If you are sentenced in federal court today and the judge sends you to prison for more than a year, nothing in the sentencing guidelines tells that judge to put you on supervised release afterward. That is new. From 1987 until November 1, 2025, §5D1.1(a)(2) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines directed courts to order supervised release whenever the prison term exceeded one year. The Sentencing Commission struck that provision outright in Amendment 835.
What remains is narrower than most people facing federal charges realize. The only surviving mandate in §5D1.1(a) is statutory: the court shall order supervised release when a statute requires it. Everything else is now a judgment call.
The size of that opening is measurable. According to the Commission's Quick Facts on Supervised Release for fiscal year 2025, courts imposed supervised release in 50,688 of the 61,557 cases involving a prison term, an 82 percent imposition rate. Supervised release was required by statute in only 22 percent of the cases in which it was imposed. Roughly four out of five federal supervision terms were being handed down under the guideline instruction that no longer exists.
First, a correction about the date
There is real confusion circulating about which November 1 this is, and it matters if you are trying to figure out whether the change applies to you.
Amendment 835 was promulgated in April 2025 and took effect November 1, 2025. It has been the operative law for about nine months. It amended Chapter Five, Part D (§§5D1.1 through the new 5D1.4) and Chapter Seven, Parts A, B, and C, with conforming changes to §1B1.10, §4B1.5, §5B1.3, §5G1.3, §5H1.3, and §5H1.4.
The Commission's separate 2026 amendment package was submitted to Congress on April 30, 2026 and takes effect November 1, 2026 absent congressional action. Per the Commission's April 16, 2026 announcement, that package covers sentencing options (a new §5A1.1 and revised Chapter Five, Part A introductory commentary), an inflation adjustment to the economic crime loss table (the first in over a decade), multiple counts simplification, elimination of more than twenty rarely applied specific offense characteristics, HALT Fentanyl Act implementation, and unmanned aircraft offenses. It contains nothing on supervised release.
So: if you were sentenced on or after November 1, 2025, the new Part D already governed your case. Nothing further is coming for supervised release this fall.
What §5D1.1 says now
The struck language read: "The court shall order a term of supervised release to follow imprisonment: (1) when required by statute (see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(a)); or (2) except as provided in subsection (c), when a sentence of imprisonment of more than one year is imposed."
The current text reads:
(a) The court shall order a term of supervised release to follow imprisonment when required by statute (see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(a)).
(b) When a term of supervised release is not required by statute, the court should order a term of supervised release to follow imprisonment when warranted by an individualized assessment of the need for supervision.
A new subsection (d) adds a procedural lever that defense counsel should not ignore: "The court should state in open court the reasons for imposing or not imposing a term of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)." A parallel on-the-record requirement now appears at §5D1.2(b) for the length of the term. Those two provisions force the court to build a reviewable record either way.
One structural detail deserves attention. Subsection (c) survived untouched: the court "ordinarily should not impose" supervised release where it is not statutorily required and the defendant is a deportable noncitizen likely to be deported. What was a carve-out for one group has effectively become the default posture for everyone the statutes do not cover.
Length: the minimums are gone
The old §5D1.2(a) set floors. At least two but not more than five years for a Class A or B felony. At least one but not more than three years for a Class C or D felony. One year for a Class E felony or Class A misdemeanor. (Secondary write-ups frequently garble this, collapsing the Class C through E tiers into a single one-year floor. That is not what the guideline said.)
The new §5D1.2(a) states: "If a term of supervised release is ordered, the court shall conduct an individualized assessment to determine the length of the term, which shall not be less than any statutorily required minimum term." The subsection now supplies only ceilings: five years for Class A or B felonies, three years for Class C or D, one year for a Class E felony or non-petty misdemeanor.
The Commission's FY2025 data shows why this is more than housekeeping. 92 percent of imposed terms fell within the §5D1.2(a) ranges that no longer exist. The average term was 46 months following an average 61-month prison sentence.
Two additional deletions matter enormously in sex offense cases. The old §5D1.2(b) authorized terms up to life for certain terrorism-related offenses causing or risking death or serious bodily injury and for sex offenses, and it carried a policy statement recommending the statutory maximum term for any sex offense. Both the up-to-life subsection and the recommended-maximum policy statement were struck. So was the parallel recommendation in the §4B1.5 commentary covering repeat and dangerous sex offenders.
Conditions now require individual justification
Section §5D1.3 was restructured. Discretionary conditions now open at (b)(1) with a direct instruction: "The court should conduct an individualized assessment to determine what, if any, other conditions of supervised release are warranted." The familiar "standard" conditions moved to §5D1.3(b)(2) and are now framed as conditions "which the court may modify, expand, or omit in appropriate cases." Previously they were simply recommended, and in practice they were read onto the record as a block.
The new §5D1.4 is the provision most people should read
Amendment 835 added an entirely new policy statement, §5D1.4, covering modification, early termination, and extension of supervised release. For anyone already serving a term, this is the operative section.
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(a) Modification of conditions at any time under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2), with courts encouraged to reassess conditions in consultation with the probation officer after the person is released.
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(b) Early termination after one year under § 3583(e)(1), following an individualized assessment and consultation with the government and probation.
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(c) Extension where less than the maximum term was originally imposed.
Application Note 1(B) supplies a factor list for early termination, modeled in part on the Guide to Judiciary Policy, Vol. 8E, Ch. 3, § 360.20: history of court-reported violations; ability to lawfully self-manage; substantial compliance; prosocial activities and support; demonstrated risk reduction or maintenance of the lowest risk category; and whether termination would jeopardize public safety. Application Note 2 encourages victim notification.
The Commission's own stated reasoning is quotable in a motion. Conditions are set at sentencing, it wrote, "often years before the defendant begins supervision," and "People and their circumstances may change in and after prison, such that the original term and conditions may no longer be appropriate after the defendant's release."
Who this reaches, and who it does not
Under §1B1.11(a), "The court shall use the Guidelines Manual in effect on the date that the defendant is sentenced." That means the new Part D governs anyone sentenced on or after November 1, 2025, regardless of when the offense occurred. Because the change is ameliorative, there is no ex post facto problem.
If you were sentenced before that date, there is no resentencing pathway. Amendment 835 does not appear on the §1B1.10(d) list of retroactive amendments, and §1B1.10 reaches only reductions in a term of imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) in any event. Supervised release is not covered by that mechanism.
The door that is open runs through § 3583(e)(1) and (e)(2), framed by the new §5D1.4. That argument is available now, to anyone currently on supervision, and it does not depend on retroactivity. The pitch is straightforward: the Sentencing Commission has formally changed its stated policy on when supervision is warranted and how long it should last, and §5D1.4 gives the court a factor framework it did not have before.
Building the argument at sentencing
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Confirm no statutory mandate applies. Check 18 U.S.C. § 3583(a), (j), and (k), and the drug statutes that carry their own supervision minimums (21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b), 846, 960(b), 963). If a statute mandates a term, the guideline change does not help on imposition, only on length above the floor and on conditions.
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Put a written individualized assessment in the sentencing memorandum, tracking the six § 3583(c) factors listed in the new §5D1.1 Application Note 1. Do not leave the assessment to be improvised at the hearing.
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Argue length separately from imposition under §5D1.2(a). Losing the first argument does not forfeit the second, and the floors that used to constrain the court are gone.
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Attack conditions individually under §5D1.3(b)(1). The "standard" set is now expressly modifiable or omittable.
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Invoke the new (d) reasons requirement. A court that imposes supervision without stating reasons has created an appellate issue that did not exist before November 2025.
The counterweights, including one that cuts hard the other way
Application Notes 2 through 4 to §5D1.1 still push toward supervision in specific circumstances: criminal history weighs in favor, substance abuse makes supervision "highly recommended," and domestic violence offenses carry a statutory mandate.
Then there is Application Note 7, which almost no coverage of this amendment has flagged. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)(3), First Step Act earned time credits can move a person to the start of supervised release up to twelve months early. But that transfer only works if the sentence includes a term of supervised release. Winning an argument for no supervision can cost a client up to a year of earned-time transfer out of custody. That trade-off should be calculated case by case before anyone argues for zero.
The revocation math, stated honestly
Supervised release carries real re-incarceration exposure. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3), revocation imprisonment is capped at five years for Class A felonies, three years for Class B, two years for Class C or D, and one year in any other case, with no credit for time already served on supervision. Under § 3583(h), a fresh term of supervision can follow the revocation prison term, so the exposure can repeat.
How often does it happen? The Administrative Office's June 2022 "Just the Facts" analysis of 32,123 closed supervision cases in FY2021 found nearly 30 percent were revoked, with about 13 percent of all closed cases revoked for technical violations unaccompanied by a new criminal arrest. Among technical-only revocations, roughly 60 percent drew six months or less and about 15 percent drew more than a year.
Here is the part that responsible coverage should not skip: the AO concluded that technical revocations had "relatively negligible impacts on federal prison populations." You will see claims that supervised release violations drive a large share of federal prison returns in the aggregate. The government's own data does not support that framing. The honest story is individual exposure and district-level variance, not national headcount.
And the variance is stark. The Commission's July 2020 violations study examined roughly 108,000 violation hearings from 2013 through 2017 involving more than 82,000 people. The overall annual violation-hearing rate was 16.9 percent. By grade, violations broke down as Grade C 54.9 percent, Grade B 31.5 percent, and Grade A 13.6 percent. Median time to violation was about 22 months, rising to 33 months for Grade A. District rates ranged from 42.1 percent in the Southern District of California and 37.4 percent in Minnesota down to 4.5 percent in Connecticut and 4.7 percent in Maryland. Where your case is supervised may matter more than what you did.
The Chapter Seven half nobody covered
Amendment 835 also split Chapter Seven. Part B now addresses probation violations only. A new Part C governs supervised release violations, with §7C1.1 (classification), §7C1.2 (reporting), §7C1.3 (responses), §7C1.4 (revocation), §7C1.5 (Supervised Release Revocation Table), and §7C1.6 (no credit for time under supervision).
The substantive change: revocation is no longer mandatory for Grade A and Grade B violations. New §7C1.3(b) requires revocation only where a statute requires it. Otherwise revocation is "generally appropriate" for Grade A, "often appropriate" for Grade B, and "may be appropriate" for Grade C. Section §7C1.4(b) also softened consecutive revocation terms from "shall" to "generally should." Application Note 3 to §7C1.3 encourages courts to issue a summons rather than an arrest warrant. Graduated responses short of revocation are now the Commission's stated preference.
One thing that did not change: the procedural protections at a revocation hearing. In United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. 634 (2019), a plurality held the mandatory-minimum portion of § 3583(k) unconstitutional. Circuits have consistently declined to extend that holding to § 3583(e)(3) or § 3583(g). See United States v. Carpenter, 104 F.4th 655 (7th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1188 (2025); United States v. Robinson, 63 F.4th 530 (6th Cir. 2023); United States v. Henderson, 998 F.3d 1071 (9th Cir. 2021). Revocation still runs on a preponderance standard, decided by a judge, with no jury.
Where the Commission got this from
The new Part D introductory commentary grounds the change in the statute's original legislative history and in Supreme Court case law. It quotes S. Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 54 (1983), which framed supervised release as a tool to "assure that [those] who will need post-release supervision will receive it" while "prevent[ing] probation system resources from being wasted" on those who do not. It cites Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 709 (2000), and United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 59 (2000), for the proposition that supervised release "fulfills rehabilitative ends, distinct from those served by incarceration."
The Commission's Amendment in Brief is blunter about the trend it was trying to reverse: the imposition rate had climbed from 75 percent in FY2018 to 83 percent in FY2024.
Whether it actually worked is still an open question
FY2025 is the pre-amendment baseline: 82 percent imposition, an average 46-month term, and a length distribution running 3 to under 5 years (55 percent), 5 years up to life (19 percent), one year or less (16 percent), more than one to under three years (8 percent), and life (2 percent).
The offense-type breakdown shows where a discretionary standard has room to bite and where it does not. Immigration cases ran 64 percent imposition across 24,006 cases. Drug trafficking and firearms ran 98 percent. Fraud 95 percent. Violent offenses 97 percent. Sexual offenses 100 percent. Non-U.S. citizens 63 percent against 99 percent for U.S. citizens. The lowest districts were New Mexico at 39 percent and the Southern District of Texas at 45 percent. Eight districts imposed supervised release in 100 percent of imprisonment cases.
Those eight districts are the test. A guideline that says "conduct an individualized assessment" produces a different outcome only if judges who previously imposed supervision automatically now sometimes do not. FY2026 Commission data will be the first real measurement of whether the default flipped in practice or only on paper.
If you are currently on supervised release and have completed at least a year of it, §5D1.4(b) and 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1) give you a motion you can file. If you are facing sentencing, the argument for a shorter term, fewer conditions, or no supervision at all is available in a way it was not two years ago, subject to the First Step Act trade-off in Application Note 7. Either way, the guideline that made post-prison supervision automatic is no longer on the books.
Related reading
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[Medical Marijuana Is Schedule III and Recreational Marijuana Is Still Schedule I: The Two-Tier Federal Drug Law Nobody Explained](/article/medical-marijuana-schedule-iii-recreational-still-schedule-i-two-tier-federal-law)
Sources
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U.S. Sentencing Commission, Amendment 835 (Supervised Release)
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2025 Guidelines Manual, Chapter 5 (effective November 1, 2025)
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USSC Primer: Supervised Release (Office of the General Counsel, 2025)
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USSC, Federal Probation and Supervised Release Violations (July 2020)
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USSC Press Release: Commission Adopts 2026 Amendments (April 16, 2026)
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Federal Register Notice: Submission of 2026 Amendments to Congress (USSC)
Note: This article contains AI-assisted content and has been reviewed by our editorial team.
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