How to Apply for a Presidential Pardon: Process, Timeline, and Odds

To apply for a presidential pardon, you file an Application for Pardon After Completion of Sentence with the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, wait through a multi-year background investigation and review, and hope the President signs. The power comes from Article II of the Constitution and covers federal offenses only.¹ Most applicants wait years just to become eligible, and denials outnumber grants.

Before You Can Apply

Federal regulations require a waiting period of at least five years before you can file. The clock starts on the date you were released from confinement, or, if no prison sentence was imposed, on the date of your conviction. You generally cannot apply while you are still on probation, parole, or supervised release; that time has to be finished before the five-year clock even begins.²

The waiting period exists to give you time to build a track record of law-abiding behavior and community involvement that will strengthen your case.

Two boundaries to keep in mind. First, the President can only pardon federal offenses. If your conviction is under state law, you need to seek clemency from your state’s governor or pardon board.¹ Second, if you are still incarcerated and want your sentence shortened, what you need is a commutation, not a pardon.

Asking for a Waiver of the Waiting Period

If you have a compelling reason you cannot wait the full five years, you can ask the Office of the Pardon Attorney to waive part of it. Submit a completed application along with a letter explaining why the waiver is justified. The letter should identify the date and location of your conviction, the nature of the offense, your sentence, and when you were released from prison or supervision. Waiver requests are decided case by case, and approval is uncommon.

What the Application Includes

The form you need is the DOJ’s “Application for Pardon After Completion of Sentence,” available on the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s website. It runs about 24 pages, and filling it out honestly and completely is the most labor-intensive part of the process.³

The application asks for:

Your reasons for seeking a pardon, including a detailed explanation of what challenges the conviction currently creates for you
The facts of the offense, your criminal history, and any other convictions that might appear during a background check
Where you have lived for the past three years
Where you have worked for the past seven years
Whether you have served in the military and in what capacity
Whether you have struggled with substance use or been diagnosed with a substance use disorder
Any debts in default, late payments (including child support), or bankruptcy filings; a credit report will be pulled if the DOJ opens a background investigation
How you have contributed to your community since the conviction, whether through volunteering, caregiving, mentoring, or civic and religious activities

You also sign a certification and personal oath and submit a signed Authorization for Release of Information.³

Letters of Support

Your application must include at least three signed letters of support from people who are not related to you by blood or marriage. Those three individuals become your primary references and must be willing to be interviewed during the background investigation.³ You can submit more than three, but you designate which three serve as your primary references.

Strong letters are specific. The writers should describe experiences they have had with you that demonstrate your character, explain what they have observed about your life since the conviction, and speak to your goals and how a pardon would help you achieve them. Vague praise from acquaintances carries far less weight than detailed testimony from people who know you well and can point to concrete examples of rehabilitation.

Where to Send It

Send the completed application and all supporting materials to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Email is preferred; the DOJ notes that electronic submission allows faster processing and easier correspondence.⁴ The address is USPardon.Attorney@usdoj.gov. You can also mail your packet to:

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of the Pardon Attorney
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20530⁵

What Happens After You File

The Office of the Pardon Attorney conducts a background investigation using resources across the federal government, including the FBI.⁶ The office also contacts the prosecutors who handled your original case and gathers input from relevant law enforcement agencies.

If your conviction involved a felony with an identifiable victim, the Attorney General may notify the victim during review. The regulation weighs the seriousness and recency of the offense, the extent of harm to the victim, your overall criminal history, and how likely it is that clemency could be recommended. Notified victims may submit comments and are eventually told whether the President granted or denied your petition.⁶ Victim notification applies only when the victim has registered with the Bureau of Prisons to be informed of developments in the offender’s case.

After the investigation, the Attorney General reviews the full file and sends a written recommendation to the President on whether the petition has enough merit to warrant a pardon.⁶ The recommendation is advisory. The President has complete discretion to grant or deny any pardon, regardless of what the DOJ suggests.⁴

How Long It Takes, and the Odds

The process is slow. The DOJ’s own instructions acknowledge that “the federal pardon process is exacting and may be more time-consuming than analogous state procedures.”⁴ From the date you submit, expect several years at minimum. Initial processing and the FBI background investigation alone can stretch past a year, with DOJ review and White House consideration added on top. Counting the five-year waiting period before you can apply, the timeline from conviction to pardon can easily exceed a decade.

Approval rates are low. During the Biden administration (January 2021 through January 2025), the President granted 1,118 pardons and denied 3,500.⁷ Numbers fluctuate significantly between administrations, but denials have historically outpaced grants. That is a reason to take the application seriously, not a reason to skip it.

If Your Petition Is Denied

When the President denies a pardon, or when the Attorney General’s recommendation against clemency goes unchallenged by the President for 30 days, the Office of the Pardon Attorney notifies you and closes your file.⁸ That second path matters: if the Attorney General recommends denial and the President does nothing within 30 days, the denial is presumed final.

A denial is not permanent. You may submit a new application two years after the date of denial, provided you can present new and significant information or show that your circumstances have substantially changed. Refiling with the same facts will not produce a different result. Use the time to strengthen your record through community involvement, professional achievements, or other concrete evidence of rehabilitation.

Court-Martial Convictions

If your conviction came from a military court-martial rather than a civilian federal court, you are still eligible for a presidential pardon, but the application goes to a different office. Instead of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, you submit to the Secretary of the military branch that originally had jurisdiction: the Secretary of the Army for Army convictions, the Office of the Judge Advocate General for Navy or Marine Corps convictions, and the Secretary of the Air Force for Air Force convictions.⁹

A pardon for a military offense does not change the character of your discharge. If you received a dishonorable discharge, the pardon forgives the underlying crime but does not upgrade the discharge. To change a discharge characterization, you apply separately to your branch’s discharge review board or board for correction of military records.

What a Pardon Will and Won’t Do

A full pardon removes the penalties and legal disabilities that came with the conviction, including restrictions on voting, holding public office, and serving on a federal jury.¹⁰

It does not erase the conviction. A 2006 opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel confirmed that a presidential pardon “does not by its own force expunge judicial or administrative records of the conviction or underlying offense.”¹¹ Your conviction will still appear in background checks and court records. The Supreme Court has noted that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt” and that pardoned offenses can still be considered in later proceedings.¹⁰ A pardon means the government has forgiven you, not that the crime never happened. Understanding that difference before you apply will help you write a more honest, more persuasive petition.

1
Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress. Scope of Pardon Power
2
eCFR. 28 CFR 1.2 Eligibility for Filing Petition for Pardon
3
United States Department of Justice. Application for Pardon After Completion of Sentence
4
Department of Justice. Pardon Information and Instructions
5
U.S. Department of Justice. Office of the Pardon Attorney
6
eCFR. Part 1 Executive Clemency
7
U.S. Department of Justice. Past Clemency Action and Statistics (2009-2025)
8
eCFR. 28 CFR 1.8 Notification of Denial of Clemency
9
United States Department of Justice. Application for Pardon After Completion of Sentence
10
Library of Congress. ArtII.S2.C1.3.1 Overview of Pardon Power
11
United States Department of Justice. Whether a Presidential Pardon Expunges Judicial or Executive Branch Records