A conviction for attempted robbery can land you in prison for anywhere from about a year to twenty years under federal law, and the answer to how long you go to jail for attempted robbery turns mostly on three things: whether a weapon was involved, whether anyone was hurt, and what your prior record looks like. State sentences vary, but most states treat attempted robbery as a felony carrying multiple years behind bars. The number a judge announces at sentencing is also not the number you actually serve, because good conduct credit, plea negotiations, and sentencing enhancements all pull in different directions.
The Federal Maximum and What Judges Actually Impose
Most robbery cases go through state court, but federal prosecutors can step in whenever the crime touches interstate commerce, which covers almost any business. The Hobbs Act makes attempted robbery affecting commerce punishable by up to twenty years in prison, a fine, or both, and the statute treats attempts the same as completed robberies for sentencing purposes.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1951 – Interference With Commerce by Threats or Violence
The twenty-year ceiling is not the typical outcome. The average sentence for all federal robbery offenses in fiscal year 2024 was 110 months — a little over nine years — and 99.3 percent of convicted defendants received prison time.2United States Sentencing Commission. Robbery Offenses Prison is essentially guaranteed at the federal level.
The federal sentencing guidelines start with a base offense level of 20 for robbery, and that number translates into a recommended range that depends on your criminal history. A first-time offender at that base level faces a guidelines range of roughly 33 to 41 months. Enhancements move that range up quickly.
Firearm Enhancements Add Mandatory Years on Top
Carrying a firearm during an attempted robbery triggers the harshest sentencing math in federal law. Anyone who possesses a firearm during a crime of violence faces a mandatory minimum of five additional years. Brandishing the weapon raises the minimum to seven years. Firing it raises it to ten.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties
Those years run consecutively, not concurrently, with the sentence for the robbery itself.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties Get eight years for the attempted robbery with a brandished firearm and you serve those eight years first, then start a seven-year firearm sentence. A second offense under this provision carries a mandatory 25 years consecutive. Using a machine gun or destructive device triggers a mandatory 30-year consecutive term. Judges have no discretion to go below these minimums, and probation is off the table.
What Pushes a Sentence Higher
Beyond weapons, several circumstances add levels under the federal guidelines and, in practice, add years to a sentence.
Injury to the victim is one of the most significant. The guidelines add two levels for minor bodily injury and up to six levels for permanent or life-threatening harm. Even threatening deadly force without acting on it adds two levels.
The target matters. Attempting to rob a bank or post office adds two levels. Carjacking adds two more. A home invasion attempt is treated more harshly than a street-level crime. Targeting an elderly or disabled victim, committing the crime in the presence of children, or restraining or abducting anyone during the attempt all push the sentence up further, with restraint or abduction adding two to four additional levels depending on severity.
What Can Bring a Sentence Down
Judges also weigh circumstances pointing toward leniency. A minor role in a group offense is one of the strongest mitigating factors — the driver who never entered the building and carried no weapon has real room for a below-guidelines sentence.
The absence of any injury helps, especially when you abandoned the attempt before a confrontation happened. Voluntary abandonment reads differently than being interrupted by police. Genuine cooperation with law enforcement, including identifying co-conspirators, can lead to a downward departure motion from prosecutors, and this is one of the few mechanisms that can drop a sentence below a mandatory minimum. Pleading guilty early, showing remorse, and having no prior record all tilt the scale further.
How Priors Change Everything
Your criminal history has an enormous effect on the sentence. The guidelines sort defendants into criminal history categories from I (minimal record) to VI (extensive record). For the same base robbery conduct, a first-time offender might face 33 to 41 months while someone in Category VI faces 70 to 87 months.
The stakes get much higher under habitual offender laws. The federal three-strikes provision mandates life imprisonment for anyone convicted of a serious violent felony who already has two or more prior convictions for serious violent felonies or serious drug offenses.4Congress.gov. Three Strike Mandatory Sentencing 18 USC 3559(c) Robbery qualifies, and attempted robbery can too depending on the facts. Many states have their own three-strikes laws, some mandating 25 years to life for a third qualifying felony. A failed robbery attempt can result in a life sentence with the wrong record behind it.
Good Time Credit and Time Actually Served
The sentence a judge announces is not the time you spend in prison. Federal inmates can earn up to 54 days of good conduct credit for every year of the imposed sentence, calculated against the full sentence rather than time served.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3624 – Release of a Prisoner For a ten-year sentence, that works out to roughly 540 days off, about a year and a half.
Earning that credit requires clean behavior. Disciplinary infractions can strip some or all of it. The First Step Act created additional earned time credits for participating in recidivism-reduction programming, but those expanded credits generally do not apply to violent offenses, and robbery falls in that category.6Federal Bureau of Prisons. First Step Act Overview
Federal sentences do not include parole. After release, most defendants serve one to five years of supervised release, and violations can send you back inside.
Alternatives to incarceration — probation, house arrest, community service — are rare in federal attempted robbery cases and unavailable altogether when a firearm was involved.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties They come up more often at the state level for lower-level charges with no weapon, no injury, and a clean record.
Why the Announced Sentence Is Usually Lower Than the Maximum
Very few attempted robbery cases go to trial. Roughly 97 percent of federal criminal cases end in plea agreements. Prosecutors may offer to drop a firearm enhancement or reduce the charge in exchange for a guilty plea, and defendants trade the risk of a much longer post-trial sentence for a known, shorter one.
This is where the twenty-year maximums and mandatory consecutive terms meet real outcomes. Someone facing up to twenty years for an attempted Hobbs Act robbery plus a mandatory consecutive seven years for brandishing might negotiate down to five to eight years total. The more brutal the potential sentence, the more leverage prosecutors have — which is exactly why the full penalty picture matters even when the case never reaches a jury.