How much did Biden spend on vacations in 2021 through 2025 separately?
Executive summary
Snopes’ detailed review of Biden’s public calendars and pool reports finds that across his full term (Jan. 20, 2021–Jan. 20, 2025) Biden spent 117 or 118 full days in what the fact‑checker defines as “vacation settings,” plus additional partial days, not the 40% figure pushed by the RNC (532 days) [1]. Major outlets and partisan groups use different definitions — the Washington Post and RNC counts are much higher because they include weekends, partial days, and residences where the president sometimes works [2] [3].
1. What the best fact‑checking work measured: Snopes’ method and headline figure
Snopes avoided the politicized label “vacation” and instead counted days Biden spent in a vacation setting, then checked pool reports and public calendars to see whether there was public evidence he was working; using that approach it concluded Biden spent 117 or 118 full days of the 1,461‑day presidency in a vacation setting [1]. Snopes stresses the difficulty of declaring any president fully “on vacation” because a sitting president can and does work from non‑White House locations [4].
2. Why partisan tallies differ so dramatically
The RNC’s widely cited 532‑day (about 40%) figure counts any day off the White House — including weekend trips to Wilmington or partial travel days — and aggregates partial days in ways Snopes judges misleading; Snopes and other outlets say that approach inflates the number by including many days where Biden performed presidential duties or worked remotely [4] [3]. The Washington Post’s pool‑report based tracking produced yet another total (reported as higher than Snopes’), illustrating that different rules for “vacation” yield very different totals [2] [5].
3. Partial days, “working vacations,” and the reporting challenge
Pool reports and White House calendars show Biden often worked while away from the White House — a White House official contested labeling Wilmington as a “vacation home,” saying Biden frequently worked there — which weakens claims that time away equals time off [1]. Snopes therefore separated full days in vacation settings from partial days where work was documented; it also identified many days at Camp David or Delaware residences where public events were limited but not necessarily zero [4].
4. Year‑by‑year breakdowns: what available sources provide (and don’t)
Available sources in this dossier do not publish a clean, authoritative per‑year dollar or day breakdown for 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 individually that matches the Snopes methodology; Snopes reports totals across the full Jan. 20, 2021–Jan. 20, 2025 span [1]. News outlets and partisan trackers have produced year‑specific percentages (for instance, the Washington Post and RNC produced year‑level tallies and the Post/other outlets reported high 2023 totals), but those use different counting rules and are inconsistent with Snopes’ full‑term figure [6] [3].
5. Cost claims vs. day counts: separate questions
Some reporting and opinion pieces have translated “vacation days” into taxpayer costs (for example, citing roughly $11 million in flight costs up to late 2022), but the sources assembled here treat day counts and fiscal cost as separate issues and do not provide a comprehensive, audited spending total for each year 2021–2025 tied to the agreed‑upon day counts [7]. Available sources do not mention a definitive per‑year dollar total for presidential vacations across 2021–2025 that is methodologically consistent across outlets.
6. How to interpret competing figures: journalism’s obligation
Different actors have clear agendas: the RNC uses a broad definition to maximize political damage [3]; fact‑checkers like Snopes aim to narrow definitions to isolate days with no public evidence of work [1]. The media ecosystem also amplifies raw counts without always disclosing methodology, which produces misleading soundbites [4] [2]. Readers should treat headline percentages skeptically and look for the underlying counting rules.
7. Bottom line and what reporters still need to nail down
If you want a conservative, evidence‑based baseline from the provided sources, cite Snopes: 117–118 full days in vacation settings over the full Jan. 20, 2021–Jan. 20, 2025 presidency, plus additional partial days where he spent time away but often worked [1] [4]. For per‑year day or dollar totals using that same method, available sources do not provide a clean year‑by‑year breakdown tied to Snopes’ criteria; obtaining that would require reapplying Snopes’ day‑by‑day method to each calendar year [1].