First Step Act Early Release: Time Credits and 3 Other FSA Paths

If you or someone you love is in federal prison, the First Step Act may offer a way home sooner. The law, passed in December 2018, set out to shrink the federal prison population. It gives people in federal prison four main paths to get out sooner or to spend more of their sentence at home or in a halfway house:

1. A sentence reduction for old crack cocaine cases,
2. Time credits for finishing approved programs,
3. Compassionate release, and
4. The elderly offender home detention pilot program, which ran from fiscal year 2019 through 2023 and has ended.

The First Step Act is only part of the picture. Good conduct time, RDAP, halfway house and home confinement placement, and clemency come from other laws. For every path, see our guide to early release from federal prison.

Update (October 2026): This post was first written in 2019. We have updated it to reflect later changes, including the Sentencing Commission's 2023 rewrite of its compassionate release policy and two Supreme Court decisions from May 2026.

Path 1: First Step Act § 404 crack cocaine sentence reductions

Section 404 of the First Step Act lets a judge reduce a sentence for a "covered offense." That means a crack cocaine offense committed before August 3, 2010, whose penalties were lowered by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

The person in prison, the BOP Director, the prosecutor, or the court itself can ask for the reduction. The Fair Sentencing Act changed the penalties in these drug statutes:

• 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A),
• 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B),
• 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1), and
• 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(2)

For years, crack cocaine was punished far more harshly than powder cocaine. That gap fell hardest on Black defendants. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 narrowed the gap, but only for new cases. The First Step Act finally cured that long-standing injustice by making the fix retroactive, which means it now reaches older cases too. If your offense was committed before August 3, 2010, you may be eligible for a reduction as if the Fair Sentencing Act had been in effect when you committed it.

Two Supreme Court cases shape this path:

• In Terry v. United States (2021), the Court held that a crack conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C), the lowest-level drug penalty, is not a covered offense.
• In Concepcion v. United States, 597 U.S. 481 (2022), the Court held that judges may consider later changes in the law and facts, like your conduct in prison, when deciding these motions. But the judge does not have to reduce the sentence.

Path 2: First Step Act time credits

You can earn time credits by taking part in approved programs and productive activities. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), you earn 10 days of credit for every 30 days of participation. If you are rated minimum or low risk on two assessments in a row, you earn 5 more days, for 15 total.

The credits can move you into prerelease custody (a halfway house or home confinement) or start your supervised release up to 12 months early (18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(3)). Supervised release is the period of court supervision after prison.

To earn credits, you must not be serving a sentence for a disqualifying offense. The law lists dozens of them. Examples include § 924(c) firearm offenses, many violent and sex offenses, terrorism offenses, destruction of aircraft or motor vehicles, drive-by shootings, female genital mutilation, and certain immigration offenses. The full list is in 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D). People with a final order of removal (deportation) cannot use the credits.

People rated minimum or low risk can use their credits. People rated medium or high risk can use them only if the warden finds that they are not a danger to the community, are unlikely to commit another crime, and have made a good faith effort to lower their risk (18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)).

Faith-based classes or services can count if they otherwise meet the rules for recidivism reduction programs, as long as the BOP approves them the same way it approves other programs.

Path 3: Compassionate release motions under the First Step Act

Compassionate release is a court order that shortens your sentence because of "extraordinary and compelling reasons," like a terminal illness. It is also called a reduction in sentence (RIS). Other grounds can include a serious, lasting decline in health.

Inside the BOP, you start by making a request to your unit team. The warden reviews it, and then the BOP Director decides whether to approve it.

Before the First Step Act, only the BOP could ask a judge for compassionate release. Now you can file the motion yourself. First, you must send a written request to the warden. Then you can go to court after the BOP denies it and you finish the appeals process, or after 30 days pass from the day the warden gets your request, whichever comes first (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)).

The judge looks at the Sentencing Commission's policy statement, USSG §1B1.13. Since November 1, 2023, it applies to motions you file yourself. It lists these reasons:

• Serious medical problems, including a terminal illness,
• Age (65 or older, with serious decline, after serving at least 10 years or 75% of your sentence, whichever is less),
• Family needs, such as being the only available caregiver for a child or an incapacitated family member,
• Being a victim of sexual or serious physical abuse by prison staff,
• Other reasons of similar weight, and
• An unusually long sentence, in limited cases.

In May 2026, the Supreme Court narrowed that last reason. In Rutherford v. United States, the Court held that a change in the law that Congress did not make retroactive, such as the First Step Act's change to § 924(c) "stacking," cannot be a reason for compassionate release. The Court said the policy statement is invalid to the extent it says otherwise (opinion). In Fernandez v. United States, decided the same day, the Court held that claims that a conviction is invalid belong in a § 2255 motion, not a compassionate release motion (opinion).

The judge must also weigh the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), like the nature and circumstances of the offense, your criminal history, and public safety. The original version of this article noted that the warden, the BOP, or a sentencing judge may also look at comments from victims and the number of past supervised release violations.

Path 4: The First Step Act's elderly offender home detention pilot

The First Step Act expanded a pilot program that moved some older people from prison to home detention. Under 34 U.S.C. § 60541(g), a person had to be at least 60 and have served at least two-thirds of the sentence, among other rules. (The original version of this article said the age was "typically over 65"; the law sets it at 60.) Read more in our post on the Elderly Offender Pilot.

Congress authorized the pilot only for fiscal years 2019 through 2023 (34 U.S.C. § 60541(g)(3)), and it has not been renewed, so it isn't open to new requests now. Other routes may still fit: ordinary BOP home confinement near the end of a sentence (18 U.S.C. § 3624(c)(2)), First Step Act time credits, and compassionate release. Each has its own rules.

Which First Step Act path fits your case

The First Step Act was meant to shrink the federal prison population and turn the tide of the mass incarceration that has been the norm in this country for decades. Each path above has its own rules, and some people qualify for more than one. A good place to start is the judgment (the court's final order listing the conviction and sentence), the docket number, the BOP's sentence computation and, for a medical request, the person's BOP medical records.

Have a question about First Step Act time credits or early release? Book a consultation and tell us what happened.