth Circuit (Charleston and Berkeley Counties), the First Circuit (Dorchester County), and all sixteen circuits.

Read item (c) carefully, though, because it is narrower than people assume. It bars a traffic-related offense “punishable only by fine or loss of points” — so it does not sweep in every offense in Title 56. It is items (b) and (c) together that matter here: (b) names impaired driving outright, and (c) captures the fine-or-points tickets. Whether some other traffic charge falls inside or outside item (c) turns on that offense’s own penalty statute, and that is a question for a lawyer looking at your actual charge.

Two more things are worth knowing about PTI even when it is available on another charge:

• PTI is never a right. Admission is the circuit solicitor’s decision. A defense lawyer can present the case for it; nobody can promise it.
• It is a one-time card. Section 17-22-50(A)(1) disqualifies anyone previously accepted into an intervention program.

The other two diversion programs are closed to DUI as well

South Carolina has two smaller diversion programs that sit alongside PTI, and people frequently assume one of them must cover impaired driving. Neither does.

The Traffic Education Program (§§ 17-22-310 through 17-22-370). Section 17-22-310(A) says each circuit solicitor “shall as a matter of prosecutorial discretion establish a traffic education program … for persons who commit traffic-related offenses that are punishable only by a fine and loss of four points or less,” and it is unavailable if the offense “resulted in death or serious bodily injury to another person.” Standing the program up is required; getting into it is not — § 17-22-320(A) says a person “may be considered” for it if he “has no significant history of traffic violations,” which leaves admission to the solicitor. A DUI is not punishable only by a fine — § 56-5-2930 carries jail time at every tier — so it falls outside the program by its own terms. For an offense that does qualify, completion produces a noncriminal disposition and the person “may apply to the court for an order to destroy all official records relating to his arrest” (§ 17-22-330). The application fee is $140, plus a participation fee of up to $140 — both waived for someone unable to pay (§ 17-22-350(A)) — and it is available once in a lifetime.

The Alcohol Education Program (§§ 17-22-500 through 17-22-560). This one is for people at least seventeen but under twenty-one at the time of arrest, with no prior alcohol-related offenses, charged with one of eleven listed offenses — underage possession, open container, public disorderly conduct, a fake ID, and similar. The statute then adds a catch-all for offenses “similar in nature and severity,” and immediately shuts the door:

“However, the provisions of this item may not be construed to include an offense enumerated in Section 56-5-2930 or Section 56-5-2933.”

That is § 17-22-520(C)(11) naming the DUI and DUAC statutes by number. Enrollment is $250 (§ 17-22-550), waivable for inability to pay, and available once.

ADSAP is required — and it clears nothing

This one causes real damage, because people complete the program believing it wiped the slate.

The Alcohol and Drug Safety Action Program (ADSAP) is mandatory after a DUI conviction. Section 56-5-2930(H) requires every person convicted under that section, “whether for a first offense or subsequent offense,” to enroll in and complete an ADSAP certified by the Office of Substance Use Services, and § 56-5-2990(B) makes entry into the recommended services a condition of getting an ignition interlock restricted license, with successful completion required for full restoration of driving privileges.

Read that again: ADSAP is tied to your license. It has no connection to your criminal record. There is no provision anywhere in it that dismisses a charge or authorizes an expungement.

For what it is worth, the statute does cap what ADSAP can cost you: not more than $500 for education services, $2,000 for treatment services, and $2,500 in total, and “no person may be denied services due to an inability to pay” — a person who cannot pay performs fifty hours of community service instead (§ 56-5-2990(C)).

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What Does Come Off: Dismissals and Acquittals (§ 17-1-40), Completed Diversion (§ 17-22-150, § 44-53-450), and Low-Level Convictions After Three Clean Years (§ 22-5-910)

Now the open doors. If your case is not a DUI conviction — or if it is a charge sitting alongside one — several of these may apply to you.

1. Charges that did not end in a conviction (§ 17-1-40)

If a charge was discharged, dismissed, nolle prossed, no-billed by a grand jury, or you were found not guilty, the arrest record can be destroyed. Section 17-1-40(B)(1) requires that “the arrest and booking record, associated bench warrants, mug shots, and fingerprints of the person must be destroyed and no evidence of the record pertaining to the charge … may be retained by any municipal, county, or state agency.”

Two practical points people get wrong:

It is automatic in summary court — and only there. Under § 17-22-950(A), if the charge was brought in a magistrate or municipal court, you were fingerprinted, and you were acquitted or the charge was dismissed or nolle prossed, the summary court “at no cost to the accused person, immediately shall issue an order to expunge.” If you were not fingerprinted, you apply to that same court, still at no cost (§ 17-22-950(B)). The order happens no sooner than the appeal expiration date and no later than thirty days after it, and the charge must come off “all Internet-based public records no later than thirty days from the disposition date.” There are exceptions — it does not apply if the dismissal came at a preliminary hearing, or if you have related charges pending in both summary court and General Sessions — and a prosecutor or law enforcement agency can file an objection, which sends the question to a General Sessions judge.

In General Sessions, nothing happens unless you file. A dismissed General Sessions charge does not fall off by itself. You (or your lawyer) apply through the circuit solicitor’s expungement unit. The good news is the cost: the $250 solicitor’s fee does not apply to a § 17-1-40 expungement (§ 17-22-940(A)(1)), no SLED verification fee is charged (§ 17-22-940(E)(1)), and the clerk may not charge a filing fee (§ 17-22-940(H)).

The one exception worth watching. If the dismissed charge was “dismissed, discharged, or nolle prossed as part of the plea arrangement under which the defendant pled guilty and was sentenced to other charges,” the $250 fee does apply (§ 17-22-940(A)(1)). Package deals are treated differently from outright dismissals.

What still exists afterward. Expungement is not incineration. Law enforcement and prosecution agencies keep the arrest and booking record under seal for three years and one hundred twenty days — longer for ongoing investigations, administrative hearings, or defending litigation — and it stays out of public view except by court order (§ 17-1-40(B)(1)(a), (C)(1)). If a public-records request comes in, the agency must redact your name from the incident report (§ 17-1-40(C)(2)).

2. Completed diversion (§ 17-22-150 and § 44-53-450)

Pretrial Intervention. Complete the program and “the solicitor shall effect a noncriminal disposition of the charge or charges,” after which you “may apply to the court for an order to destroy all official records relating to his arrest.” The effect, in the statute’s own words, “is to restore the person, in the contemplation of the law, to the status he occupied before the arrest,” and you cannot later be accused of perjury for failing to disclose it (§ 17-22-150(a)). Violate the program conditions and the prosecution simply resumes (§ 17-22-150(b)).

Conditional discharge for a first drug possession charge. Section 44-53-450 covers a person “who has not previously been convicted of any offense under this article or any offense under any state or federal statute relating to marijuana, or stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic drugs” who pleads guilty to or is found guilty of simple possession under § 44-53-370(c) or (d) or § 44-53-375(A). The court defers without entering a judgment of guilt, puts the person on probation with conditions, and on completion “shall discharge the person and dismiss the proceedings.” The dismissal “is not a conviction … for purposes of disqualifications or disabilities imposed by law,” and expungement follows on application.

The details matter: it costs $350 in General Sessions and $150 in summary court, waivable only for indigency; SLED keeps a nonpublic record so the event can still count if there is a next time; and “discharge and dismissal under this section may occur only once with respect to any person.” If you are facing a possession charge, our drug crimes defense page walks through where that fits.

Public disorderly conduct has its own version. Section 16-17-530(B) carries a conditional discharge that mirrors § 44-53-450 — deferred proceedings, dismissal on completion, expungement on application under subsection (C), a $150 summary-court fee under subsection (D), once per lifetime. Keep that in mind; it becomes important in the next section.

3. Low-level convictions after three clean years (§ 22-5-910)

This is the route people mean when they say “expunging a conviction.” Here is the actual test, straight from the statute:

• The offense ceiling. The crime must carry “a penalty of not more than thirty days imprisonment or a fine of one thousand dollars, or both.” Read that against the maximum penalty the offense’s own statute authorizes, not against the sentence you actually received — and note that the statute’s “or … or both” phrasing is exactly the kind of language that makes a borderline offense a question for a lawyer with both statutes open, not a judgment call to make from an article. (A first offense for unlawful possession of a firearm or weapon carrying not more than one year or a $1,000 fine was added to the list by 2024 Act No. 111 (H.3594), § 17, effective March 7, 2024.)
• Three years from the date of conviction — and note that “conviction” includes a guilty plea, a plea of nolo contendere, or forfeiting bail (§ 22-5-910(E)).
• No other conviction during that three-year period, “including out-of-state convictions” (§ 22-5-910(C)).
• No pending charges of any kind, unless they have been pending more than five years (§ 22-5-910(F)).
• Once in a lifetime. “No person may have the person’s records expunged under this section more than once.” SLED keeps a nonpublic record of the expungement specifically to enforce that (§ 22-5-910(D), (F)).
• Domestic violence in the third degree gets its own five-year clock under § 22-5-910(B).
• And, of course, no motor-vehicle offenses.

Two corrections to what circulates about this statute:

It is not limited to a “first offense,” and not limited to magistrate court. Older summaries describe § 22-5-910 as covering a “first offense conviction in magistrates court.” That description is out of date on both halves. 2018 Act No. 254 (H.3209), § 2, effective December 27, 2018, deleted the words “first offense” from subsection (A) — the phrase now attaches only to the firearm clause. And the operative text since 2013 has read “including a conviction in magistrates or general sessions court.” The controlling limit is the penalty ceiling and the clean three-year window, not which courtroom you stood in or whether you had ever been in trouble before. (The catalog in § 17-22-910(A)(3) still carries the old descriptive label. The text of § 22-5-910 controls.)

A minor traffic ticket does not break your three years — unless it is DUI-related. Section 17-22-940(E) says that where expungement is sought under § 22-5-910 (among others), “the conviction for any minor traffic-related offense that is not related in any way to driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs will not be considered as a bar to expungement.” A speeding ticket in year two does not sink the application. Anything connected to impaired driving does. Even in the doors that stay open, a DUI is treated differently.

4. Certain drug convictions (§ 22-5-930)

Less well known, and genuinely useful: § 22-5-930 allows expungement of an actual conviction in two drug situations.

• First-offense simple possession under Article 3, Chapter 53, Title 44, or unlawful possession of a prescription drug under § 40-43-86(EE) — including charges that would now qualify for conditional discharge — three years after completing the sentence, including probation and parole, with no other convictions in that window.
• First-offense possession with intent to distribute — twenty years after completing any sentence for a drug or felony conviction, with no drug or felony conviction in that period.

The same guardrails apply: once in a lifetime, no pending charges (unless pending over five years), and SLED keeps a nonpublic record. Subsection (D) adds a wrinkle worth reading closely if you have used a conditional discharge before — a prior conditional discharge within five years (marijuana) or ten years (other controlled substances or prescription drugs) of the arrest date blocks this route.

What each route costs

Fees are set by statute, not by the county:

A few notes on that table. The $250 solicitor’s administrative fee is set by § 17-22-940(A) and is nonrefundable “regardless of whether the offense is later determined to be statutorily ineligible for expungement,” which is a strong argument for confirming eligibility before you file. The solicitor may waive it only where someone was falsely accused as a result of identity theft (§ 17-22-940(J)), though each office also maintains a private donation fund that can cover up to half of it (§ 17-22-940(A)(2)). Each order covers one charge, except that multiple charges from a single incident can share one order — and one set of fees — under § 17-1-40 or § 17-22-150(a) (§ 17-22-940(G)).

One more procedural rule that trips people up: you cannot download a generic form. Section 17-22-930 requires you to get the blank expungement order form “from the solicitor’s office in the judicial circuit where the charge originated,” and says “the use of this form is mandatory and to the exclusion of all other expungement forms.” In the Lowcountry that means the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office for a charge out of Charleston or Berkeley County, and the First Circuit for the Dorchester County side of North Charleston. Which office handles your file depends on exactly where the stop happened.

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Why This Is Decided Before You Plead: How a Charge Is Resolved Determines Whether It Can Ever Be Cleared

Put the two halves of this article together and one conclusion falls out. Every route to a clean record depends on how the case ends. Nothing you do afterward changes the category.

Resolutions that keep a route open:

• A dismissal, nolle prosequi, grand jury no-bill, or a not-guilty verdict (§ 17-1-40).
• Admission into and completion of PTI (§ 17-22-150) or a conditional discharge (§ 44-53-450, or § 16-17-530(B) for public disorderly conduct).
• A plea to a non-driving charge whose own penalty statute fits inside § 22-5-910’s ceiling — “not more than thirty days imprisonment or a fine of one thousand dollars, or both” — with that section’s three-year, no-other-conviction, no-pending-charges and once-per-lifetime conditions all met.

Resolutions that close the door:

• A guilty plea or conviction for DUI or DUAC — permanently, with no route left open anywhere in the Code.
• A conviction for any other offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle, including reckless driving. The § 22-5-910 and § 22-5-920 exclusions both reach it, and unless that offense’s own statute creates an expungement the way § 56-5-750(F) does, nothing else will.
• A plea to a charge whose own penalty statute puts it outside § 22-5-910’s ceiling. That closes the three-year route. It does not automatically close every route — a youthful-offender sentence (§ 22-5-920), a completed diversion, or the drug-conviction provisions of § 22-5-930 may still apply, and eligibility has to be checked against each one.

The plea-down that actually preserves your record

This is the most concrete thing in this article, so here it is in plain terms.

Take public disorderly conduct, § 16-17-530(A). It is a misdemeanor punished by a fine of “not more than one hundred dollars or … not more than thirty days.” Three things follow:

1. It is not an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle, so § 22-5-910’s exclusion never engages.
2. Its penalty sits inside § 22-5-910’s ceiling on both sides of the “or” — no more than thirty days, no more than $1,000 — so it is a § 22-5-910-eligible conviction after three clean years, if that section’s other conditions are met.
3. It carries its own conditional discharge under § 16-17-530(B) for someone with no prior conviction under that section, which — if granted, with the circuit solicitor’s approval — produces a dismissal and an expungement without any conviction at all.

Now compare reckless driving. Same rough seriousness. Same magistrate court. Completely different record outcome, because it never leaves the motor-vehicle category.

That is the whole ballgame, and it is negotiated in the weeks before a plea — not afterward. It is also why “I’ll just take care of it myself and clean it up later” is the most expensive plan available in a South Carolina criminal case.

A word of caution, because this deserves one: whether any particular reduction is available depends on the facts, the evidence, the charge, and the solicitor. A reduction is a negotiated outcome, not something a defendant or a lawyer can promise. What a defense lawyer can do is make sure the record consequence is on the table while the case is still being negotiated, instead of discovering it three years later.

What a defense actually looks at in a DUI case

Because the conviction is permanent, the work has to happen on the front end. In a South Carolina DUI case that means examining whether the stop was lawful; how the field sobriety tests were administered and scored; whether the breath test followed the required procedures; and whether the arrest recording complied with § 56-5-2953, the statute that requires the incident to be videotaped beginning no later than the activation of the officer’s blue lights and to include the field sobriety tests, the arrest, and the reading of Miranda rights. Our DUI defense page goes through those issues in more depth, and our pretrial intervention explainer covers how diversion works for the charges that are eligible for it.

None of that guarantees a result. It is simply where the leverage is, and leverage before a plea is the only thing that protects a record the expungement statute will never touch.

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A Pardon Is Not an Expungement — What It Does and Doesn’t Do

Once people learn a DUI cannot be expunged, the next question is whether a pardon can fix it. It is a fair question with a clear answer: a pardon is a different remedy that does a different job.

Under § 24-21-940(A), a “pardon” means “an individual is fully pardoned from all the legal consequences of his crime and of his conviction, direct and collateral, including the punishment.” Section 24-21-990 restores all civil rights lost as a result of the conviction — the right to register to vote, to vote, to serve on a jury, to hold public office, to testify without the conviction being used for impeachment as provided in Rule 609(c), and to “be licensed for any occupation requiring a license.”

That is a substantial remedy. It is not a clean record. The South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services answers the question directly on its own site:

“Does a pardon clear (expunge) my record? No. The conviction will still appear on your criminal history; however, an entry will be added showing the conviction has been pardoned. Keep this in mind when completing a job application.”

The mechanics, briefly: the Board of Paroles and Pardons considers an application after discharge from supervision or from the sentence (§ 24-21-950), the application fee is $100 (§ 24-21-960(A)), and a denial means waiting a year before reapplying. A successful applicant receives a certificate stating that they are “absolved from all legal consequences” of the crime and conviction, with civil rights restored (§ 24-21-1000).

So the accurate statement is this: a South Carolina DUI can be pardoned. It can never be expunged. Those are not the same thing, and they should not be described as if they were.

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What an Unexpungeable DUI Actually Costs You Later

If the conviction is permanent, it is worth knowing exactly where it shows up.

Commercial driving. This is the harshest one. Under § 56-1-2110(A)(1), a person is “disqualified from driving a commercial motor vehicle for not less than one year if convicted of a first violation of … driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, a controlled substance, or a drug which impairs driving ability” — note that it is a conviction in any motor vehicle, not just a commercial one. Subsection (B) makes the disqualification for life on two or more such violations from separate incidents. If the offense happened while transporting placarded hazardous material, the first disqualification is not less than three years.

Professional and occupational licensing. South Carolina law here is better than most people expect, and it was strengthened recently. Under § 40-1-140(A)(1), as rewritten by 2023 Act No. 13 (H.3605), § 4 (the Earn and Learn Act of 2023), effective May 8, 2023, a licensing board “may not deny a license to an applicant solely because of a prior criminal conviction, unless the criminal conviction directly relates to the duties, responsibilities, or fitness of the occupation or profession.” Boards are also barred from using “vague or generic terms including … ‘moral turpitude’ or ‘good character'” — and from considering “charges that have been dismissed, nol prossed, or adjudicated with a finding of not guilty.” Before denying a license over criminal history, the board must give the applicant a hearing and, if it denies, a written order within thirty days that is appealable to the Administrative Law Court.

Read that last part again, because it points straight back to the theme of this article: a dismissed charge is off-limits to a licensing board. A conviction is not.

Employment. For records that are expunged, § 17-22-960 gives employers immunity and provides that “except for criminal justice agencies, employers shall not use expunged information adversely against an employee,” with expunged information inadmissible in negligent-hiring claims. A DUI conviction gets none of that protection, because it is never expunged.

Immigration. If you are not a United States citizen, do not rely on general information here — including this article. The consequences of a criminal conviction depend on the specific offense, the sentence, and your immigration status, and they can be severe. Talk to a lawyer who handles the immigration side before resolving any criminal charge.

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Charged With a DUI in North Charleston? Let’s Look at Your Case Before Anything Is Decided

If you are reading this because a DUI or DUAC charge is already pending, the useful takeaway is not the expungement statute. It is the timing. The decision that determines whether your record can ever be cleared is made when the case is resolved — and once a DUI conviction is entered, no statute in South Carolina can undo it.

If you are reading this because a case already ended and you want to know what can still be cleared, that is a real question with a real answer, and it depends on how the charge was disposed of, what else is on your record, and whether you have used one of these routes before.

Either way, it is worth an actual conversation about your specific case, not a general article.

Deaton Law Firm, LLC offers a free consultation. Call (843) 225-5723, or reach us through our contact page. We handle DUI and criminal defense cases throughout North Charleston, Charleston, Goose Creek, Summerville, Hanahan, Moncks Corner, Ladson and the surrounding Lowcountry.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can a DUI be expunged in South Carolina? No. S.C. Code § 22-5-910(A) — the statute that allows expungement of low-level convictions — ends with the sentence “this section does not apply to an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle.” A DUI conviction under § 56-5-2930 and a DUAC conviction under § 56-5-2933 are both motor-vehicle offenses, so both are permanently excluded. The youthful-offender statute, § 22-5-920(B)(2)(a), uses the identical exclusion.

Can I expunge a DUI after ten years? No. There is no waiting period that makes a DUI expungeable. The ten-year figure you may have read about comes from § 56-5-2930(D), which says that only violations “within a period of ten years including and immediately preceding the date of the last violation” count as prior offenses for enhancing a later charge. That is a look-back window for penalties, not a countdown to a clean record.

Can a DUI go through Pretrial Intervention in South Carolina? No. Section 17-22-50(A)(2) says a person “must not be considered for intervention” if charged with “driving under the influence or driving with an unlawful alcohol concentration,” or with “a traffic-related offense which is punishable only by fine or loss of points.” The bar is statewide, and admission to PTI on any eligible charge is always the circuit solicitor’s decision.

Does completing ADSAP clear a DUI from my record? No. ADSAP is a licensing requirement, not a diversion program. Section 56-5-2930(H) requires enrollment and completion after a DUI conviction, and § 56-5-2990(B) ties it to obtaining an ignition interlock restricted license and to full restoration of driving privileges. Nothing in either statute dismisses a charge or authorizes an expungement.

What happens to a DUI charge that gets dismissed? That is a different situation entirely, and a much better one. Under § 17-1-40 a dismissed, nolle prossed, no-billed or acquitted charge can be expunged, and the arrest record, mug shot and fingerprints must be destroyed. If the charge was in magistrate or municipal court and you were fingerprinted, § 17-22-950(A) requires the summary court to issue that order automatically, at no cost. In General Sessions you have to apply through the solicitor’s office — nothing happens on its own.

If my DUI is reduced to reckless driving, can I expunge it? No. Reckless driving is still an offense involving the operation of a motor vehicle, so the exclusion in § 22-5-910(A) applies to it exactly as it applies to a DUI. A reduction can matter a great deal for other reasons, but it does not open the expungement door. A reduction to a non-driving charge is what can preserve that option — though not automatically. Section 17-22-910(B) bases eligibility on “the offense that the person pled guilty to or was convicted of committing,” so the reduced charge has to qualify under an expungement statute on its own: clearing the motor-vehicle exclusion is necessary, not sufficient.

How much does an expungement cost in South Carolina? The fees are set by § 17-22-940: a $250 solicitor’s administrative fee, a $25 SLED verification fee, and a $35 clerk of court filing fee. Several routes waive some or all of them — a dismissal or acquittal expunged under § 17-1-40 carries no solicitor’s fee (unless the dismissal was part of a plea deal on other charges), no SLED fee, and no clerk filing fee, and a summary-court expungement under § 17-22-950 is free. The $250 fee is nonrefundable even if the charge turns out to be ineligible, so eligibility should be confirmed before filing.

Can I expunge more than one charge? Generally, one order covers one charge (§ 17-22-940(G)). The exception is multiple charges arising from a single incident that qualify under § 17-1-40 or § 17-22-150(a) — those can share one application and one set of fees. Separately, expungement of a conviction under § 22-5-910 or § 22-5-930 is available only once in a lifetime, and SLED keeps a nonpublic record of it to enforce that limit.

Will a pardon remove a DUI from my record? No. A pardon restores civil rights and, under § 24-21-940(A), releases you from the legal consequences of the conviction — but the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services states that the conviction “will still appear on your criminal history,” with an entry added showing it was pardoned. A DUI can be pardoned. It cannot be expunged.

Does a dismissed charge hurt me with a professional licensing board? It should not. Section 40-1-140(A)(2), as rewritten by 2023 Act No. 13 (the Earn and Learn Act of 2023), prohibits professional and occupational boards from considering “charges that have been dismissed, nol prossed, or adjudicated with a finding of not guilty” as a justification for denying a license, and bars them from relying on vague standards like “moral turpitude” or “good character.” A conviction is treated differently — a board may consider it if it “directly relates to the duties, responsibilities, or fitness” of the profession.

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This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change and every case turns on its facts. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney about your situation. Attorney advertising — S.C. Rules of Professional Conduct 7.1–7.2.