The Clean Slate Act in New Zealand, who qualifies and what stays hidden

Last updated 4 July 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.

Old convictions have a long shadow. The Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 exists to shorten it, and when it passed, the Ministry of Justice estimated around 500,000 New Zealanders would benefit. If you have stayed out of trouble for seven years, there is a good chance the law already hides your record, automatically, whether you know it or not. This guide covers who qualifies, the traps, and the places the scheme cannot protect you.

How the Clean Slate scheme works

The scheme is automatic. Nobody applies, nothing is filed, and no letter arrives. Once you meet the eligibility test, two things happen by force of law. Your convictions are concealed on criminal record checks, and section 14 of the Act gives you the legal right to answer questions about your record, in New Zealand, as if you have none. “Have you ever been convicted of an offence” can honestly be answered no.

Concealed is the right word, not deleted. The record still exists in full, like a sealed envelope, and a specific list of officials and situations can still open it, which the see-through section covers. For a small number of edge cases the Act also lets a District Court make concealment orders, but for almost everyone the scheme simply switches on by itself.

Does it actually help? The honest answer is partly. AUT economists Alexander Plum and Kabir Dasgupta studied men convicted between 1992 and 2003 using Stats NZ’s integrated data and found the scheme had “no measurable effect” on the likelihood of finding work, though those already in work saw monthly earnings rise by at least 2 per cent. Their conclusion was that the law helps people move up more than it helps people get in the door. Knowing your rights under it, which is what the rest of this guide is for, is how you extract the value it does offer.

One piece of trivia no other guide will tell you. The Act was amended on 27 November 2025, but nobody’s eligibility changed, Parliament simply replaced two offensive old offence descriptions in the definitions, one dating from 1908 and one from 1961, with modern wording. If you saw headlines about the Act changing, that is all it was.

Do you qualify

Run yourself through the test in section 7 of the Act. Every answer has to be yes:

• Has it been at least seven consecutive conviction-free years since the date you were last sentenced? The clock runs from sentencing, not from the offence or the conviction.
• Have you paid every fine, reparation, compensation and court cost in full? Owing even an old fine stops the scheme.
• Is it true that you have never been sentenced to imprisonment or another custodial sentence?
• Is it true that you have never been convicted of a specified offence, which is mainly sexual offending against children and young people?
• Is it true that you have never been indefinitely disqualified from driving? Getting an indefinite disqualification removed later does not restore eligibility.
• Is it true that a court has never ordered you to be detained in a hospital or secure facility instead of sentencing you?

The first two limbs are fixable with time and money. The rest are permanent disqualifiers, and the custodial one deserves care, because the definition is precise. Custodial means a sentence of imprisonment, corrective training, borstal, preventive detention or any other sentence requiring full-time detention.

The home detention line. Since October 2007, home detention has been its own sentence, and it is not imprisonment, so it does not disqualify you. Before that date, home detention was a way of serving a sentence of imprisonment, and the Act expressly counts a sentence of imprisonment served by way of home detention as custodial. Same words, opposite outcomes, depending on when you were sentenced. Community detention and community work are not custodial either. If you ever received a suspended sentence of imprisonment in the 1990s, the position is genuinely murky, so order your free record check before assuming anything.

What still sees through the scheme

Section 19 of the Act lists the situations where the sealed envelope opens. The main ones are:

• law enforcement, including investigating and prosecuting offences here and overseas
• any court, tribunal or Parole Board proceeding, including your own sentencing for anything new
• firearms licence applications, where the full record feeds the fit and proper assessment
• employment as a judge, Justice of the Peace, police employee, prison officer, probation officer or in national security roles, plus NZSIS protective security work
• roles predominantly involving the care and protection of children, such as foster parents and caregivers, and Oranga Tamariki investigations
• Social Workers Registration Board fit and proper decisions, and approved research.

Separately from that list, safety checks for core children’s workers under the Children’s Act 2014 override the scheme, which is applied through Police vetting. Note what is not there, ordinary teaching roles are treated as predominantly education rather than care and protection, so they are not a section 19 exception, though schools still run vetting.

The distinction that catches people out is Police vetting versus a criminal record check. A Ministry of Justice criminal record check respects the Clean Slate scheme. Police vetting also conceals clean-slated convictions for most purposes, but vetting was never limited to convictions, it can release non-conviction information such as family harm callouts, pending charges and investigations, which the Clean Slate Act never touched. A clean slate is not a clean vetting report.

Job applications and your rights

For an ordinary job with an ordinary employer, the position is simple. If you qualify, you may answer “no” to conviction questions, and a Ministry of Justice check they run will come back clean. You do not owe anyone an explanation of what the scheme is doing for you.

The Act also puts teeth behind that right. Under section 18, anyone who without lawful authority requires or requests that you disregard the scheme, answer as if it did not exist, or disclose a concealed record, commits an offence with a fine of up to $10,000. An official who unlawfully discloses a concealed record faces a fine of up to $20,000 under section 17. An employer saying “tell us everything anyway” is not being thorough, they are breaking the law, and you can say so politely or report it.

The exception is the section 19 territory above. Applying to be a police officer, a prison officer, a firearms licence holder or a foster parent means the full record is lawfully in play, and honesty is both required and wise.

Travel and visas

The Clean Slate Act is New Zealand law, and it stops working the moment a question is governed by foreign law. That includes the obvious cases, a US visa interview, an Australian character declaration, and the less obvious one, an ESTA or visa form you fill in on your couch in New Zealand. The Act itself carves out questions asked under foreign law even when you answer them here. Lying on a foreign immigration form is a serious offence in that country, and border systems increasingly share data.

For travel purposes, request the full unconcealed copy of your record, declare what the form asks, and check the destination country’s own rules about old or minor convictions, many have their own spent-conviction or waiver arrangements that do the forgiving on their side.

How to check your own record

Requesting your own criminal record is free through the Ministry of Justice, online at criminalrecords.govt.nz or by paper form with ID. The Ministry aims for 20 working days and answers about nine in ten requests within a week. There is no priority service, and there is never a reason to pay one of the third-party websites that charge for exactly this.

Your own copy applies the Clean Slate scheme by default, so if it comes back showing no convictions, the scheme is working for you, that is your confirmation. If you need the full record, for a visa, a section 19 role or a court, you tick the box asking for everything to be included.

Common questions

Do I need to apply for the Clean Slate scheme

No. It applies automatically the moment you meet the test, and switches off automatically if you are convicted again, then back on once you requalify. Court-ordered concealment exists only for rare edge cases.

What if I still owe fines

You are not eligible until every fine, reparation and court cost is paid in full, no matter how many years have passed. Paying off an old fine can be the single step that switches the scheme on, and our guide to managing unpaid fines covers arrangements if the amount is large.

Does the Clean Slate Act apply to drink driving convictions

Yes, in most cases. A drink driving conviction is concealed like any other once seven conviction-free years have passed since sentencing, provided you were not imprisoned and your disqualification was for a fixed period rather than indefinite. An indefinite disqualification permanently rules you out, even if it was later removed.

Is home detention a custodial sentence under the Clean Slate Act

It depends when you were sentenced. Home detention imposed as its own sentence, which is how it has worked since October 2007, is not custodial and does not disqualify you. Before then, home detention was a way of serving a prison sentence, and that counts as custodial. If your case is from the 1990s or 2000s, order the free record check rather than guessing.

Can employers find hidden convictions

Not through a standard Ministry of Justice check, and asking you to disclose them anyway is an offence carrying a fine of up to $10,000. The exceptions are the listed roles, police, corrections, firearms, children’s care roles and similar, where the full record is lawfully available, and Police vetting can also reveal non-conviction information the scheme never covered.

Is my record wiped or just hidden

Hidden. The full record always exists, and courts, law enforcement and the listed roles can still see it. New Zealand has no scheme that deletes convictions.

Where to get free help

If your charge is current rather than historic, the better tool is stopping a conviction from existing at all, our guide to police diversion explains how a first low-level offence can end with no conviction and nothing for the Clean Slate scheme to hide.

Has the Clean Slate scheme worked for you, or has a vetting check or visa form tripped you up? Share your experience in the comments, it will help others weighing the same questions.