Excess high voltage stress‐induced low‐level leakage currents through thin silicon oxides, previously described as dc currents, are shown to decay to zero given adequate observation time and, thus, have no dc component. The amount of increase in the low‐level pretunneling current through a thin oxide is shown to be dependent on the voltage sweep rate used to make the measurement. A model is presented which describes the excess low‐level leakage currents in terms of the charging and discharging of traps previously generated by the high voltage stresses. Energy band diagrams are used to illustrate the model.