Spent Convictions in Queensland: The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986

In Queensland, a conviction's rehabilitation period expires automatically, 10 years for an adult indictable conviction or 5 years for everything else, as long as no prison term of more than 30 months was imposed.

This article covers how the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld) works generally. It does not assess whether any individual reader's own conviction is, or will get, a rehabilitation period. For advice on a specific record, consult a solicitor admitted in Queensland.

Queensland 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 Queensland's own machinery under the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986.

An Automatic "Rehabilitation Period," Not an Application

The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld), Act 20 of 1986, never uses the word "spent." Its own operative term is "rehabilitation period," and the concept is that a conviction's rehabilitation period expires, automatically, once the Act's gate is met (s3(2)); there is no application, permit or spending order for the person with the conviction. A permit to disclose someone else's rehabilitated conviction does exist under s10, but that runs in the other direction, for someone who wants to lawfully disclose it, not for the person seeking to have their own conviction covered.

The 30 Month Sentence Ceiling

Under section 3(2), a rehabilitation period applies to a conviction only if no term of imprisonment was imposed, or a term of imprisonment of 30 months or less was imposed (s3(2)(b)). Section 3(2A) removes any doubt that what matters is the term imposed, not time actually served: even a fully suspended sentence longer than 30 months counts against the ceiling and puts the conviction outside the scheme's reach entirely.

Rehabilitation Periods: 10 Years or 5 Years, on a Different Axis Than the Commonwealth

Section 3(1)'s definition of "rehabilitation period" sets two lengths. An indictable-offence conviction where the person was not dealt with as a child runs for 10 years from the date the conviction is recorded, or, if later, until any court order made in relation to the conviction is satisfied. Every other conviction, meaning both a summary offence regardless of the offender's age and an indictable offence where the person was dealt with as a child, runs for 5 years on the same basis.

These figures coincidentally match the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914's 10 year and 5 year periods, covered on Spent Convictions in Australia, but the axis is different. The Commonwealth's split is indictable versus summary offences. Queensland's split is adult-indictable versus everything else, so a juvenile convicted on indictment lands in the shorter 5 year bucket alongside an adult's summary conviction, not in the 10 year bucket. The Act itself does not set a separate, distinct juvenile-specific period beyond this fold-in; the broader confidentiality regime for a young person's own findings of guilt sits in the separate Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld), which was not examined for this article and is worth a reader's own check for juvenile-specific questions.

What Rehabilitation Means, and the Offence

Once a rehabilitation period expires, section 6 prevents anyone who knows the period has expired from disclosing the conviction, subject to listed exceptions at section 7: law reports, academic or historical use, statutorily mandated reports, Public Records Act functions, and court or tribunal records; police-service internal use and dissemination is separately unrestricted under section 7(2). It is also lawful to deny a rehabilitated conviction, under oath or otherwise (s8), and evidence is not admissible to show that denial false. A person assessing someone's fitness for a profession or occupation must disregard an expired conviction under section 9, except where an assessment feeds into a court proceeding or the Parole Board Queensland (s9(2)).

Section 12 makes any contravention of the Act an offence, in practice overwhelmingly the section 6 non-disclosure duty, carrying a maximum penalty of 100 penalty units. Queensland's current penalty unit value is $172.70, set under section 4 of the Penalties and Sentences Regulation 2025 and current as at 1 July 2026, an annual CPI-style indexation under section 5A of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992. On that figure, the maximum fine for a section 12 offence, as of 1 July 2026, is $17,270; because the value re-indexes each year, the dollar figure should be re-derived at the time of publication rather than treated as fixed.

Where a Rehabilitation Period Still Gives Way

Section 9A, "Disclosure of particulars in special cases," is the Act's own built-in exceptions table, independent of and narrower than the Working with Children Check Act override below. Applicants for the listed positions must disclose criminal history even during the rehabilitation period, including police and corrective services officers (any contravention), Justices of the Peace, casino licensees, teachers and school staff (limited to specified Criminal Code chapters, Drugs Misuse Act offences, or sexual-assault-type offences, not a blanket disclosure duty), people registered or approved under the Child Protection Act 1999, security providers, adult entertainment and liquor licence holders, DPP office staff, political candidates for state or local government office, and applicants for legal admission or a practising certificate.

The Working with Children Check, Queensland's Blue Card, is a separate override entirely, under the Working with Children Check Act 2000, and is not re-explained here; see the dedicated page for how Blue Card screening works. Firearms licensing runs on a third, and in places broader, override under the Weapons Act 1990: an authorised officer deciding fitness for a general firearm licence must consider a conviction for a relevant offence "including a conviction that is a spent conviction," and any charge, including one withdrawn or discharged (s10B), with automatic disqualification windows of 10 years for a serious class A or B offence and 5 years for a class C offence; the same applies to a licensed dealer's associate (s10C). A Firearm Prohibition Order, by contrast, reaches even further under s141D, expressly disapplying several sections of this Act to capture a spent conviction, an unrecorded conviction, or even a mere withdrawn charge, the broadest override found in this research. One narrower provision runs the other way: the "appropriate person" test for a shooting club (s93(3)) defines criminal history as excluding a spent conviction specifically, so a reader should not generalise that firearms law always overrides spent-conviction protection in Queensland; it depends on the specific provision.

Health practitioner registration is also a separate override, not limited to Blue Card: under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act 2009 (Qld), an applicant must disclose their criminal history and authorise the relevant Board to obtain it, and section 77(4) states plainly that a law like this Act, which prevents disclosure of a spent conviction, does not apply to that disclosure requirement. Court and civil proceedings are covered by the Act's own built-in limit at section 5(3), letting a court admit a rehabilitated conviction where it is relevant to an issue or the court grants permission, rather than by a separate override.

How This Interacts With a National Police Check

See National Police Checks in Australia for general check mechanics, not re-derived here. Within Queensland, what a standard check will or will not disclose about a Queensland conviction follows the section 6, section 7 and section 9A framework described above. This is a reasoned reading of the Act's own text rather than an independent confirmation against a Queensland Police Service or national police checking service policy document, which could not be reached this session; treat the mechanism as confirmed and the specific claim of exactly how it flows through onto a printed certificate as reasonable but not independently verified.

Anti-Discrimination Protection

The Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld) lists its full set of protected attributes at section 7: sex, relationship status, pregnancy, parental status, breastfeeding, age, race, impairment, religious belief or activity, political belief or activity, trade union activity, sex work activity, gender identity, sexuality, sex characteristics, family responsibilities, and association with a person having any of those. Criminal record, irrelevant criminal record and spent conviction are not among them, confirmed both by reading section 7 directly and by a full-text search of the entire Act for any variant of those terms, which returned no substantive result. A broader review of the Act has reportedly recommended adding an "irrelevant criminal record" attribute, but that claim rests on a search result characterisation rather than a primary document opened this session, and should be treated as unconfirmed rather than a settled reform.

Recent Reforms

No dedicated review or reform bill for the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 itself was found this session.

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

Related reading: Spent Convictions in Australia, National Police Checks in Australia, Criminal Record and Employment Rights in Australia, the Blue Card in Queensland, and Spent Convictions in New South Wales.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long until a conviction is spent in Queensland?

The Act uses the term "rehabilitation period" rather than "spent." That period is 10 years for an indictable conviction handled as an adult, or 5 years for every other conviction, including a juvenile dealt with on indictment, under section 3(1) of the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986. It runs automatically once it applies, with no application needed.

Does a Queensland conviction with a long sentence ever get a rehabilitation period?

Only if no prison term was imposed, or the prison term imposed was 30 months or less, under section 3(2)(b). What counts is the term imposed, not time actually served, so even a fully suspended sentence longer than 30 months puts the conviction outside the scheme entirely, under section 3(2A).

Does Queensland's 10 year and 5 year split work the same way as the Commonwealth's?

The numbers match, but the split runs on a different axis. The Commonwealth's split is indictable versus summary offences. Queensland's split is adult-indictable versus everything else, which means a juvenile convicted on indictment gets the shorter 5 year period, the same bucket as an adult's summary conviction, not the longer 10 year period.

Does a spent conviction affect a Working with Children Check (Blue Card) in Queensland?

Yes, for disqualifying offences. The Working with Children Check Act 2000 overrides the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 for Blue Card screening purposes. See the dedicated Blue Card Queensland page for how that screening works.

What happens if someone unlawfully discloses a rehabilitated conviction in Queensland?

It is an offence under section 12 of the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986, carrying a maximum penalty of 100 penalty units. At the value in force as at 1 July 2026, $172.70 per unit, that is a maximum fine of $17,270; the figure re-indexes annually.

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

No. A full-text search of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991's protected attributes at section 7, and of the Act as a whole, found no criminal record, spent conviction, or irrelevant criminal record ground.