Spent Convictions in New South Wales: The Criminal Records Act 1991

In New South Wales, a conviction becomes spent automatically, with no application, once a crime free period has passed: 10 years for an adult and 3 years for a child.

This article covers how the Criminal Records Act 1991 (NSW) works generally. It does not assess whether any individual reader's own conviction is, or will become, spent. For advice on a specific record, consult a solicitor admitted in New South Wales.

New South Wales sits alongside seven other states and territories covered on Spent Convictions in Australia, which sets out the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 scheme and the national comparison table. This page covers New South Wales's own machinery under the Criminal Records Act 1991.

The Criminal Records Act 1991: An Automatic Scheme

The Criminal Records Act 1991 (NSW), No. 8, spends a conviction automatically once the applicable crime free period has run, with no application, certificate or court order needed. This is a genuine structural difference from Western Australia, where a serious conviction requires an application to a District Court judge or the Police Commissioner. Under section 8, a conviction is spent on completion of the relevant crime free period; general eligibility for a conviction to become capable of becoming spent sits in section 7(1), and the Act's own definition of "conviction" (which includes a finding of guilt with no conviction recorded) sits in section 5.

A conviction can also become spent immediately, without waiting out the crime free period at all, in several situations: no conviction was recorded (s8(2)); a Children's Court caution was given (s8(3)); the person was discharged without conviction on a condition that was satisfactorily completed (s8(4)); or the offence has since ceased to exist (s8(5)). A spent conviction is not revived by a later conviction (s8(6)).

The Act's current in-force text was reached and read directly this session, via a proxied fetch of both the official as-made PDF and the whole-Act in-force HTML text on legislation.nsw.gov.au, after legislation.nsw.gov.au and every AustLII mirror had blocked direct access on earlier attempts. Every section number in this article traces to that direct read of the Act's own text, independently corroborated by Legal Aid NSW's own materials, a 2012 practitioner seminar paper and Legal Aid NSW's current public LawPrompt page on criminal records.

Waiting Periods: Adults and Children

Both figures are confirmed directly against the Criminal Records Act 1991 (NSW)'s own text, sections 9 and 10(1), reached this session, and independently corroborated by Legal Aid NSW's current public guidance and its 2012 seminar paper. A conflicting, uncited claim of a 5 year child period surfaced in an earlier AI generated search summary this session and is not used anywhere in this article; the 3 year figure is the one that held up.

What Can Never Become Spent

Section 7(1) sets out four permanent exclusions. A conviction can never become spent if it involved a prison sentence of more than 6 months (Intensive Correction Orders and control orders do not count toward this threshold, so a person given one of those stays eligible even if it runs longer in practice); a sexual offence; a conviction against a company or corporate body; or a conviction prescribed by the regulations. The third category, corporate convictions, and the fourth, regulation-prescribed convictions, are often left out of general summaries of the Act.

This is a materially stricter cutoff than the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914's 30 month sentence ceiling, covered on Spent Convictions in Australia. A reader relying on the general Commonwealth figure should not assume NSW works the same way: a sentence of, for example, 8 months, well under the Commonwealth's 30 month ceiling, permanently excludes a NSW conviction from ever becoming spent under this Act.

What Being Spent Means

Once a conviction is spent, section 12 removes any obligation to disclose it. Exceptions to that non-disclosure right sit in section 15 (certain occupations) and section 16 (court proceedings). A quashed conviction is treated the same way for non-disclosure purposes under section 19, but the section 15 and section 16 exceptions do not apply to a quashed conviction.

The Unlawful Disclosure Offence

Section 13 makes it an offence to unlawfully disclose information about a spent conviction, reported as carrying a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units or imprisonment for up to 6 months, or both, with stated exceptions for an authorised NSW Police Force Criminal Records Section disclosure to a law enforcement agency or prescribed office holder, and for archives or libraries making historical material available through normal public access procedures. This section's precise wording rests on a converging search result rather than a direct read of the Act's own text this session, so treat the outcome, an offence with a real penalty, as solid, and the exact figures as needing a second check before being repeated as certain.

New South Wales's penalty unit is fixed at $110, confirmed directly from the NSW Judicial Commission's own Sentencing Bench Book, under section 17 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999. On that figure, 50 penalty units works out to $5,500, an arithmetic result rather than a figure stated directly by any source, and one that should be re-verified against the Act's own text before being treated as a confirmed maximum fine.

Where a Spent Conviction Still Counts

The Working with Children Check sees spent convictions in full. The NSW Office of the Children's Guardian's own applicant fact sheet states plainly that a WWCC considers "convictions (spent or unspent), charges (whether heard, unheard or dismissed), juvenile records." This override runs through a separate statute, the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012, rather than through anything in the Criminal Records Act 1991 itself, the same two-Act pattern used for Queensland's Blue Card scheme. The Children's Guardian can also pull in other relevant records for a risk assessment beyond the Act's standard disqualifying-offence list, under section 15(3) of that Act. The Commonwealth's own child-related-work carve-out, covered on the national page, reaches NSW convictions independently on top of this state-level override, two separate legal bases producing the same practical result.

Spent-conviction protection is also waived for several licensed occupations: firearms licence and permit applications under the Firearms Act 1996 and the Weapons Prohibition Act 1998, security guard, casino and TAB licences under the Security Industry Act 1997, Casino Control Act 1992 and Totalizator Act 1997, and tow truck driver certificates under the Tow Truck Industry Act 1998. See the state's own firearms laws for how firearms licensing works more broadly. These waivers trace to a single 2012 practitioner source and have not been independently re-checked against the current Firearms Act 1996 this session. Spent convictions can also still surface in court proceedings under the section 16 exception noted above.

How This Appears on a National Police Check

The NSW Police Force Criminal Records Section is the body that completes standard National Police Checks for visa, adoption and employment purposes; WWCC checks route to the Office of the Children's Guardian instead. For general National Police Check mechanics, see National Police Checks in Australia. Under the Act's general non-disclosure right, a spent conviction is removed from a standard check once the crime free period completes, except where a specific overriding instrument applies, the Working with Children Check being the clearest example.

Anti-Discrimination Protection: A Tested Negative

New South Wales has no criminal record ground in the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977. This was tested directly against Anti-Discrimination NSW's own frequently asked questions page, which lists a "Grounds we don't cover" section including criminal record, using its own worked example: a complaint about being refused accommodation because of a criminal record, which the agency declined because criminal record status is not covered by the Act. This stands in contrast to Victoria, where a spent conviction is a protected attribute under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, covered on the Victoria spent convictions page; NSW's absence of protection is unusual relative to some states, though not all.

Recent Reforms

Two reforms are currently relevant to the Criminal Records Act 1991 (NSW). The Crimes Amendment (Animal Sexual Abuse) Act 2025 (No 67), assented 28 October 2025, makes a consequential amendment (Schedule 2.4) to the Act's own sexual-offences definition in section 7, replacing the former "bestiality" reference with the new animal sexual abuse offence; that amendment commences 25 March 2026. Separately, the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Amendment (Decriminalisation) Bill, introduced by Cate Faehrmann MLC and pending on the NSW Legislative Council's Notice Paper as of June 2026, would amend the Act to allow historical drug-possession convictions to be extinguished. Neither reform changes the waiting periods or exclusions described above; both are noted here as the current state of play rather than settled law.

This article provides general legal information about New South Wales's spent-conviction scheme. It does not assess whether any individual reader's own conviction is, or will become, spent. For advice on a specific record, consult a solicitor admitted in New South Wales.

Related reading: Spent Convictions in Australia, National Police Checks in Australia, Criminal Record and Employment Rights in Australia, the Working with Children Check in NSW, and Spent Convictions in Victoria.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long until a conviction is spent in NSW?

10 years from the date of conviction for an adult, or 3 years for a child dealt with in the Children's Court, under sections 9 and 10 of the Criminal Records Act 1991. The child figure extends to 10 years if the child was sentenced in the District or Supreme Court. Both periods run automatically, with no application required.

Can a conviction with a long prison sentence ever become spent in NSW?

Not if the sentence was more than 6 months' imprisonment. Section 7(1) permanently excludes those convictions, along with sexual offences, convictions against a company or corporate body, and any conviction prescribed by the regulations, from ever becoming spent under this Act. This is a stricter cutoff than the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914's 30 month ceiling.

Does a spent conviction show up on a Working with Children Check in NSW?

Yes. The NSW Office of the Children's Guardian's own applicant fact sheet states that a Working with Children Check considers convictions, spent or unspent. This runs through the separate Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012, which overrides the Criminal Records Act 1991's non-disclosure protection for WWCC purposes.

Is criminal record a protected attribute under NSW anti-discrimination law?

No. Anti-Discrimination NSW's own frequently asked questions page lists criminal record among the grounds the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 does not cover, using a declined complaint about accommodation as its own worked example. This differs from Victoria, where a spent conviction is a protected attribute.

What happens if someone unlawfully discloses a spent conviction in NSW?

Section 13 of the Criminal Records Act 1991 makes unlawful disclosure of a spent conviction an offence, reported as carrying a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units or imprisonment for up to 6 months, or both, subject to exceptions for authorised NSW Police Force disclosures and normal archive or library access to historical material.

Does a spent conviction affect a firearms licence application in NSW?

It can. Spent conviction protection is waived for firearms licence and permit applications under the Firearms Act 1996 and the Weapons Prohibition Act 1998, along with waivers for several other licensed occupations such as security guards and tow truck drivers.