The Michigan State Police criminal history records page explains that a check is done either by name or by fingerprints, and that fingerprints are used only when a state or federal statute, executive order or rule requires them. The name route is ICHAT, the Internet Criminal History Access Tool, which searches public record information held by the Criminal Justice Information Center. Law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and courts in all 83 counties must report every felony and every serious misdemeanor punishable by more than 93 days, so that is what ICHAT holds. It does not hold suppressed records, warrant information, federal or tribal records, traffic matters, juvenile cases, local misdemeanors or anything from another state.
The fingerprint route returns a different document. The page on what remains on a record says a personal records check with prints and a $30 fee returns all criminal history information tied to those prints, both public and nonpublic, while ICHAT shows only the public portion for $10 a search paid at checkout. A person who wants to know what an employer with statutory authority would see therefore needs the fingerprint version. Arrests held only by a local police department or a district court, and not reported to the center, show up in neither, which is where the Michigan county pages and the Michigan court records guide come in.
- $10 per ICHAT search: the public name based check, paid at checkout, covering felonies and misdemeanors over 93 days reported from all 83 counties, without warrants, suppressed records, traffic, juvenile or out of state entries.
- $30 with fingerprints: the complete personal record, public and nonpublic, mailed only to the person printed, three to five weeks after the RI-008 card and check reach Lansing, with $1 for each extra certified original.
- Seven years or ten, automatically: since April 11, 2023 eligible misdemeanors are set aside seven years after sentencing and up to two felonies ten years after sentencing or release, through a daily state police process with no application.
- Prints destroyed after an acquittal: MCL 28.243 requires the arrest card and biometric data to be destroyed after a not guilty verdict, a dismissal or a nolle prosequi, and form MC 235 compels it when an agency has not.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Michigan's own systems: the Michigan State Police criminal history records page, the state police page on searching, expunging, modifying or updating criminal history records, the state police conviction set aside public information page, the Michigan Clean Slate page with the automatic set aside criteria, the state police page on finding out what remains on a record, the Attorney General's expungement assistance page, form MC 235, the motion for destruction of biometric data and arrest record, the Department of Corrections Offender Tracking Information System search, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Getting the full file with fingerprints
The procedures page walks through a personal records check, the same route used for visas, immigration and adoption. A Michigan resident asks a local law enforcement agency to be printed on a Michigan Applicant Fingerprint Card, form RI-008, after calling to confirm when the agency prints applicants; the agency may roll the prints on a live scan machine but cannot transmit them, so it hands over a printed card. A non resident uses an FBI FD-258 card from any agency in the home state and writes the reason, such as personal record review, in the block provided.
The card, a cover letter with a return address, phone or email, and a $30 money order or check payable to the State of Michigan go to the Michigan State Police CJIC unit at P.O. Box 30266 in Lansing, zip code 48909-7766. One certified, notarized original comes back in three to five weeks, each extra original costs $1, and the center will mail the result to nobody but the person printed, even on request. A national check for the same purposes goes directly to the FBI with its own card and fee.
Employer checks and the end of name change prints
When a statute requires fingerprints for a job or license, the applicant gets form RI-030 from the employer or licensing agency, completes sections II and IV, and visits an approved live scan vendor, which collects the state and FBI search fees plus its own service charge; some sheriffs and police departments also run live scan. Results return to the requesting employer or agency within seven business days or less. One fingerprint requirement disappeared recently: effective April 2, 2025, fingerprint based checks are no longer required or allowed for a petition to change a name, and the $42 state police processing fee that went with them applies only to petitions filed on or before April 1, 2025, which the courts still process the old way. The Michigan background check guide lists the statutes that still demand prints.
Fingerprints that must be destroyed
MCL 28.243 requires the arresting agency and the state police to destroy biometric data and the arrest card when a case ends in a finding of not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, a dismissal or a nolle prosequi. When that has not happened, or when the state police kept the record because of a prior conviction under subsection 14, the person files form MC 235, a motion for destruction of biometric data and arrest record, which a judge signs and which is then faxed to 517-241-0866 or mailed to the center.
The form itself notes that it is not for use with a set aside under MCL 780.621, and the procedures page lists the dismissals that do not qualify at all: cases dismissed under the controlled substance deferral in MCL 333.7411, the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, the spouse abuse deferral, parental kidnapping, drug, veterans and mental health treatment court statutes, and practicing under the influence. For a record that is simply wrong, the fix comes from whichever agency reported it: the arresting agency for an arrest segment, the prosecutor for a charge segment, the court for the judicial segment, with the state police verifying any change that comes from anyone else.
Automatic set asides since April 2023
Public Act 193 of 2020 took effect April 11, 2021 and gave the state police two years to rebuild the criminal history database; the automatic process began April 11, 2023 and now notifies every court daily by secure file transfer of the convictions it has cleared. The Clean Slate page sets the criteria. Misdemeanors punishable by less than 93 days are set aside with no limit on number seven years after sentencing, those punishable by 93 days or more up to four of them after seven years, and felonies up to two after ten years from sentencing or from completion of any prison term, whichever is later.
Nothing is cleared while charges are pending in the state database, and a new conviction during the waiting period restarts it. Assaultive crimes, serious misdemeanors, crimes of dishonesty, any offense punishable by ten or more years, offenses involving a minor, a vulnerable adult, injury or death, human trafficking, any operating while intoxicated conviction, commercial driver offenses and traffic offenses causing injury or death never clear automatically.
A conviction set aside in error must be reinstated by the court on its own motion, and one with unpaid restitution can be reinstated if the person has not tried in good faith to pay. A 92 day misdemeanor that was never fingerprinted and lives only in the court's own system is set aside by that court after seven years.
Applying to the court for a set aside
Convictions outside the automatic rules can still be cleared by application, filed in the court where the conviction occurred with a separate application for each court. The Attorney General's expungement assistance page gives the limits: up to three felonies in a lifetime, unlimited misdemeanors, no more than two assaultive crimes, only one felony punishable by ten years or more, and waiting periods of seven years for multiple felonies, five for a single felony or certain serious misdemeanors and three for most other misdemeanors.
A first operating while intoxicated conviction without injury or death can be set aside after five years, and a marijuana misdemeanor for conduct that is legal since 2018 goes through a shortened process in which the prosecutor must answer within 60 days or the court orders the set aside within 21 days. The applicant checks ICHAT first, obtains a certified judgment of sentence or register of actions from the court, is printed on an RI-008 card, files form MC 227 signed before a notary, and mails copies with a $50 fee and the card to the state police, which allows eight weeks and sends its report to the court, the prosecutor, the Attorney General and the applicant; there is no state police fee for a juvenile set aside.
The Attorney General's response may take up to three months after the report arrives. A set aside removes the conviction from public view, including ICHAT, though law enforcement and some licensing boards can still see it, and the Michigan criminal records guide covers what stays.
Prison, parole and the three year window
The Department of Corrections Offender Tracking Information System covers prisoners, parolees and probationers under supervision and people discharged within the past three years; beyond that window a name returns nothing, which is a useful reminder that an empty OTIS result says nothing about an older conviction. The search takes a name, an offender number, sex, race, age, status and even marks, scars and tattoos, and the department fields questions at 517-335-1426.
A person in a county jail before trial or on a short sentence is on the sheriff's roster instead, so the Michigan inmate search guide covers the county systems beside OTIS, and the Michigan sex offender registry guide covers the separate public registry the state police maintain.
Questions about Michigan arrest records
Related Michigan records
Michigan readers can continue with the Michigan criminal records guide for conviction files, the Michigan court records guide for the district and circuit clerks, the Michigan background check guide for live scan employer checks, the Michigan public records law guide for Freedom of Information Act requests to police departments, and the Michigan county pages for every sheriff and jail.