How many total pardons has President Biden granted and how does that compare to previous presidents by term year?
Executive summary
President Joe Biden granted 80 pardons and 4,165 commutations during his four-year term, for a total of 4,245 acts of clemency — a record high for a modern president driven largely by mass commutation initiatives [1]. By contrast, recent presidents issued far fewer commutations and pardons: Barack Obama granted 1,715 commutations over eight years and 212 pardons across his two terms, while Donald Trump’s first term (2017–2021) included 144 pardons and 94 commutations; Trump’s second term through 2025 increased his clemency totals dramatically with mass pardons, placing him later in 2025 among presidents who have granted more than 1,600 acts of clemency in that year alone [2] [1].
1. Biden’s clemency by the numbers — extraordinary in scale and shape
The Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and multiple news analyses record Biden’s total clemency tally at 4,245 acts: 80 individual pardons and 4,165 commutations, making him the most prodigious commutation-granter on the record [1]. Biden’s approach emphasized mass actions — for example, proclamations pardoning people convicted of certain marijuana offenses and military service members convicted under an overturned ban — and large commutation rounds aimed at nonviolent drug offenders and long sentences tied to outdated laws [1] [3].
2. Pardons vs. commutations — a crucial distinction
A pardon erases remaining punishment and can bar future prosecution for the same offense; a commutation shortens or ends punishment while leaving the conviction intact. Biden’s record-setting total came almost entirely from commutations, not pardons: 4,165 commutations compared with 80 pardons [1]. This contrasts with past presidents whose clemency portfolios often contained more pardons relative to commutations, meaning Biden’s legacy will be judged more on sentence relief than on erasing convictions.
3. How Biden compares to recent predecessors
On pardons alone, Biden’s 80 over four years is smaller than many modern presidents’ totals (for instance, Barack Obama’s 212 pardons over eight years), but his commutations dwarf recent predecessors: Biden’s 4,165 commutations exceed Obama’s 1,715 commutations in eight years and put Biden atop the modern commutation list [1]. Trump’s first-term totals (144 pardons and 94 commutations over four years) were modest by comparison; however, Trump’s second term through 2025 saw a sharp increase in pardons — including mass pardons for January 6–related defendants — contributing to tallies exceeding 1,600 clemencies in 2025 alone [2] [4].
4. Context matters — timing, policy priorities and political choices
Presidents often concentrate clemency at the end of their terms; Biden’s largest actions came late and included sweeping commutations and proclamations [5] [6]. Policy priorities shaped the shape of Biden’s clemency: memos and shifts in DOJ sentencing priorities aimed at correcting racial sentencing disparities influenced his focus on nonviolent drug offenders and those serving “disproportionately long sentences” [7] [3]. Opponents and supporters interpret the same numbers differently: advocates hail mass commutations as corrective justice, while critics point to high-profile individual pardons (such as pardoning family or political figures) as politically fraught decisions [7] [8].
5. Competing narratives and lingering disputes in coverage
Reporting documents both the scale of Biden’s clemency and controversy around particular choices. Pew and Justice Department tallies foreground the unprecedented numerical scale of Biden’s commutations [1]; outlets such as Axios and BBC highlighted both large commutation rounds and—separately—criticisms that Biden historically issued fewer individual pardons until late in his term [7] [3]. Subsequent political conflicts (claims about autopen signing and attempts by successors to challenge pardons) emerged after Biden left office, and those legal and political fights are reflected in later coverage — but available sources do not provide a definitive legal outcome to those challenges here [9] [10].
6. What numbers don’t tell you — limitations and unanswered questions
Raw clemency counts conceal differences in impact: a single mass pardon can touch thousands (marijuana proclamations did), while targeted pardons can be legally and politically significant in other ways [11] [3]. Sources document totals and some policy rationales but do not uniformly catalog long-term reentry outcomes, recidivism, or courts’ treatment of challenged pardons in every instance; available sources do not mention comprehensive post-clemency outcome studies tied to Biden’s 2021–2025 actions [1] [5].
7. Bottom line — record-setting scale, contested legacy
Biden’s presidency stands out for a historic surge in commutations and a modest number of individual pardons , yielding the largest total acts of clemency on record and reshaping how modern clemency totals are compared across administrations [1]. That record is already the subject of competing narratives: reformers emphasize correction of sentencing excesses; critics emphasize selective pardons and later political disputes — both are documented in current reporting [1] [7] [8].