Jobs for Felons in Louisiana

For state jobs covered by the law, a Louisiana state employer cannot ask about your criminal history, including on the application, until you have had a chance to interview, or until a conditional job offer if there is no interview. It can still consider your record in the final decision. Law enforcement, corrections, and jobs where a law requires a background check are exceptions.

We found no ban-the-box law for private employers in Louisiana.

When making a hiring decision, a Louisiana employer cannot ask about or consider an arrest or charge that did not end in a conviction, if it comes up in a background check, unless another law allows it.

For a conviction, the employer must make an individual assessment of whether your record has a direct and adverse relationship to the specific duties of the job. It must look at how serious the offense was, how long ago it was, and the job itself. The law does not name a penalty or an agency that enforces it, so it works best as something you can point to.

Ask in writing, and the employer must give you any background check information it used in the hiring process. If something on it is wrong, that is how you find out.

If you complete a reentry court program, the judge issues a certificate of employability. An employer who hires someone with the certificate cannot be sued for negligent hiring just because of the past conviction. That is a real selling point for an employer. The certificate is void if you are convicted of a new felony. Only reentry court participants qualify.

Under federal law, a background check company can report a conviction no matter how old it is. Arrests that did not lead to a conviction generally drop off after seven years (the limit does not apply to jobs paying $75,000 a year or more). We found no Louisiana law that shortens that for convictions.

Generally you can expunge a felony conviction 10 years after you finish your sentence, probation or parole, with no new conviction in those 10 years and no pending charges. You can file sooner if your conviction was set aside under Article 893 or you qualify for a first offender pardon (not for violent or sex offenses).

Felonies that cannot be expunged include crimes of violence, sex offenses and offenses against minors, domestic abuse battery, and most drug distribution offenses. Drug possession and some other drug offenses can be. A few violent offenses, such as second degree battery and simple robbery, can be expunged after 10 years, after a court hearing.

A misdemeanor can be expunged 5 years after you finish your sentence, with no felony conviction in that time and no pending felony charge. First-offense marijuana possession can be expunged 90 days after conviction. Domestic abuse battery, stalking and sex-offense misdemeanors cannot be expunged.

The total cost to get an expungement order is capped at $550 (processing fees to the State Police, sheriff, district attorney and clerk). Fees are waived in some cases, such as an arrest that ended in acquittal or was not prosecuted, if you have no felony convictions and no pending felony charges.

A 2026 law (Act 129, effective August 1, 2026) is about paperwork, not who qualifies. When you file a motion to expunge arrest information, you must also send the State Police Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information four documents: a background check from the State Police or a sheriff's office dated within 60 days of filing, a certification letter from the district attorney, court minutes showing how the case ended, and the charging document (bill of information, indictment or affidavit).

It does not change waiting periods or costs. Gather these before you file, and use the current court forms.

After an expungement you generally do not have to tell an employer about the arrest or conviction. But in Louisiana an expunged record is not erased. It can still be released, confidentially, to certain licensing boards (medical, nursing, pharmacy, insurance, financial institutions and others), to some employers that check under state law, and to law enforcement. If you are going into health care or caregiving, talk to legal aid before you answer.

A Louisiana licensing board cannot deny you “solely or partly” because of a record unless the conviction directly relates to the job. It must weigh how serious the offense was, the time that has passed, the circumstances, and your rehabilitation. Boards cannot use vague terms like “moral turpitude” or “good character.”

Health care jobs without a license, such as aides, direct care workers, and home health and hospice staff, require a state criminal history check, and some convictions bar hiring. A pardon or expungement lifts that bar.

A 2026 law (Act 802, signed June 9, 2026) helps in two ways. A pending arrest, an unresolved record match, or a nonviolent misdemeanor not on the banned list does not by itself stop temporary or conditional hiring while the check is finished. And cafeteria, maintenance, janitorial and grounds jobs that do not involve direct care are not covered by these checks.

Starting August 1, 2026 (Act 785), the Department of Public Safety and Corrections must work with the Office of Motor Vehicles, starting up to nine months before release, so that a person leaving a state prison after a felony sentence gets a special state ID card if they have no current ID or license, plus documents to help get a job. This covers state facilities, not parish jails.

Federal EEOC guidance from 2012 warns employers that blanket “no felons” policies can violate Title VII, but since April 2025 a federal executive order has told agencies to deprioritize this kind of case. In Louisiana, your state-law tools are the arrest and individual-assessment rules, a copy of the check, expungement, and the licensing rules.