Where the proud boys EVER got n a terrorist list in the us between 1990 and 2024

Checked on January 10, 2026
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Executive summary

Between 1990 and 2024 the Proud Boys were never placed on a U.S. federal “terrorist” list; international governments (notably Canada in 2021 and New Zealand in 2022) designated the group as a terrorist entity, while U.S. prosecutors charged and convicted individual members for crimes including seditious conspiracy related to Jan. 6, 2021 [1] [2] [3] [4].

1. The precise question asked—and its legal pivot

The user is asking whether any U.S. government list formally labeled the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization between 1990 and 2024, a narrowly legal question that turns on U.S. authorities’ formal classification powers; the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list applies to foreign groups and does not operate as a mechanism to declare a domestic U.S. group a terrorist organization, and scholars note there is no parallel federal statute that creates a formal “domestic terrorist organization” designation comparable to foreign listings [3] [5].

2. What happened in Canada and New Zealand — and why it matters for comparisons

Canada officially listed the Proud Boys as a “terrorist entity” in early 2021 after evidence tied the group to the Capitol events, which allowed Canadian authorities to freeze assets and pursue terrorism-related penalties for support or participation, and New Zealand followed with an official designation in 2022 alongside a detailed explanation of the group’s pattern of violent mobilization; these foreign designations demonstrate how other democracies apply domestic terrorism laws to groups headquartered abroad or operating transnationally, but they are not U.S. actions and do not create U.S. legal consequences [2] [1] [3] [6].

3. What U.S. authorities actually did between 1990 and 2024

In the United States the response centered on criminal prosecutions and law‑enforcement investigations rather than an administrative “terrorist designation” of the organization itself: federal prosecutors charged and convicted multiple Proud Boys leaders and members for crimes arising from the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, including rare seditious‑conspiracy counts, and the Justice Department pursued those individuals under existing criminal statutes rather than by placing the organization on a terrorism registry [4] [7].

4. Why there was no U.S. “terrorist list” entry for the Proud Boys

Legal and institutional limits explain the absence of a U.S. listing: the State Department’s FTO mechanism is for foreign organizations and U.S. law lacks a comparable administrative pathway to designate domestic groups as terrorist entities preemptively; experts and academic centers have highlighted that absence, noting it constrains preventive tools that other countries used when labeling the Proud Boys [3] [5].

5. Alternative perspectives and political pressure inside the U.S.

Advocates, civil‑society organizations and some legal commentators pushed for the label “domestic terrorist” in public discourse and urged formal consequences equivalent to foreign listings, arguing the Proud Boys’ tactics and Jan. 6 role merit that designation; opponents—among them some in conservative circles and at least one leader of the group—contested the label and framed prosecutions as politically motivated, while public petitions and campaigns sought U.S. action that federal law simply did not provide for [7] [8].

6. Bottom line and reporting limits

The bottom line: based on authoritative coverage and expert analysis provided, the Proud Boys were never placed on a U.S. federal terrorist list between 1990 and 2024 — the U.S. response instead relied on criminal prosecution of members, while Canada and New Zealand applied formal terrorism designations [2] [1] [3] [4] [5]. This report is limited to the supplied sources; if a reader seeks confirmation from primary U.S. government policy texts or DOJ/State Department administrative records beyond these summaries, those documents should be consulted directly because the sources here document absence of a U.S. designation and the presence of foreign designations and criminal prosecutions [3] [2] [4].

Want to dive deeper?
How does the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation process work and why it excludes domestic groups?
What criminal charges have been brought against Proud Boys members for the January 6, 2021 attack, and what were the outcomes?
How did Canada and New Zealand legally justify designating the Proud Boys as terrorist entities, and what penalties did those listings trigger?