Donald Trump · Deep dive

The Output

272orders in 565 days

More than any administration since at least 2001 at the same point.

What did he actually do, counted? This is the second of six questions asked of every subject at this tier, in the same words each time, and for someone who has held office the answer is instruments: orders, proclamations, memoranda, and what got through Congress. It covers everything signed, the change in what the pen is used for, what became law, and how much of the writing undoes someone else’s.

Six of six — the base set is complete

Every subject at this tier is asked the same six questions, fixed before the subject is chosen so the set cannot be picked to suit an argument. The others written for this record are Private Money, Reach, Affiliations, The Legal Record and Standing. With this one the base set is complete, so the overlay dives — the ones specific to what this subject has been — are unblocked. None of them could have been started before now.

Back to the full record.

272

executive orders in 565 days

Next highest at the same point: 95

1.63

orders per proclamation

Every predecessor since 2001: 0.30–0.41

167

proclamations

Fewest at this point since 2001

102

public laws, 119th Congress

Against 442 in the 115th

vetoes overridden

Two vetoes cast; neither was overturned

Instruments

Everything signed, by type

A president acts on paper through a handful of named instruments. Counting all of them, rather than only the famous one, is what stops this being a story about executive orders alone.

First 565 days in office

	Executive orders	Proclamations	Memoranda	Determinations	Notices
G.W. Bush	74	180	15	44	22
Obama	61	203	70	28	32
Trump 45	82	202	44	19	41
Biden	95	290	50	26	60
Trump 47	272	167	33	28	70

Highest in each column is marked. Source: Federal Register, presidential documents, by signing date.

Complete terms only, with the span shown and a per-year rate

	Span	Executive orders	Proclamations	Memoranda	Determinations	Notices
G.W. Bush	8 yrs	29136.4/yr	942117.8/yr	13116.4/yr	28836/yr	15118.9/yr
Obama	8 yrs	27634.5/yr	1,227153.4/yr	25632/yr	13617/yr	20826/yr
Trump 45	4 yrs	22055/yr	570142.5/yr	13433.5/yr	5814.5/yr	11729.3/yr
Biden	4 yrs	16240.5/yr	747186.8/yr	15839.5/yr	5914.8/yr	15939.8/yr

Highest RATE in each column is marked, not the highest total — on a table mixing four- and eight-year terms the raw column only marks the longest term. Source: Federal Register, presidential documents, by signing date.

Executive orders here are the SEQUENTIAL count (last number minus first, plus one), which is the basis the P1 ledger uses. The other four are document counts, because those instruments are not sequentially numbered. The revocation table below uses document counts on both sides and says so — which is why Obama appears as 276 here and 278 there. Neither is a correction of the other.

Reading it

The raw column ranks two eight-year presidencies above two four-year ones on four of the five instruments, which is arithmetic rather than a finding. Per year the order changes on every instrument except determinations: Trump 45 leads executive orders at 55.0 against G.W. Bush’s 36.4, and Biden leads proclamations, memoranda and notices. Obama leads three instruments on the raw totals and none per year. Read the rate, not the total.

Clinton is absent from these tables. Federal Register presidential-document coverage begins in December 1993, so his counts would be incomplete rather than low, and a partial figure sitting in a comparison is worse than a gap.

Counted as of 2026-08-08. This dive belongs to the record it sits inside, not to the permanent subject catalogue — where a figure here also appears on a subject page, that page is upstream and this one is the restatement.