A federal appeal takes a median of about 11.5 months for civil cases and 10.8 months for criminal cases, measured from the notice of appeal to a final decision, according to federal court data for the year ending September 2024.1United States Courts. U.S. Courts of Appeals Median Time Intervals for Civil and Criminal Appeals Terminated on the Merits So the short answer to how long an appeal takes is roughly a year in federal court, with real cases falling anywhere from a few months to two years or more. State court timelines run on their own schedules. And one point of vocabulary matters before going further: appellate courts do not “approve” appeals the way an agency approves an application. They decide them, and the possible answers are affirm, reverse, or send the case back to the trial court.
Where the Months Actually Go
The year-long median hides a sequence of distinct phases, each with its own clock. Knowing which phase your case sits in tells you more about what’s left than the overall average does.
The Notice of Appeal Starts a Short Window
The appeal officially begins when the notice is filed in the trial court. In federal civil cases, you have 30 days after the judgment is entered, extended to 60 days if the federal government is a party. Criminal defendants get just 14 days after the judgment or sentencing order.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 4 – Appeal as of Right, When Taken These deadlines are jurisdictional. A judge cannot extend them for a good reason, a bad reason, or any reason. Missing the window usually ends the appeal before it starts.
Building the Record Can Take Weeks or Months
Once the notice is filed, the trial court assembles the record: original papers, exhibits, transcripts of proceedings, and the docket entries.3Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 10 – The Record on Appeal This step sounds administrative, and in a short case it is. In a case that took a week or more at trial, the court reporter has to transcribe everything, and complex commercial cases or lengthy criminal trials can produce thousands of pages. The briefing clock does not start until the record is complete, so a slow transcript pushes everything else back.
Briefing Runs Three Months on Paper, Longer in Practice
Briefing is where the legal arguments actually happen. The appellant files an opening brief identifying the errors below. The appellee files a response defending the ruling. The appellant then gets a reply brief limited to answering the response.4Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 28 – Briefs
Federal rules set the pace: 40 days for the opening brief after the record is filed, 30 days for the response, and 21 days for the reply.5Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 31 – Serving and Filing Briefs That’s about three months if nothing slips. In most cases something slips. Extensions are routine, and two or three rounds of them can push the briefing phase to five or six months.
Oral Argument Is Not Guaranteed
After briefing closes, the court decides whether to hear oral argument. The three-judge panel must unanimously agree that argument is unnecessary before skipping it, and only if the appeal is frivolous, the law is already settled, or the briefs cover the case adequately.6Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 34 – Oral Argument Despite that standard, a substantial share of federal appeals are decided on the briefs alone, especially in busy circuits. When argument does happen, each side typically gets 15 to 30 minutes, most of which the judges spend asking questions.
The Wait for a Decision
Once a case is argued or submitted on the briefs, the median wait for a written decision is about 2.7 months in civil cases and 2.2 months in criminal cases. Some circuits routinely take four or five.1United States Courts. U.S. Courts of Appeals Median Time Intervals for Civil and Criminal Appeals Terminated on the Merits This is the phase lawyers can do nothing to speed up. The judges deliberate, draft, circulate, and eventually file an opinion when they’re ready.
Which Circuit You’re In Matters a Lot
The federal medians flatten real differences between courts. In the same reporting period, the Second Circuit’s median time from oral argument to decision was 0.9 months. The D.C. Circuit’s was 5.1 months. If your case lands in a fast circuit, you could have an answer in well under a year. In a slower one, or one dealing with an unusually heavy docket, 18 months is a reasonable expectation and two years is not unusual.
State appellate courts set their own rules and run their own schedules, which vary widely by state and by court level. If your appeal is in state court, the federal medians are a reference point, not a prediction.
What Pushes an Appeal Past the Average
Caseload is the biggest variable, and it’s the one neither party controls. Some federal circuits handle thousands more appeals per year than others with similar numbers of judges, and no amount of careful lawyering speeds up an overloaded court.
Briefing extensions are the delay most within the parties’ control, and they happen constantly. The rules let courts extend any deadline for good cause, and attorneys routinely ask.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 26 – Computing and Extending Time Each request might add only a few weeks. Several in a row can double the briefing phase.
Transcript delays feed into the same problem. If the court reporter needs months to produce a long transcript, the briefing schedule shifts backward by that same amount, because nothing moves until the record is filed.
Case complexity matters, though less than people often assume. A clear-cut single-issue appeal can move quickly even in a busy court because the panel needs less deliberation time. Appeals with voluminous records, multiple issues, or questions no court has decided before take longer at every stage.
Interlocutory Appeals Move Faster
Most appeals wait until the trial court has entered a final judgment. Certain orders can be appealed before that, including orders granting or denying injunctions and orders involving receiverships.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1292 – Interlocutory Decisions Outside those categories, an interlocutory order is appealable only if it conclusively resolves an important separate question that could not be effectively reviewed later.
These appeals often move faster than post-judgment appeals because the underlying case is still pending and delay creates problems for both sides and the court. Expedited briefing is sometimes granted, especially where an injunction is at stake. A timeline measured in months rather than a year is realistic, with the exact pace depending on the circuit.
What Happens After the Decision Can Extend Everything
The appellate opinion does not take legal effect the day it issues. The court sends out a formal mandate, which is the document that returns authority to the trial court. In federal appeals, the mandate issues seven days after the deadline for seeking rehearing passes, or seven days after a rehearing petition is denied, whichever comes later.9Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 41 – Mandate, Contents, Issuance and Effective Date, Stay
If you lost and want another look, you can petition for rehearing by the same panel or by the full court sitting en banc. The deadline is 14 days after the judgment, or 45 days if the federal government is a party.10Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 40 – Panel Rehearing, En Banc Determination En banc rehearing is rare, reserved for cases that conflict with circuit precedent or raise questions of exceptional importance.
Beyond rehearing, the losing side can ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari within 90 days of the appellate judgment.11Legal Information Institute. Supreme Court Rule 13 – Review on Certiorari, Time for Petitioning A single Justice can extend that by up to 60 days for good cause. The Court takes fewer than two percent of the petitions it receives, so this is a long shot for nearly everyone, but a timely petition does toll the mandate clock.
Each of these post-decision steps adds weeks or months. An appeal that stops at the panel decision runs about a year. One that goes through rehearing and a certiorari petition can stretch to two or three. A case that actually gets heard by the Supreme Court can take years from the original notice of appeal to the final word.