The 2025 Federal Sentencing Guidelines took effect on November 1, 2025. This year’s amendments to the Guidelines streamlined sentencing procedures, resolved circuit splits, and promoted sentencing based on individualized, case-specific determinations. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has also revised several longstanding rules to give sentencing courts greater discretion. The changes address a range of topics, including supervised release, mitigating-role adjustments in drug cases, specific offense characteristics in robbery and extortion offenses, refined firearm enhancements, and criminal history calculations.
Simplification of the “Three-Step Process” and the Elimination of Departures
Since the Supreme Court held that mandatory sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), federal courts have treated the Guidelines as “the starting point and the initial benchmark” in sentencing proceedings. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 49 (2007).
Accordingly, until now, calculating the appropriate Guidelines sentencing range had been part of a three-step process for determining the sentence to be imposed. Courts engaging in that three-step process had to:
- Calculate the applicable guideline range;
- Evaluate whether a departure from the range is warranted based on the Guidelines’ policy statements for downwards departures;
- Determine if a variance from the Guidelines is warranted by evaluating the sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), which provide for a holistic assessment.
Since the Guidelines became advisory, however, sentencing procedures have evolved to the point where courts routinely bypass the second step and address the defendant’s mitigating or aggravating circumstances by reference to the § 3553(a) factors rather than under the policy-driven departures under the Guidelines.
The 2025 Guidelines remove the second step to more accurately reflect the actual sentencing practices of federal courts. As such, all of the departure provisions and related policy statements have been deleted from the body of the Guidelines Manual and instead consolidated in Appendix B for historical reference, with the exception of U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, which allows sentence reductions based on a defendant’s assistance to the investigation, and U.S.S.G. § 5K3.1 (now 3F1.1), which provide for reductions in cases involving early dispositions (“fast track” pleas)–both of these departures remain in effect.
Updates to Supervised Release
The 2025 Guidelines significantly revised the supervised release provisions to promote individualized sentencing determinations and reduce unnecessary post-incarceration supervision. The stated aim is to ensure that terms of supervised release serve rehabilitative ends rather than function as an additional means of punishment.
The revised U.S.S.G. §5D1.1, which governs the imposition of supervised release, directs that courts should not automatically impose a term of supervised release for defendants sentenced to more than one year unless required by statute. Instead, courts must engage in an individualized assessment, guided by the § 3553(a) factors, to determine whether further supervision is warranted, and the court must explain its reasons on the record.
Likewise, the revised §5D1.2 removes the recommended minimum terms of supervised release, empowering courts to conduct individualized assessments of defendants and set terms within statutory maximums. Notably, the amendment also removes the recommendation for imposing lifetime supervision for sex offenses.
Under the revised §5D1.3, discretionary conditions are no longer the standard. Courts must instead tailor a defendant’s conditions based on the nature of the offense, the defendant’s history, and the specific purposes of supervision as applied to that defendant’s case. The amended policy also encourages reassessment of conditions early into a defendant’s supervision term to determine whether modification, reduction, or expansion is warranted. Courts are encouraged to terminate a defendant’s term of supervised release after one year if the defendant’s conduct, compliance history, risk profile, and the interests of public safety support early termination.
A new provision under the 2025 Guidelines, U.S.S.G. §5D1.4, promotes post-release “check-ins” to reassess a defendant’s conditions, supports early termination when justified, and clarifies that courts may extend terms of supervision rather than revoke a defendant’s supervised release, when appropriate.
The 2025 Guidelines also formally distinguish probation from supervised release now, reflecting “that probation serves all the goals of sentencing, including punishment, while supervised release primarily ‘fulfills rehabilitative ends, distinct from those served by incarceration.’” United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 59 (2000).
A new “Part C” addresses supervised release and emphasizes case-specific responses to violations. It encourages a case-by-case examination in revocation proceedings rather than the automatic revocation procedure for most alleged violations of supervised release conditions. Under the revised policy, revocation is considered “generally appropriate” for the most serious violations, such as those involving new crimes of violence, firearms, or controlled substances (Grade A); “often appropriate” for other felony-level violations (Grade B); and “may be appropriate” for less serious violations such as certain misdemeanors or technical noncompliance (Grade C).
Addressing Emerging Issues
Circuit Conflicts
The 2025 amendments resolve two longstanding circuit conflicts, one involving the scope of the two-level “physically restrained” enhancement in robbery and extortion cases, and another regarding the definition of “intervening arrest” for criminal history purposes.
“Physically Restrained”
Previously, U.S.S.G. §2B3.1(b)(4)(B) imposed a two-level increase “if any person was physically restrained to facilitate commission of the offense or to facilitate escape,” with Application Note 1(L) to §1B1.1 defining “physically restrained” as “the forcible restraint of the victim such as by being tied, bound, or locked up.” Circuits were split on whether this enhancement applied in situations where a victim was held at gunpoint but not physically immobilized.
The Commission received public comment and testimony noting that the conduct at issue in this split—pointing a gun at a victim during a robbery—was also treated inconsistently under the separate §2B3.1(b)(2) firearm enhancement, which distinguishes between brandishing, possessing, and otherwise using a gun. Commission data shows that courts sometimes scored pointing a gun at a victim during a robbery as “brandished” (five levels) and elsewhere as “otherwise used” (six levels). Combined with the inconsistent use of the “physically restrained” enhancement, this created potential enhancements ranging from five to eight levels for essentially the same conduct.
To promote uniformity and consistency, the amendment adopts the narrower circuit view for §2B3.1(b)(4)(B), limiting the two-level enhancement to cases where the victim’s movement was restricted “through physical contact or confinement, such as being tied, bound, or locked up.” Non-physical restraint, such as holding a victim at gunpoint without immobilization, no longer qualifies for the enhancement.
At the same time, the amendment revises §2B3.1(b)(2)(B) so that the six-level increase applies if a firearm was used to convey a specific (not general) threat of harm (e.g., pointing it at a specific victim, directing a victim’s movement with it) or to make physical contact with a victim (e.g., pistol-whipping, placing the firearm against the victim’s body).
To maintain consistency across similar provisions, the Commission made parallel changes to §§ 2B3.2 (Extortion by Force or Threat of Injury or Serious Damage) and 2E2.1 (Making or Financing an Extortionate Extension of Credit; Collecting by Extortionate Means). No parallel change was made to §3A1.3 (Restraint of Victim), which uses the term “physically restrained” but differs in scope.
“Intervening Arrest”
Another circuit split addressed by the amendments involves the “single-sentence rule,” under §4A1.2(a)(2), which determines whether multiple previous sentences are counted separately or as a single sentence when calculating a defendant’s criminal history points. When a defendant is arrested after the first offense before committing the second, the second offense is considered to have been separated from the first offense by an “intervening arrest,” and the sentences for both offenses are counted separately, even if they were imposed on the same day and to run concurrently.
Circuits disagreed on whether a traffic stop qualifies as an intervening arrest. The Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits defined “intervening arrest” as requiring a formal, custodial arrest and refused to extend the definition to citations or summons following a traffic stop. The Seventh Circuit disagreed: its broader understanding of the term included traffic stops.
The amendment adopts the custodial-only view, specifying in commentary that “[f]or purposes of this provision, a traffic stop is not an intervening arrest.”
Drug Offenses
The 2025 amendments to the Guidelines made several notable changes to the drug Guidelines, particularly as they are applied to low-level participants and fentanyl offenses. The overall thrust of these changes is to reduce reliance on drug quantity as a proxy for culpability, better calibrate penalties to a defendant’s actual role, and clarify treatment of certain substances.
Mitigating Role Adjustments and Offense Level Caps
The amendments recalibrated the Drug Quantity Table under §2D1.1(a)(5) to lower the Guidelines’ reliance on drug type and quantity as a measure of offense culpability. They created subsection §2D1.1(e)(2) to provide lower offense-level caps for defendants who receive a mitigating role adjustment under §3B1.2, which have been applied inconsistently in drug trafficking cases. The goal of these amendments was to ensure large drug quantities do not automatically push low-level participants into disproportionately high sentencing ranges.
Under the revised §2D1.1(a)(5), if a defendant receives any mitigating role adjustment under §3B1.2 and the base offense level from the Drug Quantity Table is above 34, the base offense level is capped at 32. If the defendant receives the full four-level reduction under §3B1.2(a) for a minimal role and the resulting offense level would otherwise be greater than 30, the base offense level is capped at 30. In other words, the 32 cap applies to all qualifying mitigating-role defendants above the threshold level, but the lower 30 cap applies only when the court finds the defendant was a minimal participant within the meaning of §3B1.2(a).
The new special instructions under §2D1.1(e)(2) direct that a mitigating-role adjustment is “generally warranted” in drug trafficking offenses where the defendant’s primary function was a low-level trafficking role, such as acting as a courier, serving as a lookout, running errands, sending or receiving drug-related messages, distributing only user-level quantities, or distributing with little or no profit or due to coercion, intimidation, or familial obligations.
The special instruction further clarifies that this presumption applies even if the number of participants in the overall conspiracy is small or if the defendant is not less culpable than most of his co-conspirators, and that it may be applied regardless of whether the mitigating role adjustment is made through direct application of §3B1.2 or through the special instruction. Courts must still make an individualized assessment, but the guidance is intended to promote more consistent application of mitigating-role reductions
Misrepresenting controlled substance fentanyl
In 2018, the Commission amended the Guidelines to add a new enhancement providing a four-level increase whenever a defendant knowingly misrepresented, or knowingly marketed as another substance, a mixture or substance containing fentanyl or a fentanyl analogue. In 2023, the Commission revised this section with a lesser two-level enhancement for offenses where a defendant instead acted with “willful blindness or conscious avoidance of knowledge.”
In response to concerns that the “willful blindness or conscious avoidance of knowledge” mental state was too vague, the 2025 amendments changed the mens rea requirement for the two-level fentanyl-misrepresentation enhancement to “reckless disregard.”
Firearms Offenses
The 2025 amendments to §2K2.1 regarding firearms offenses address how the Guidelines treat machine gun conversion devices (MCDs), which are used to convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic weapons. MCDs are also referred to as “Glock switches” or “auto sears.”
Federal law under the National Firearms Act (NFA), 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b), defines MCDs as machine guns. The Gun Control Act (GCA), 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), however, uses a different definition of “firearm” that does not explicitly include MCDs.
Previously, U.S.S.G. §2K2.1 incorporated both definitions in different contexts, leading to inconsistent application. For example, possession of an MCD could trigger an enhanced base offense level under §2K2.1(a)(5), which relied on the NFA definition, but not count as a “firearm” for purposes of certain specific offense characteristics or cross references that used the GCA definition. In other words, a defendant could receive extra time in prison for possessing multiple guns, but not necessarily because they possessed illegal machine guns.
The 2025 amendments resolved this inconsistency by including a definition of “machinegun conversion devices” consistent with the NFA’s statutory definition under §2K2.1. This ensures that MCDs are treated as machine guns for all relevant enhancements, including the number-of-firearms table at §2K2.1(b)(1) and applicable cross references.
Additionally, to address the concerns of “danger to the public” posed by MCDs, the amendment establishes a new tiered specific offense characteristic at § 2K2.1(b)(5) for such cases. That includes a two-level enhancement when a defendant either possessed four or more MCDs or transferred, sold, or conspired to commit the transfer or sale of an MCD. It also adds a four-level enhancement when a defendant possessed 30 or more MCDs. The amendment further revises the cumulative offense-level cap so that the level may not exceed 29 after applying §2K2.1(b)(1)–(b)(5) unless the offense involves a portable rocket or missile under §2K2.1(b)(3)(A).
Retroactivity Considerations
The Commission is still evaluating whether several of the 2025 amendments should apply retroactively. Because each of the above provisions reduces the sentencing range for some individuals, the Commission is statutorily required under 28 U.S.C. § 994(u) to determine whether the amendments should be applied retroactively to individuals who were previously sentenced and are currently incarcerated.
The amendments under review for retroactive application are:
- Drug offenses mitigating-role provisions at §2D1.1(a)(5). Of the 62,045 persons incarcerated for a drug trafficking offense, an estimated 650 would have a lower guideline range if the Commission made §2D1.1(a)(5) retroactive. According to Commission data, the current average sentence for these 650 individuals is 81 months but would shorten by 12 months if courts grant the full reduction possible in each case.
- Drug offenses special instructions relating to low-level traffickers at §3B1.2. There are 3,697 incarcerated individuals to whom §3B1.2 applies. Of those, 3,429 received an adjustment of less than four levels.
- “Physically Restrained” enhancement at §2B3.1(b)(4)(B). Of the 8,962 persons incarcerated who were sentenced under §§2B3.1, 2B3.2, or 2E2.1, the Commission estimates that retroactively applying the physically restrained amendment would affect 1,063 persons.
- “Intervening Arrest” amendment at §4A1.2(a)(2). The Commission does not collect information about traffic stops and cannot estimate the impact of this amendment if applied retroactively.
The Commission issued a separate analysis report before receiving comments on retroactivity, but has yet to finalize any decisions. That analysis is available here.