The First Step Act: Earned Time Credits Explained

The three mechanisms, side by side

Read this table first. Almost every mistake people make about federal sentence computation comes from collapsing these three rows into one.

Sources: 18 U.S.C. § 3624, § 3632, § 3621, and 28 C.F.R. § 550.55.

The practical consequence of three separate statutes is three separate exclusion lists. A person can qualify for one of these and be barred from another on the same conviction. That happens constantly, and the most common version of it is described below.

What the First Step Act actually did

The First Step Act was signed on December 21, 2018 as Public Law 115-391. Most coverage of it concerns sentencing changes that apply at the front end, in front of a judge. For someone who is already sentenced, three provisions do the work.

It amended 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) so that good conduct time is calculated against the sentence imposed rather than the sentence served. BOP's own illustration: a person sentenced to 10 years who earns the maximum each year earns 540 days of credit. That change took effect July 19, 2019 and is retroactive.

It created earned time credits at 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), a currency you accumulate by completing assigned programming, which is then spent on getting out of secure custody sooner.

And it amended 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) to direct BOP to place a person "as close as practicable to the prisoner's primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence." That sentence is frequently quoted as a 500-mile guarantee. It is not. The statute makes the placement expressly subject to bed availability, security designation, programmatic needs, medical and mental health needs, faith-based requests, recommendations of the sentencing court, and BOP's own security concerns. The same subsection closes by providing that a designation of a place of imprisonment "is not reviewable by any court." Background on the legislation is collected at BOP's First Step Act overview and on Prisonpedia's First Step Act entry.

Who can earn credits, and who is statutorily excluded

BOP states the earning test in three parts. A person is eligible to earn time credits if they were convicted of a federal offense, were not convicted of a disqualifying offense, and are at an institution and not in disciplinary segregation.

The disqualifying offenses are not a vague category. They are enumerated at 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D) in 68 separate clauses, running from (i) through (lxviii), and they reach across Titles 8, 18, 21, 42, 49 and 50. The families are violent offenses, terrorism and national security offenses, sex offenses and child exploitation, certain firearms offenses including 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), certain immigration offenses, and drug offenses where the sentencing court made a specific finding that the defendant was an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor.

BOP publishes a quick-reference table of disqualifying offenses organized by Title, and it is the fastest way to check a specific statute of conviction against the list. BOP attaches its own caveat to that table: the official source is the statute itself.

The firearm count is the trap

A single firearms count can take out both programs through two different doors. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) is on the First Step Act exclusion list. Separately, 28 C.F.R. § 550.55(b)(5)(ii) bars the RDAP reduction for any current felony conviction "that involved the carrying, possession, or use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon or explosives." Those are different rules in different bodies of law that happen to catch the same defendant. This is exactly the kind of detail that should be read off the judgment and the statute of conviction rather than assumed, and it is one reason the presentence investigation matters so much: the record built there follows a person into every one of these calculations.

Bars that people do not see coming

• A final order of removal. Someone subject to a final order of removal under the immigration laws may still earn credits, but will not be considered for prerelease custody in the community. Earning and applying are two different things.
• D.C. Code offenders. Per BOP, D.C. Code offenders are not allowed to have credits applied to early transfer to community confinement or supervised release.
• Time out of earning status. Placement in a special housing unit, a designation status outside the institution, temporary transfer to the custody of another federal or non-federal agency, a mental health or psychiatric hold, or opting out all stop the accrual.

People who cannot earn credits are not shut out of programming. BOP notes they can still earn other incentives, including increased phone and visitation privileges. The full set of BOP's answers is on its First Step Act FAQ.

How credits are earned

The rate is set by statute, and it is worth stating precisely because it is misquoted often. Under § 3632(d)(4)(A)(i), a person earns 10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities. Under clause (ii), a person "determined by the Bureau of Prisons to be at a minimum or low risk for recidivating, who, over 2 consecutive assessments, has not increased their risk of recidivism," earns an additional 5 days per 30 days.

The two-assessment condition is the part that gets dropped. Being rated low risk today does not by itself produce the 15-day rate. Sustaining it does.

BOP's own policy draws the line that resolves most of the confusion in this area: "the eligibility to earn FTCs is distinct from the ability to apply/use FTCs." Someone can be accumulating credits for years and still not be in a position to spend them.

When the clock starts

Credits cannot be earned during pretrial confinement, cannot be based on a prior incarceration, and cannot be earned in U.S. Marshals Service custody regardless of where the person is being housed. BOP is explicit that the sentence, and therefore the ability to accrue credits, begins when the person arrives or voluntarily surrenders at the designated facility. For anyone weighing that timing, the mechanics of reporting are covered in the self-surrender timeline.

There are also two dates in the program's own history that still affect current calculations. Credits may only be earned for programming completed on or after January 15, 2020. For the window between December 21, 2018 and January 14, 2020, eligible people are given a presumption of participation and awarded credits, excluding any period in a special housing unit, outside their home institution, or spent refusing mandatory programming.

PATTERN, and losing credits

PATTERN is the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs, the risk assessment BOP staff use to score recidivism risk. It produces one of four levels: minimum, low, medium or high. It is reassessed periodically, and the level at reassessment governs whether credits can be applied at all.

Credits can also be lost, for misconduct or for violating the rules of an assigned program. They can be restored case by case after clear conduct, defined by BOP as no disciplinary infractions across two consecutive risk and needs assessments. If restoration is denied, a person may reapply six months from the date of the denial if clear conduct is maintained.

How credits are applied, and why the order matters

Earned time credits do not tick a release date down day by day as they accumulate. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(1)(A), the subsection applies once a person has earned credits "in an amount that is equal to the remainder of the prisoner's imposed term of imprisonment." Until that point, the credits are a projection.

When they are applied, they are applied in a fixed order. The Sentencing Commission states it directly: BOP first applies up to one year of credits toward early transfer to supervised release, for people whose sentence included a term of supervised release. Second, BOP applies any remaining credits toward early transfer to prerelease custody. The 12-month ceiling on the first bucket comes from § 3624(g)(3). The second bucket has no statutory ceiling.

The two buckets also have different risk gates, which is easy to miss. Early transfer to supervised release requires minimum or low risk at the last reassessment. Early transfer to prerelease custody requires minimum or low risk through the last two reassessments. Medium and high risk are not automatically out: § 3624(g)(1)(D)(i)(II) allows the warden to approve a petition after finding the person would not be a danger to society, has made a good faith effort to lower their recidivism risk, and is unlikely to recidivate.

What this produces in practice is measurable. The Sentencing Commission's March 2026 data snapshot covers 18,084 people released from BOP custody in calendar year 2024 after earning and applying credits. Of the 17,894 with complete data, the average was 12 months of credits earned, about 17 percent of the imposed sentence, with 8 months on average going to early transfer to supervised release. The 6,337 people who earned toward both buckets averaged 24 months of credits, about 20 percent of the imposed sentence.

The release pathways in that same cohort are worth holding onto, because they contradict a common claim that credits never produce release from prison itself. Of the 18,084, 38 percent were released from secure custody directly onto supervised release. Another 37 percent were released from home confinement and 25 percent from a Residential Reentry Center. BOP's policy detail on the calculation, which is fully automated on 30-day periods in earning status, is in Program Statement 5410.01 CN-2.

Halfway house and home confinement

This is where the confusion costs people real months, because there are two entirely different sets of rules governing placement into a halfway house or home confinement, and most published summaries blend them into one.

The older authority is 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c), the Second Chance Act framework. Under § 3624(c)(1), BOP is to ensure a portion of the final months of a term, "not to exceed 12 months," is served under conditions that help a person prepare for reentry. Under § 3624(c)(2), the home confinement authority in that subsection can be used "for the shorter of 10 percent of the term of imprisonment of that prisoner or 6 months." Those are two different caps on two different placements. They are not one blended 12-months-or-10-percent rule, and writing them as one is a common error.

First Step Act prerelease custody is a different animal, and the statute says so in one sentence that almost nobody quotes. 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(10), titled "Time limits inapplicable," reads in full: "The time limits under subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to prerelease custody under this subsection." The Second Chance Act caps do not constrain prerelease custody funded by earned time credits. The mechanics of the older authority are covered separately in our Second Chance Act guide.

Placement into First Step Act home confinement carries its own conditions. Under § 3624(g)(2)(A)(i), a person is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and must remain in their residence except for approved absences, which the statute enumerates: work or job-seeking, assigned programming, community service, crime victim restoration, medical treatment, religious activities, and family events such as a funeral, a wedding, or visiting a seriously ill family member. Under § 3624(g)(2)(A)(iv), a person placed in home confinement "shall remain in home confinement until the prisoner has served not less than 85 percent" of the imposed term.

RDAP is not part of the First Step Act

BOP answers this in one sentence on its own FAQ: "The BOP's RDAP was not changed by the FSA." The two are routinely discussed together because both can shorten time in custody, but the Residential Drug Abuse Program predates the First Step Act and runs on separate authority.

The incentive comes from 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(2)(B), which says the period a person convicted of a nonviolent offense remains in custody after successfully completing a treatment program "may be reduced by the Bureau of Prisons, but such reduction may not be more than one year from the term the prisoner must otherwise serve." Two words in that sentence do a lot of work. "May" means discretionary. "Not more than one year" is a ceiling, not an entitlement, and 28 C.F.R. § 550.55(c)(2) authorizes BOP to limit the timeframe based on the length of the sentence imposed.

The program itself has three mandatory components under 28 C.F.R. § 550.53: a unit-based component lasting at least six months in a treatment unit set apart from the general population, follow-up services, and Community Treatment Services in the community. All three must be completed to receive the incentive. BOP describes RDAP as typically nine months in duration, with participants living separately from general population and doing half-day programming plus half-day work, school or vocational activity. Admission requires a verifiable substance use disorder, a signed program-responsibility agreement, and enough time remaining to complete all three components.

RDAP's exclusion list at 28 C.F.R. § 550.55(b) is a completely different list from the First Step Act's, and reading one as a proxy for the other is the most consequential mistake in this area. It bars ICE detainees, pretrial inmates and contractual boarders; anyone with a prior felony or misdemeanor conviction in the ten years before sentencing for homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, kidnapping, or an offense involving sexual abuse of minors; anyone with a current felony that has as an element the actual, attempted or threatened use of physical force, or that involved a firearm, dangerous weapon or explosives, or that by its nature presents a serious potential risk of physical force, or that involves sexual abuse of minors; attempt, conspiracy or solicitation of those offenses; and anyone who has previously received a § 3621(e) reduction.

Sam Mangel's full breakdown of the program, including what the interview is actually like, is on the RDAP page. The neutral record of the program is on Prisonpedia.

One note for women and the people supporting them. The eligible population is not evenly distributed by gender: in the Sentencing Commission's 2024 release cohort, women were 20 percent of those who earned and applied credits and 6 percent of the statutorily ineligible group. RDAP capacity, unit structure and designation options differ meaningfully at women's facilities. As an additional resource alongside the above, Women's Federal Prison covers RDAP and First Step Act credits from that angle.

What this looks like on a real sentence

A worked illustration, with every figure traced to the statute. This is not a projection of anyone's release date. BOP computes each sentence individually, and the credit calculation depends on how many 30-day periods a person is actually in earning status.

Take a 60-month sentence for wire fraud, with a term of supervised release to follow, no firearm count, and a PATTERN rating of low that holds across assessments.

• Good conduct time. The term exceeds one year, so § 3624(b)(1) applies at up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed. Across five years that is up to 270 days. It is conditioned on BOP finding exemplary compliance each year, and BOP may award less or none for a year in which regulations were not satisfactorily complied with.
• Earned time credits. Wire fraud is not on the § 3632(d)(4)(D) list, so credits can be earned. At the sustained low-risk rate of 15 days per 30 days in earning status, a year of continuous participation yields roughly 182 days. Up to 12 months of whatever accumulates goes to early transfer to supervised release; anything beyond that goes to prerelease custody with no statutory cap.
• RDAP. Only if there is a verifiable substance use disorder. Wire fraud with no firearm count clears the § 550.55(b) bars, so the reduction of up to one year is available at BOP's discretion, once, and only after all three components including community treatment are complete.
• The order. Good conduct time is applied to the projected release date first. The § 3621(e) reduction, if any, comes next. Credits are applied last, supervised release bucket before prerelease custody bucket, and reduced if necessary to preserve RDAP's 120-day community placement.

Now the counterexample, because it comes up constantly and it is the one nobody publishes. On a sentence of 10 months, good conduct time is zero. Not reduced, not prorated. Section 3624(b)(1) is available only to a person "serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year." Earned time credits can still be earned on a short sentence, but there may be very little runway to accumulate and apply them before the term ends. Short sentences and long sentences behave differently under these rules, and assuming the familiar "15 percent off" applies to a sub-year sentence produces a badly wrong expectation.

Frequently Asked Questions