First Step Act Time Credits

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

How do First Step Act time credits work?

Eligible federal prisoners earn ten days of credit for every thirty days of successful participation in approved programming, plus five more days per thirty if the Bureau assesses them at minimum or low risk and their risk has not increased over two consecutive assessments. Earning credits and being allowed to use them are separate questions governed by separate rules.

Key takeaways on First Step Act time credits

• The earning rate is set by 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(A): ten days per thirty, plus an additional five for people at minimum or low risk who have not increased their risk over two consecutive assessments. It is 10 + 5, not a “15-day rate.”
• Earning is not applying. A person can accumulate hundreds of days of credit and still be unable to use a single one, because 28 C.F.R. § 523.44 imposes separate conditions on application — including PATTERN risk level, resolved detainers, and immigration status.
• No more than 365 days of credit can move someone to supervised release early. Everything beyond that goes toward earlier prerelease custody — a halfway house or home confinement — under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g).
• Since 21 October 2025, BOP staff have been directed to use the FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD) — the time credit worksheet — as the anchor for classification and placement decisions. Ask your case manager for it by name.
• The Government Accountability Office found in February 2026 that BOP did not apply all earned time toward halfway-house or home-confinement placement for 21,190 of 29,934 people it reviewed. Earning the credit is not the same as receiving the benefit.
• Time credits and good conduct time are two different systems. A person disqualified from time credits by 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D) still earns up to 54 days a year of good conduct time.

What are First Step Act time credits?

First Step Act time credits — “FSA Time Credits,” or FTCs in Bureau shorthand — are days of credit a federal prisoner earns by participating in programming the Bureau has recommended for them. They were created by Section 101 of the First Step Act of 2018, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), and implemented by regulation at 28 C.F.R. Part 523, Subpart E.

They are not a sentence reduction in the ordinary sense. The sentence the judge imposed does not change. What changes is where the last stretch of that sentence is served, and — up to a hard limit — when supervision begins. 28 C.F.R. § 523.40(a) describes the subpart’s purpose as “the earning and application of Time Credits,” and § 523.40(b) says credits are “to be applied toward prerelease custody or early transfer to supervised release under 18 U.S.C. 3624(g).”

That distinction matters more than anything else on this page. Every serious dispute about time credits is a dispute about one of two things: how many days were earned, or whether the Bureau was required to apply them. Those questions have different answers, different rules, and different remedies.

Credits are earned for programming the Bureau recommended for you

The credit attaches to two categories of activity, both defined at 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(a)–(b):

An Evidence-Based Recidivism Reduction (EBRR) Program is “a group or individual activity that has been shown by empirical evidence to reduce recidivism or is based on research indicating that it is likely to be effective in reducing recidivism; and is designed to help prisoners succeed in their communities upon release from prison.”

A Productive Activity (PA) is “a group or individual activity that allows an inmate to remain productive and thereby maintain or work toward achieving a minimum or low risk of recidivating.”

BOP’s new program statement on the subject, PS 5405.01, First Step Act Assessments, Programming, and Incentives (7 May 2026) — an internal agency policy document, not law — lists thirteen categories of qualifying EBRR activity, from cognitive behavioral treatment and substance abuse treatment to vocational training, faith-based classes, victim impact classes, and trauma-informed support programs.

The critical limitation is in the definition of “successful participation” at 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(2): it “requires a determination by Bureau staff that an eligible inmate has participated in the EBRR programs or PAs that the Bureau has recommended based on the inmate’s individualized risk and needs assessment.” Programming the Bureau did not recommend for you does not earn credit, however worthwhile it is — and only designated completions move the PATTERN risk assessment. This surprises people constantly. A man who finishes a college course that was not on his Individualized Needs Plan has done something good for himself and earned nothing under § 3632.

The rates, quoted

Here is the statute, clause by clause, from 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(A):

“(i) A prisoner shall earn 10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities.

(ii) A prisoner 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, shall earn an additional 5 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation…”

Two things follow from reading it this way rather than as a “10 to 15 day” range.

First, the ten days are unconditional for anyone eligible and in earning status. Risk level does not gate them. A person at high PATTERN risk who is participating in recommended programming earns ten days per thirty, the same as anyone else.

Second, the extra five days ride on a change condition, not a level condition — at least in the statute. The statutory test is that the prisoner “has not increased their risk of recidivism” over two consecutive assessments while being at minimum or low risk.

The regulation states it differently. 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(c)(2) awards the additional five days if the inmate:

“(i) Is determined by the Bureau to be at a minimum or low risk for recidivating; and (ii) Has maintained a consistent minimum or low risk of recidivism over the most recent two consecutive risk and needs assessments conducted by the Bureau.”

“Has not increased their risk” and “has maintained a consistent minimum or low risk” are not the same requirement. Someone reassessed from medium down to low has not increased their risk; they have also not maintained a consistent minimum or low risk over both assessments. The statute would appear to credit them; the regulation would appear not to. We flag this rather than resolve it, because it is exactly the kind of divergence that produces a computation dispute worth raising — first through the BOP sentence computation channels, and if necessary in court.

Earning versus applying

This is the distinction the rest of the page is built on. Nothing else about First Step Act credits causes as much confusion, or as much avoidable disappointment.

First Step Act time credits: earning versus applying

	Earning credits	Applying credits
Governing provision	18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(A); 28 C.F.R. § 523.42	18 U.S.C. § 3624(g); 28 C.F.R. § 523.44
Rate or limit	10 days per 30 days of successful participation, plus 5 more for minimum/low risk meeting the second-assessment condition	Up to 365 days toward early transfer to supervised release; the remainder toward earlier prerelease custody
Does PATTERN risk level matter?	No. Any eligible person in earning status earns the base 10 days	Yes. Minimum or low through the last two assessments, or a Warden-approved petition
Effect of a disqualifying offense	Bars earning entirely — 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D); 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(d)(2)	Not reached; nothing was earned
Effect of a detainer or pending charge	No effect — credits still accrue	Blocks application until the detainer or charge is resolved — PS 5410.01 CN-2
Effect of a final order of removal	No effect — credits still accrue	Bars application entirely — 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(2); 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(E)
Effect of a D.C. Code sentence	Cannot earn until the D.C. Council acts — PS 5410.01 CN-2	Cannot apply — 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(3)
Effect of disciplinary segregation	Stops earning while in that status — 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(4)(i)	Prior earned credits are not automatically lost; loss requires a DHO sanction under 28 C.F.R. § 523.43
Where the answer lives on your paperwork	The FSA Time Credit Assessment (FTC worksheet)	The FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD) on that same worksheet

Sources: 18 U.S.C. §§ 3632, 3624(g); 28 C.F.R. §§ 523.41–523.44; BOP Program Statement 5410.01 CN-2 (10 March 2023) — agency policy, not law.

Who is eligible to earn First Step Act time credits?

Eligibility to earn is broad, and it is defined negatively. 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(d)(1) provides that “[a]ny inmate sentenced to a term of imprisonment pursuant to a conviction for a Federal criminal offense, or any person in the custody of the Bureau, is eligible to earn FSA Time Credits,” subject to one exception: § 523.41(d)(2) excludes anyone “serving a term of imprisonment for an offense specified in 18 U.S.C. 3632(d)(4)(D).”

So the question is not “do I qualify” but “is my offense on the list.” Everything else is about status, not eligibility.

The Bureau does the eligibility review at Initial Classification. Under PS 5410.01 CN-2 — again, agency policy rather than law — the unit team reviews the Judgment and Commitment Order and the Presentence Investigation Report, including any sentencing enhancements, and enters an FSA eligibility assignment into SENTRY. That review makes the presentence investigation report a document with consequences long after sentencing: what it records about conduct and enhancements is what the unit team reads years later.

First Step Act disqualifying offenses

18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D) is not a description of offense categories. It is an enumerated list of specific statutory provisions, running to dozens of clauses, each naming a section of title 18 or another title and a short descriptor. It opens:

“(D) Ineligible prisoners.— A prisoner is ineligible to receive time credits under this paragraph if the prisoner is serving a sentence for a conviction under any of the following provisions of law: (i) Section 32, relating to destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities. (ii) Section 33, relating to destruction of motor vehicles or motor vehicle facilities. (iii) Section 36, relating to drive-by shootings…”

BOP’s own summary, on its First Step Act overview page, describes the excluded offenses as “generally categorized as violent, or involve terrorism, espionage, human trafficking, sex and sexual exploitation; additionally excluded offenses are a repeat felon in possession of firearm, or high-level drug offenses.” The Bureau maintains the full list of disqualifying offenses on its website.

Two things follow, and both matter:

Read the list, not the category. Because the exclusion is written as a list of statutory provisions, whether a given conviction disqualifies is a question about the statute of conviction, not about how the offense sounds. Two people whose conduct looks similar can land on opposite sides of the line because they were charged under different sections. If the answer looks obvious, check it against the enumerated list anyway.

There is a separate prior-conviction bar. PS 5410.01 CN-2 instructs that a prisoner is also ineligible if the current offense is a “serious violent felony” not already listed by statute, the current sentence exceeds a year, and the person served more than a year for a prior federal or state conviction for murder, voluntary manslaughter, assault with intent to commit murder, aggravated sexual abuse and sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, kidnapping, carjacking, arson, or terrorism. The policy defines “serious violent felony” by reference to 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c)(2)(F), requires the prior to be an adult conviction — juvenile adjudications do not count — and requires a state prior to match the federal offense element-by-element. The Bureau’s own policy acknowledges the difficulty: “[d]ue to the complexity of the prior offense review, questions regarding whether an offense is disqualifying may be referred to an institution’s local Consolidated Legal Center.”

That is a candid admission that this analysis is hard, and it is one of the places where an outside review is worth having. An element-by-element categorical comparison between a state statute and a federal one is the same analytical exercise that drives federal sentencing and § 2255 litigation, and it is frequently gotten wrong.

If you are disqualified, you still earn good conduct time

A person excluded by § 3632(d)(4)(D) loses access to time credits, not to every credit. 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) is a separate statute with separate eligibility, and BOP’s own First Step Act FAQ is unequivocal: “all inmates convicted of a federal offense committed after November 1, 1987 are eligible to earn up to 54 days of good conduct time.”

That is roughly 15 percent of a sentence, and it is the larger benefit for most people. The good conduct time page covers how it is computed, how it is lost, and the literacy provision that quietly reduces it to 42 days a year for people without a high school credential.

The Bureau also tells disqualified prisoners something worth repeating: under its FAQ, “all inmates may earn additional incentives such as increased phone and visitation privileges, nearer release transfer, monetary achievement award, preferred housing, and participation in incentive events.” PS 5405.01 attaches achievement awards and preferred housing to completing EBRR programs of 100 hours or more, and quarterly incentive events to shorter programs. None of that shortens a sentence. Some of it makes a decade survivable, and none of it is affected by the good conduct time that continues to accrue.

When do credits start, and when do they stop?

They start when the sentence starts

28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a): “An eligible inmate begins earning FSA Time Credits after the inmate’s term of imprisonment commences (the date the inmate arrives or voluntarily surrenders at the designated Bureau facility where the sentence will be served).”

That single sentence disposes of the most common question families ask. Time in a county jail on a federal writ, time in U.S. Marshals Service custody, time in a private detention facility awaiting designation — none of it earns time credits, however long it lasts and however much programming happened there. BOP’s FAQ says it directly: “inmates cannot earn FTC when in U.S. Marshals Service custody, regardless of where they are housed.”

That time is not worthless. It may count as prior custody credit under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), which is a different computation entirely and one the Bureau also performs. When someone has spent eighteen months in pretrial detention and their release date does not look right, prior custody credit is usually where the answer is; that analysis belongs to the BOP sentence computation page.

The 2018–2020 window

28 C.F.R. § 523.42(b) sets three dates. No credit at all for programming before 21 December 2018, the date the First Step Act was enacted. Credit is available for participation from 21 December 2018 until 14 January 2020. And from 15 January 2020 forward, credit is available for successful participation in EBRR programs or PAs the Bureau recommended based on the individualized risk and needs assessment.

The middle window works differently in practice than the third. BOP’s FAQ describes it as a presumption: eligible people “will be afforded a presumption of participation and awarded FTC for the period between December 21, 2018, and January 14, 2020, excluding any period in which they were in a special housing unit, in a designation status outside or away from their ‘home’ BOP institution, or for refusing mandatory programming.”

If someone was in custody through that window and their worksheet shows no credit for it, that is worth asking about.

Non-earning status is narrower than people assume

28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(4) lists the situations in which a person “will generally not be considered to be ‘successfully participating'”: placement in a Special Housing Unit; designation status outside the institution; temporary transfer to another agency’s custody; mental health or psychiatric holds; and opting out.

BOP’s implementing instructions in PS 5410.01 CN-2 narrow two of those in ways worth knowing:

Administrative detention is not disciplinary segregation. The policy provides that “[i]nmates in Disciplinary Segregation status will not be considered to be ‘successfully participating.’ Inmates in restrictive housing for Administrative Detention shall obtain FTCs if they otherwise remain in earning status under the policy.” Someone held in the SHU pending an investigation, or for their own protection, or awaiting transfer, should still be earning. If the worksheet shows otherwise, that is a specific, correctable error.

A partial day out is not a day out. “[A]n inmate will continue to earn FTCs if they are in the institution for any part of the day. An inmate must be out of the institution for the entire 24-hour day before the inmate reverts to non-earning status.” A day trip to an outside hospital that ends the same evening does not cost a day of earning status.

The waitlist rule, and the trap inside it

This is the most consequential operational rule on the page, and almost nobody outside the Bureau knows it.

Under PS 5410.01 CN-2, “[a]n inmate will remain in FTC earning status while on any waitlist for EBRR Programs or PAs recommended based on the inmate’s needs assessment, not to exceed two assessment periods, as long as the inmate has not refused or declined to participate. Active participation in at least one EBRR Program or PA by the inmate supersedes this requirement.” The Regional Director can extend that on the Warden’s request.

So a person who is signed up and waiting is earning. That is the good news, and it is a sensible rule given that program availability varies enormously by institution.

The trap is on the exit. If a person declines the program when it finally comes up, the policy provides that “the inmate will be considered declined, or opted out, for the entire waitlist period,” and “[a]ny credits earned since the oldest waitlist associated with the need area, without intervening participation, will be rescinded.” Declining a class you waited eleven months for does not cost you the class. It can cost you eleven months of credit.

People decline for ordinary reasons — a job conflict, a transfer coming up, a program that turned out to be at an inconvenient hour. If that is the situation, PS 5405.01 is directly helpful, because it now tells staff the opposite of what many units have practiced: “Staff will not require an inmate to participate in a second program, nor should they be marked as ‘decline,’ if they are already actively engaged in a program that meets one or more of their identified needs and cannot commit to another program at that time.” The policy directs staff to consult the person, let them finish the current program, and keep them on the waitlist for the other one. Anyone marked “decline” while enrolled in another qualifying program has a policy citation to point at.

Opting out, refusing, and the difference between them

“Opting out” means declining to participate in the recommended programming at all. 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(5)(ii)–(iii) provides that “[o]pting out will not, by itself, be considered a disciplinary violation,” but that it “will result in exclusion from further benefits or privileges allowable under the FSA, until the date the inmate ‘opts in.'” It is reversible. It is not a sanction. It simply stops the clock.

Two things count as opting out that people do not expect. Refusing or failing to complete any part of the SPARC-13 needs assessment puts a person in non-earning status, whatever their eligibility — the assessment includes self-administered surveys, and PS 5405.01 warns that “[i]nmates have one opportunity to complete the electronic self-assessment surveys. If a session times out or remains incomplete, this will result in a need refusal assignment.” A survey that timed out is not a refusal in any moral sense, and there is a paper-and-pencil remedy in the policy for exactly that situation.

And refusing a required program — the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, Drug Education, the literacy program — stops earning too. PS 5410.01 CN-2: “If an inmate refuses to participate in required programs (e.g., Inmate Financial Responsibility (FRP), Drug Education, etc.), the inmate will not earn FTC.” PS 5405.01 goes further: refusing a required program means “opting out of all FSA incentives.”

FRP refusal is the quiet one. It is common, it feels like a fight about money, and it costs time credits — as well as excluding a person from residential reentry center placement altogether.

Failing a program is different from declining one. The First Step Act change notice of 6 February 2023 added this to PS 5410.01: “If an inmate fails to complete a recommended EBRR or PA to address an identified need area, staff will enter the applicable fail or withdraw code into SENTRY, and the inmate will not be considered to have opted out.” Someone who tried and did not finish is in a materially better position than someone who declined.

How credits are counted and posted

Credits are calculated automatically. PS 5410.01 CN-2 describes the mechanics: FTCs “are auto-calculated based on 30-day increments in earning status. Partial credit will not be awarded. FTCs will be credited on a monthly basis agency-wide, as well as during the inmate’s regularly scheduled Program Reviews, based on a completed 30-day period.”

Days short of thirty are not lost — they carry. The policy’s own worked example: if the first monthly posting comes only five days after a person enters earning status, nothing posts that month; “the five days will carry over to the next monthly cycle, and the inmate will receive the FTCs at the end of the second month.”

The document that records all of this is the FSA Time Credit Assessment, universally called the FTC worksheet. The February 2023 change notice made its handling explicit: “FSA Time Credit Assessments (FTC Worksheets) will be automatically uploaded to the Inmate Central File during each auto-calculation. Inmates will be provided a copy of the most recent FTC Worksheet during regularly scheduled program reviews.”

That sentence is a right, and it is one worth exercising. A family that has a copy of the worksheet is having a different conversation than a family that has a rumor about a date.

The FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD)

On 21 October 2025, the Bureau published a notice on its own website announcing a change in how classification and designation decisions are made:

“To ensure full alignment with this statutory framework, the BOP is updating its approach to classification and designation decisions. Staff will now utilize the FSA Conditional Placement Date (FCPD), also known as the time credit worksheet, as the anchor for key inmate management decisions for those eligible to earn and apply FSA time credits under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4).”

Institutional staff were directed to “[r]eclassify FSA-eligible inmates based on their Conditional Placement Dates,” to “[r]eview and initiate placement to lower security levels as appropriate,” and to “[e]nsure that inmates are housed in the least restrictive environment consistent with security and programming needs.”

That followed the Director’s message of 1 August 2025, which announced the launch of an updated Time Credit Application Program — “a new tool that provides conditional home confinement placement dates combining both the First Step Act (FSA) and Second Chance Act (SCA).” The Director also described the Designation and Sentence Computation Center manually calculating conditional home confinement dates for people already living in residential reentry centers, “to support the transition of eligible individuals from RRCs to home confinement.”

Read together, those two documents establish something practical: the FCPD is now the number the Bureau itself is steering by, and it combines First Step Act credit with Second Chance Act time rather than treating them as alternatives. PS 5405.01 confirms the FCPD has moved into program prioritization as well: the program manager “must weigh several factors when prioritizing EBRR program placement, including FSA conditional placement dates, projected release dates, length of time on the wait list, and those with high or medium risk of recidivism.”

BOP has since layered another step on top. On 28 May 2026 it announced that, effective immediately, institutions would begin transferring eligible people to minimum-security camps “once they have received a Residential Reentry Center (RRC) or Home Confinement (HC) placement date.” The FCPD, in other words, is now upstream of a custody move that happens before the community placement itself.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The single most useful thing a family can do is ask, in writing, for the current FTC worksheet and the FSA Conditional Placement Date — by those names. The Bureau’s own policy says the worksheet goes into the central file at every auto-calculation and is handed over at every program review. When we take on a credit dispute, the first thing we want is the sequence of worksheets over time, because errors show up as discontinuities between them: a month where earning stopped, a needs area that appeared and never generated a program, a risk level that moved without the credit rate moving with it.

Applying the credits: the part that goes wrong

A person can be eligible, in earning status, and sitting on a year of credit, and still not get out a day early. Everything in this section is about that.

The threshold conditions

28 C.F.R. § 523.44(b) sets three conditions before any credit can be applied to prerelease custody or early transfer to supervised release. The person must have:

“(1) Earned FSA Time Credits in an amount that is equal to the remainder of the inmate’s imposed term of imprisonment; (2) Shown through the periodic risk reassessments a demonstrated recidivism risk reduction or maintained a minimum or low recidivism risk, during the term of imprisonment; and (3) Had the remainder of his or her imposed term of imprisonment computed under applicable law.”

Condition (1) is the one that confuses people, and it is worth slowing down on. Credits are applied when the number of credits earned equals the time left to serve. That is not a running discount applied as you go. It is a convergence: the credit balance rises while the remaining term falls, and application happens where the two lines meet. This is why the benefit arrives all at once near the end rather than accruing visibly month by month.

The prerelease custody gate

On top of § 523.44(b), § 523.44(c) requires that the person has either:

“(1) Maintained a minimum or low recidivism risk through his or her last two risk and needs assessments; or (2) Had a petition to be transferred to prerelease custody or supervised release approved by the Warden, after the Warden’s determination that: (i) The prisoner would not be a danger to society if transferred…; (ii) The prisoner has made a good faith effort to lower their recidivism risk…; and (iii) The prisoner is unlikely to recidivate.”

This is where PATTERN risk assessment becomes the gate on the whole system. A medium or high risk level does not stop you earning. It stops you spending.

The Warden-petition route in (c)(2) exists, and BOP policy tells you how narrow it is. Under PS 5410.01 CN-2, the Warden consults the Regional Director before approving one, and the policy identifies people ordinarily considered inappropriate: those at high or medium PATTERN risk; those with a current or prior offense listed in the Bureau’s Categorization of Offenses program statement; those with an unwaived Public Safety Factor; those with a history of supervision non-compliance; and those found to have committed 100- or 200-level prohibited acts during the current term, or drug or alcohol prohibited acts within the last three years. Medium and high risk applicants must also show clear conduct for at least three years from the date of the request and completion of at least one residential EBRR program in the past five years.

The request itself is made on a BP-A0148, Inmate Request to Staff — the form everyone calls a cop-out — at a regularly scheduled program review, and travels through the Unit Manager to the Warden.

There is a second, narrower use of the same form. Someone at minimum or low risk who has not yet accumulated two consecutive assessments at that level can ask for early application: the policy directs that “they will need to submit a BP-A0148, Inmates Request to Staff, during their regularly scheduled Program Review in order to have their early application of FTCs considered.”

What stops application even when everything else is right

Three status problems block application without touching earning:

Detainers and pending charges. PS 5410.01 CN-2: “While inmates with unresolved pending charges and/or detainers may earn FTCs, if otherwise eligible, they will be unable to apply them to prerelease custody or release to supervision unless the charges and/or detainers are resolved. An inmate with an unresolved immigration status will be treated as if he/she has unresolved pending charges with regard to the application of FTCs.”

That is a resolvable problem in many cases, and resolving it is worth real effort, because it is often the only thing standing between a full credit balance and its use. A detainer that everyone assumes is live is sometimes stale, and clearing one also unblocks residential reentry center placement.

A final order of removal. 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(2) implements 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(E): a person subject to a final order of removal cannot have credits applied. BOP’s FAQ states the position plainly — “[d]eportable aliens may earn FTC, but they are not eligible to apply these credits towards their release date if they are subject to a final order of removal.” A pending removal proceeding is not a final order, and the distinction matters.

A D.C. Code sentence. 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(3) and the Bureau’s FAQ are consistent: “D.C. Code offenders are not allowed to have FTC applied to early transfer to community confinement or supervised release. This may change if the laws of the District of Columbia are amended.”

The 365-day ceiling, and what happens above it

28 C.F.R. § 523.44(d) permits application toward early transfer to supervised release only when the person has maintained minimum or low risk through the last assessment, has a court-imposed term of supervised release, and — critically — where “[t]he application of FSA Time Credits would result in transfer to supervised release no earlier than 12 months before the date that transfer to supervised release would otherwise have occurred.”

Twelve months is the ceiling on that use. Credits beyond it are not forfeited; they are redirected. PS 5410.01 CN-2 states it: “Pre-release placement in a Residential Reentry Center (RRC) or Home Confinement (HC) will be based on FTCs other than those credits already applied to early transfer for supervised release.”

That redirection is the reason a long-sentence case can end with many months in the community. The overflow credits are what push a residential reentry center or federal home confinement placement earlier than the ordinary limits in 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c) would allow — which is precisely why § 3624(g) exists as a separate authority alongside § 3624(c). Those ordinary limits are 12 months of halfway-house placement under § 3624(c)(1) and 180 days or 10 percent of the sentence, whichever is shorter, on home confinement under § 3624(c)(2); 28 C.F.R. § 570.21(c) is the provision that lets credits carry a placement past them, since the time-frames “may be exceeded when separate statutory authority allows greater periods of community confinement.”

Automatic application to early release runs on a defined checklist. Per policy, up to 365 days is applied automatically for someone who has a term of supervised release to follow, a low or minimum PATTERN level, that level maintained for at least two consecutive assessments at regularly scheduled program reviews, no detainers or pending charges including unresolved immigration status, no final order of removal, and who has not opted out or refused a required program.

The referral timeline

Community placement is not arranged at the last minute — or at least, it is not supposed to be. PS 5410.01 CN-2 directs that “RRC and/or HC referrals will ordinarily be submitted to the respective Residential Reentry Management (RRM) office 12 months in advance of the inmate’s PRD or at least 60 days prior to the projected RRC/HC placement date, whichever is greater.”

And what goes into the referral is the answer to a question we are asked constantly — whether Second Chance Act time and First Step Act credits compete. They do not. The policy: “The RRC and/or HC recommendation will include the total number of days recommended based on the Five Factor Review (see 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b)), required under the Second Chance Act, plus the remaining number of FTC days not applied to supervised release at the time of the referral.”

One more line from the same paragraph deserves attention, because it explains a great deal of family frustration: “There is no expectation the RRC/HC placement date will be modified once the referral has been submitted to the RRM office.” Advocacy about placement length is dramatically more effective before the referral goes out than after — see residential reentry center and second chance act.

Estimated dates: who gets one and who does not

The Bureau projects an FSA conditional Projected Release Date by assuming a person stays in earning status for the whole sentence, then adjusts it as circumstances change. But it does not do that for everyone. PS 5410.01 CN-2 states the rule flatly: “Medium and High PATTERN risk inmates may earn FTC, but will not receive an estimated FSA PRD.”

That is worth knowing before you go looking for a number that does not exist. If your family member is at medium or high risk, the absence of a projected FSA date is not an error and not an oversight. It is the policy. The route to changing it runs through the PATTERN risk assessment, not through the computation office.

Why credits are earned and not delivered: what GAO found

The gap between the rules and the result is now documented, by the Government Accountability Office, with numbers.

In GAO-26-107353, published 11 February 2026, GAO reported that BOP “did not apply all the earned time toward placement in RRCs and home confinement for 21,190 of 29,934 individuals reviewed, for reasons such as insufficient RRC capacity and court orders.” GAO also found that BOP “does not know how many individuals are currently in prison that could have already transferred to home confinement or a residential reentry center,” because eligibility dates are not readily available across the agency.

The capacity problem has a financial mechanism behind it. GAO found BOP “paid RRCs late about 70 percent of the time, from fiscal years 2023 through 2024,” and made roughly 65,000 late payments to contractors between fiscal year 2022 and March 2025, incurring $12.5 million in interest penalties on $2.8 billion in payments. One halfway-house representative told GAO that late payments “have made some RRCs reluctant to bid for new BOP contracts, which can further complicate BOP’s plans to expand capacity.”

Three weeks earlier, in GAO-26-107268 (27 January 2026), GAO reported the same asymmetry from the other side: “BOP generally applied all time credits toward supervised release but not for prerelease custody.” That report also found BOP did not have accurate, readily accessible release status for about nine percent of incarcerated individuals — its case management system held conflicting information, including two different dates for the same person’s release to supervision.

This is not a reason for despair, and it is not an argument that the statute does not work. It is a reason to check the paperwork, to raise a discrepancy early through BOP administrative remedies, and to understand that a placement date can be shorter than the credits would support for reasons that have nothing to do with the individual — a shortage of beds in the release district, or a contract that a provider walked away from.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: When a credit dispute reaches a court, it almost never turns on whether the First Step Act is a good idea. It turns on a document. Did the worksheet post credits for the months the person was in administrative detention rather than disciplinary segregation? Did a “decline” code go in while the person was actively enrolled in another recommended program? Was the risk level that gated application the one from the last two assessments, or the one from three years ago? These are record questions, and they are winnable when the record is assembled properly and the administrative remedy was preserved. They are very hard to win when the first serious look at the file happens after exhaustion has already been blown.

Losing time credits, and getting them back

Credits are property in a limited but real sense: once earned, they can only be taken through a defined process.

28 C.F.R. § 523.43(a) provides that “[a]n inmate may lose earned FSA Time Credits for violation of the requirements or rules of an EBRR Program or PA. The procedures for loss of FSA Time Credits are described in 28 CFR part 541.” Part 541 is the inmate discipline regime, which means loss runs through a Discipline Hearing Officer, not through a unit team’s discretion.

BOP’s implementing policy adds three limits that favor the prisoner. Under PS 5410.01 CN-2:

• “[O]nly earned time credits can be lost, and future time credits cannot be impacted.” A sanction cannot reach forward.
• Credits count as “earned” at “the monthly auto-calculation or at the time of the inmate’s last Program Review assessment, whichever was most recent” — so the size of the pool exposed to a sanction is fixed by a date.
• “A sanction of loss of FSA time credits by the Discipline Hearing Officer (DHO) may only be imposed when an inmate is found to have committed a prohibited act. Loss of FTCs cannot be entered as a suspended sanction.”

Because loss runs through the disciplinary process, the constitutional protections that attach there attach here. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), held that before a prisoner is deprived of good-time credits, due process requires advance written notice of the charge at least 24 hours before the hearing, “a written statement by the factfinders as to the evidence relied on and reasons” for the action, and a qualified right to call witnesses and present documentary evidence “when permitting him to do so will not be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals.” Wolff did not require confrontation, cross-examination, or counsel.

The evidentiary threshold is low. In Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445 (1985), the Court held that “the requirements of due process are satisfied if some evidence supports the decision by the prison disciplinary board to revoke good time credits,” and that determining whether that standard is met “does not require examination of the entire record, independent assessment of the credibility of witnesses, or weighing of the evidence.” A challenge to a DHO finding rarely succeeds on the strength of the evidence. It succeeds, when it succeeds, on procedure — the notice that came too late, the witness who was refused without explanation, the written statement that never issued.

Restoration

Restoration is available and, unusually for BOP, the policy spells out the path. Under 28 C.F.R. § 523.43(c), a person who has lost credits “may have part or all of the FSA Time Credits restored to him or her, on a case-by-case basis, after clear conduct (behavior clear of inmate disciplinary infractions under 28 CFR part 541) for two consecutive risk and needs assessments conducted by the Bureau.”

PS 5410.01 CN-2 fills in the mechanics: the request is made at a regularly scheduled Program Review after two consecutive assessments of clear conduct; the Unit Manager submits it on a BP-A1156, Restoration of Federal Time Credits, with the unit team’s recommendation, through the DHO to the Warden; the decision authority sits with the Warden and “may not be delegated lower than the Associate Warden level”; the person receives a copy either way; and if denied, “the inmate will be advised that they may reapply for FTC restoration six months from the date of denial, if clear conduct is maintained.”

A denial is therefore not final. It is a six-month clock.

Appealing a loss

28 C.F.R. § 523.43(b): “Inmates may seek review of the loss of earned FSA Time Credits through the Bureau’s Administrative Remedy Program (28 CFR part 542).” PS 5405.01 says the same for FSA issues generally.

The deadlines are short and they are not forgiving. A DHO appeal starts at the Regional Director rather than the Warden under 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(d)(2); other issues start with informal resolution and a BP-9 within 20 calendar days of the event. The full sequence, the response times, and what to do when nobody answers are set out on our BOP sentence computation page.

About “First Step Act calculators”

There are a lot of them online. We have not built one and we will not.

Not because the arithmetic is hard — the earning arithmetic is genuinely simple — but because the arithmetic is not the answer. A date depends on the eligibility determination, the earning-status history month by month, the PATTERN level at two specific assessments, the detainer status, the immigration status, the remaining term as computed under 18 U.S.C. § 3585, any good conduct time disallowance, any RDAP reduction sequenced ahead of the credits, and the availability of a bed in a particular release district — see federal home confinement on that last point. A calculator that asks four questions is guessing at all of that, and a guessed date that is wrong by four months does real damage to a family that has planned around it.

The number that matters is the one the Bureau itself computes, on the FTC worksheet, at the FSA Conditional Placement Date. Ask for it. Read it against the rules on this page. Where they disagree, that disagreement is a claim.

Here is the method, so you can follow the Bureau’s own work rather than replace it. Take a hypothetical: a person with a five-year sentence and no disqualifying offense, at low PATTERN risk from the start, participating continuously in recommended programming from the day they arrive. Each thirty days of successful participation earns ten days, plus five more once the second-assessment condition is satisfied. Over a year of continuous earning at the full rate, that is twelve thirty-day periods at fifteen days each. The credits do not come off the front of the sentence; they sit in a balance until the balance equals the remaining term, at which point up to 365 days can move the transfer to supervised release earlier and the rest pushes the community placement earlier. Non-earning months — a stretch in disciplinary segregation, an FRP refusal, a program decline after a waitlist — subtract from the periods, not from the rate.

That is the method. Applying it to a real person requires the real record, and the real record is what we ask for first.

Working with a federal prison early release lawyer

Most time-credit problems are records problems, and most records problems are fixable if they are caught in time. The ones we see repeatedly:

An eligibility determination that reads the statute too broadly. The disqualification list at § 3632(d)(4)(D) is a list of statutory provisions, and the prior-conviction bar requires an element-by-element match. Both are the kind of categorical analysis that gets done quickly at Initial Classification and wrongly often enough to be worth checking.

Earning status that stopped for the wrong reason. Administrative detention miscoded as disciplinary segregation. A “decline” entered while the person was enrolled elsewhere. A SPARC-13 survey that timed out and was recorded as a refusal.

Credits earned but never applied. GAO has now measured this at scale. The remedy depends on the cause: a detainer that can be resolved, a PATTERN item that can be corrected, a risk level that should have been reassessed, or a placement that was simply never referred.

A PATTERN level that is wrong on the record. Because risk level gates application, an error in a scored item is an error about liberty. The PATTERN risk assessment page explains which items are scored and which of them move.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national practice on an intentionally small caseload from offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. 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. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, leads the firm’s federal prison consulting work and is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook and the Directory of Federal Prisons.

We cannot promise an outcome, and nobody honest can. What we can do is read the record the Bureau is actually working from, tell you what it says, and pursue the remedies that are available on the timeline the regulations allow.

Schedule a consultation

If a First Step Act computation does not look right — credits that stopped, credits that were never applied, a risk level that seems wrong, or a placement date that arrived far later than the credits should support — we can review the file.

Schedule a consultation with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. We work in every federal district and before all the federal courts of appeals.

Start with our federal prison early release lawyer hub for the full picture of how the routes fit together, including the court-based routes such as compassionate release that sit alongside the Bureau’s own.

Frequently Asked Questions About First Step Act Time Credits

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