How Long Does a Federal Appeal Take?

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

How long does a federal appeal take?

About a year, and often longer. Across the twelve regional circuits, the median time from filing the notice of appeal to the last opinion or final order was 10.2 months for appeals terminated on the merits in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025 — with circuit medians ranging from 5.3 months to 15.2 months. Add the mandate and any rehearing petition on top of that.

Key takeaways on how long an appeal takes

• The national median is 10.2 months from notice of appeal to final order — AO Table B-4A, 12 months ending September 30, 2025.
• Your circuit matters: the Eighth Circuit’s median is 5.3 months; the First Circuit’s is 15.2 months.
• Transcript production is the longest single delay, and it happens before any briefing clock starts.
• The appellant’s brief is due 40 days after the record is filed — not after the notice of appeal (Fed. R. App. P. 31(a)(1)).
• Most appeals are decided without oral argument — 13,752 of 18,608 merits terminations were submitted on the briefs.
• The case is not over at the decision: the mandate issues 7 days after the rehearing window closes (Fed. R. App. P. 41(b)).

Stage-by-stage timing, with the published data

This is the table to keep. Deadlines come from the Federal Rules; durations come from the Administrative Office, with the measured period named.

Stage	Governing rule or source	Time	What actually drives it
Notice of appeal	Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A)	14 days from entry of judgment	Fixed. Extendable up to 30 more days for excusable neglect under Rule 4(b)(4)
Transcript order	Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(1)	14 days after the notice of appeal	Fixed
Transcript production	Court reporter’s schedule	Weeks to many months	Trial length, reporter workload, extensions. The single longest delay, and it is invisible on the docket
Record filed	Fed. R. App. P. 11	On completion of the transcript	Gates everything downstream
Appellant’s brief	Fed. R. App. P. 31(a)(1)	40 days after the record is filed	Extensions routinely granted
Government’s brief	Rule 31(a)(1)	30 days after service of appellant’s brief	Extensions common
Reply brief	Rule 31(a)(1)	21 days after service, and at least 7 days before argument	Optional
Notice of appeal → appellee’s last brief	AO Table B-4A	Median 6.0 months	Measured, 12 months ending 9/30/2025
Last brief → argument or submission	AO Table B-4A	Median 4.1 months	Calendar congestion
Argument → decision	AO Table B-4A	Median 2.9 months	For the 4,856 argued cases
Submission on briefs → decision	AO Table B-4A	Median 0.3 months	For the 13,752 submitted cases
Notice of appeal → final order	AO Table B-4A	Median 10.2 months	The headline figure
Filing in district court → appellate final order	AO Table B-4A	Median 33.6 months	The whole case, trial court through appeal
Mandate	Fed. R. App. P. 41(b)	7 days after the rehearing window closes or a timely petition is denied	Adds weeks
Rehearing petition	Fed. R. App. P. 40(d)(1)	14 days after judgment, in a criminal case	Optional; pauses the mandate
Certiorari petition	Sup. Ct. R. 13.1	90 days after entry of judgment	Optional

All AO figures: Table B-4A, U.S. Courts of Appeals, median time intervals for cases terminated on the merits, 12-month period ending September 30, 2025. These are all-case medians across civil and criminal appeals, not criminal-only figures.

Two rows deserve a second look.

The 0.3-month median from submission to decision looks impossibly fast until you notice what it measures: cases decided on the briefs without argument, many by short unpublished order. Once such a case reaches the panel, resolution is quick. Nearly all the elapsed time in an appeal happens before that point.

The 33.6-month median from district court filing to appellate final order is the number worth showing a family. Nearly three years, start to finish, is the ordinary shape of a federal case that goes to trial and is appealed.

Median time by circuit

Where the case was charged affects how long the appeal takes, sometimes by ten months.

Circuit	Median months: notice of appeal → final order	Appeals terminated on the merits	Median months: district court filing → appellate final order
All circuits	10.2	18,608	33.6
Eighth	5.3	1,635	27.1
Fifth	8.9	2,616	28.9
Third	9.5	1,190	41.7
Sixth	9.5	1,690	34.9
Fourth	9.7	2,024	34.2
Eleventh	10.4	1,925	32.9
Tenth	10.8	880	30.5
D.C.	11.0	461	36.2
Seventh	11.0	897	43.2
Ninth	12.0	3,344	32.0
Second	12.6	1,501	40.7
First	15.2	445	41.4

Source: AO Table B-4A, 12-month period ending September 30, 2025. All appeals terminated on the merits. Table B-4A excludes the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has no general criminal docket.

Note that the two columns do not track each other. The Seventh Circuit’s appellate median is close to the national average at 11.0 months, but its end-to-end median is the longest on the table at 43.2 months — because most of that time was spent in the district court, not on appeal. The Eighth Circuit is fastest on both measures.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: When a client asks how long the appeal will take, the honest answer has two halves. The half that is knowable is the median for their circuit, and it is worth stating. The half that is not is the transcript — a three-week trial in a district with a backlogged reporter can add six months before a single brief is written, and no lawyer can predict that at the outset.

Why circuits differ so much

The ten-month spread between the fastest and slowest circuits is not random.

Caseload per judge. The 12 regional circuits carry 167 authorized judgeships and received 41,824 filings in fiscal year 2025 — roughly 751 filings per three-judge panel (Judicial Business 2025). That ratio varies substantially by circuit.

Case mix. A circuit with a heavy immigration docket has a different profile from one dominated by criminal appeals. In FY2025, 80% of administrative agency appeals were Board of Immigration Appeals decisions, and 65% of those were filed in the Ninth Circuit alone.

Argument rate. Circuits that hear argument in a larger share of cases have longer medians — argument adds a calendaring step and, per the AO data, a median of 2.9 months from argument to decision versus 0.3 months for submitted cases.

Screening practices. Circuits differ in how aggressively they route straightforward appeals to expedited non-argument calendars.

Volume of pro se filings. Half of all federal appellate filings in FY2025 were pro se (20,878 of 41,824), and those cases require screening work that shapes the whole docket.

What actually takes the longest: the transcript

If you take one operational fact from this page, take this one.

The appellant must order the transcript within 14 days of the notice of appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(1). After that, production is in the hands of the court reporter, and there is no deadline visible on the docket that tells a family what is happening.

Why it takes as long as it does:

• Volume. A three-week trial can run several thousand pages, and every word must be transcribed.
• Reporter workload. Court reporters cover ongoing trials while producing transcripts for closed ones. Active trials take priority.
• Extensions. Reporters routinely request and receive extensions, each one docketed as a routine administrative entry that looks like nothing.
• Sequencing. Pretrial hearings, trial, and sentencing may be transcribed separately and by different reporters.

Nothing downstream can begin until the record is complete, because the appellant’s brief is due 40 days after the record is filed — not after the notice of appeal. This is the mechanical reason a federal appeal appears to go silent for months after it starts.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The most common call this firm’s consulting side takes about appellate timing is some version of “nothing is happening.” It is usually the transcript, and the constructive response is a specific question to counsel: has the transcript been ordered, what has the reporter estimated, and have extensions been requested? Those three answers convert an anxious wait into a known one. Meanwhile, nothing about a pending appeal pauses BOP programming — RDAP, First Step Act credits, and placement decisions continue, and they should be pursued in parallel rather than deferred.

What a party can and cannot speed up

You can	You cannot
File the notice of appeal immediately rather than on day 14	Speed up the court reporter
Order the transcript the day the notice is filed	Control the government’s extension requests
Order only the portions you need — though see the caution below	Choose your panel or your circuit
Decline extensions of your own briefing deadlines	Make the court calendar argument sooner
Move to expedite where there is a real basis	Force a decision after submission
File a clean, compliant brief that does not draw a deficiency notice	Predict when the panel will rule

The transcript caution matters. Ordering less transcript is faster, but Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(2) requires that an appellant who intends to argue that a finding is unsupported by the evidence “must include in the record a transcript of all evidence relevant to that finding or conclusion.” Trading completeness for speed can forfeit the issue.

Extensions cut both ways. Each one your counsel requests adds weeks; each one you decline shortens the appeal but compresses the time available to write the brief that is the entire case. A rushed brief is a poor trade for six weeks.

Expedited appeals

Courts of appeals can and do expedite, but the grounds are narrow and the request has to be substantiated. Circumstances where expedition is realistically sought include:

• The sentence is short enough that ordinary timing would moot the appeal
• The appellant is detained on an interlocutory appeal that suspends the underlying case
• The appeal concerns release or detention, which 18 U.S.C. § 3145 directs “shall be determined promptly”
• A statutory scheme requires speed, as with the 72-hour timetable for crime-victim mandamus under 18 U.S.C. § 3771(d)(3)

The most powerful version of the first argument is the § 3143(b)(1)(iv) framing: where any likely reduced sentence would be shorter than time served plus the expected duration of the appeal, the delay is itself the harm. That argument supports both expedition and release pending appeal.

A motion to expedite has to be specific about what it is asking for. Courts can compress the briefing schedule, calendar argument early, or both, and a motion that identifies which of those would actually help — and why the compressed schedule is workable for counsel — is more likely to succeed than a general request for speed.

There is a trade-off worth naming. Expedition shortens the time available to write the brief, and on an appeal whose value lies in a carefully developed record argument, that can cost more than the months it saves. Expedition is most clearly worth seeking where the passage of time itself defeats the remedy. See appeal bond.

What happens to custody in the meantime

For most federal appellants, the answer is: nothing changes.

Release pending appeal is governed by 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b), which directs that a person convicted, sentenced to imprisonment, and appealing “be detained, unless” the court makes findings on both risk and the substantiality of the appeal. The presumption is detention, and most appellants serve their sentences while the appeal runs.

That is why the timeline on this page is not an abstraction. Ten months is ten months served, and the median from district court filing through appellate decision — 33.6 months — is nearly three years.

It is also why the parallel track matters. A pending appeal does not pause BOP designation, programming, First Step Act time credits, RDAP eligibility, or halfway house consideration. Those decisions are being made on their own schedule while the appeal is briefed, and treating the appeal as a reason to defer them costs real time that cannot be recovered if the appeal is unsuccessful.

The one circumstance in which the two tracks connect is a resentencing remand, where conduct since the original sentencing — programming completed, disciplinary record, work assignments — is ordinarily relevant. Building that record during the appeal is not merely prudent; it is the material a resentencing memorandum is made of.

After the decision: the appeal is not over

The median figures above run to the “last opinion or final order.” Several things can still follow.

The mandate. Under Fed. R. App. P. 41(b), the mandate “must issue 7 days after the time to file a petition for rehearing expires, or 7 days after entry of an order denying a timely petition for panel rehearing, petition for rehearing en banc, or motion for stay of mandate, whichever is later.” Jurisdiction does not return to the district court until it issues.

Rehearing. A criminal defendant’s petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc is due within 14 days after judgment is entered under Fed. R. App. P. 40(d)(1). Filing one pauses the mandate. Rule 40 now governs both forms — former Rule 35 was transferred into it by the 2024 amendment. See petition for rehearing.

Certiorari. A petition is due within 90 days after entry of judgment under Supreme Court Rule 13.1, and Rule 13.3 specifies that the time “runs from the date of entry of the judgment or order sought to be reviewed, and not from the issuance date of the mandate.” Add months. See certiorari petition.

Proceedings on remand. If the appeal succeeds, the case goes back to the district court for resentencing or retrial — which is a new proceeding on its own timeline. See what happens after an appeal is granted.

Realistically, a federal criminal case that is appealed, loses, and then proceeds to a § 2255 motion occupies several years. Understanding that at the start is better than discovering it in month eleven.

A realistic timeline, assembled

Putting the fixed deadlines and the measured medians together, here is what an ordinary federal criminal appeal looks like from the inside. The month markers are illustrative of a median case, not promises — a long trial or a busy reporter moves everything right.

When	What happens	Visible to the family?
Day 0	Judgment entered on the criminal docket	Yes
By day 14	Notice of appeal filed in the district court	Yes — a docket entry
By day 28	Transcript ordered; representation statement filed with the circuit clerk	Barely — routine entries
Months 1–6	Transcript production. Reporter extensions docketed as routine entries	No — this is the silent stretch
On completion	Record filed with the court of appeals	Yes
+40 days	Appellant’s brief due	Yes
+30 days	Government’s brief due	Yes
+21 days	Reply brief, if filed	Yes
Median month ~6	Appellee’s last brief filed (AO median 6.0 months from notice of appeal)	Yes
+~4 months	Argument held or case submitted on the briefs (AO median 4.1 months)	Yes if argued
+0.3 to 2.9 months	Decision issues — 0.3 months median if submitted, 2.9 if argued	Yes
~Month 10	Final order (AO median 10.2 months)	Yes
+14 days	Rehearing window under Rule 40(d)(1)	—
+7 days	Mandate issues under Rule 41(b); district court regains jurisdiction	Yes
+90 days from judgment	Certiorari deadline under Sup. Ct. R. 13.1	—

The column on the right is the one worth sharing with a family. Roughly half the elapsed time of a federal appeal produces no meaningful docket activity, and knowing that in advance prevents the months-four-through-six phone calls that assume something has gone wrong.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal appellate and post-conviction firm founded in 2019, with a national practice run on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record.

Because the firm handles appeals in every regional circuit, timing expectations are set against the circuit that will actually hear the case rather than against a national average.

Talk to a federal appeals attorney

If an appeal is pending and it feels like nothing is happening, the answer is usually knowable — and it is usually the transcript.

Schedule a consultation · Phone: (843) 620-1100 · Columbia office: 3710 Landmark Dr #113, Columbia, SC 29204

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. represents clients in federal courts nationwide as a federal appeals lawyer. Consultations are confidential.

Related guides on the appeal timeline

• Federal appeals lawyer — the hub: how a federal criminal appeal works end to end
• How to appeal a federal conviction — each stage in the timeline above, with its rule
• Federal appeals court — why circuit medians differ so much
• Grounds for appeal — what is worth the wait
• Standard of review appeal — what determines the outcome at the end of it
• Criminal appeals lawyer — what counsel is doing during the quiet months
• Interlocutory appeal — appeals that pause the case before judgment
• Anders brief — the filing that shortens the schedule, and why
• Preserving error for appeal — work that happens before the clock starts

Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Appeal Timelines

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026