Fact Check: Did Joe Biden spend 40% of his presidency on vacation?

WASHINGTON, DC: If you’ve been following politics in Washington in the past few years, you’ve probably come across the claim that Joe Biden spent 40% of his presidency on vacation.

The rumor has been making the rounds since he first took office in 2021, and people continued to repeat it even after he left the White House last month. The claim has spread across social platforms like Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook — and it even made its way into major media outlets including the New York Post.

The number became a popular talking point, especially among critics of Biden’s presidency.

Origins of RNC’s 40% vacation claim

This whole thing traces back to the Republican National Committee (RNC), which made a big deal about Biden’s supposed time off. In early 2023, they put out a statement claiming Joe Biden had spent 40% of his presidency on vacation.

They updated the claim early last year, saying he had spent 38.9% of 2023 in vacation mode. They even posted a video of him chilling on the beach to sell the idea.

According to Snopes, they counted every single day Biden spent at his Delaware homes, at Camp David, or on trips to places like Nantucket and Kiawah Island as a "vacation day." The New York Post also backed up the claim, saying it matched independent journalistic counts.

The RNC was essentially saying that any day Biden wasn’t physically at the White House was a day off. But was that the case?

When fact-checkers at Snopes did a deep dive, the numbers told a completely different story. By analyzing Biden’s public calendar, official pool reports (which track the president’s movements daily), and White House records, they found that the 40% claim was wildly exaggerated.

Snopes declared that Biden spent either 117 or 118 full days of his 1,461-day presidency (January 20, 2021 – January 20, 2025) in a vacation setting. That comes out to about 8% of his presidency.

On top of that, he spent another 66 days partially in a vacation setting, meaning he might have worked for part of the day before heading out or arrived late at night. That’s another 4.5% of his presidency.

When you add them up, Biden spent 183 or 184 days in a vacation setting—which is 12.5% to 12.6% of his presidency. That’s way off from the 40% number floating around.

Furthermore, there’s public evidence that Biden was working on 107 of those days. That means he was taking calls, signing executive orders, or handling government business even while he was outside the White House. That leaves us with 76 or 77 days where there’s no public record of him working—about 5% of his presidency.

RNC’s math had some big problems

So, how did the RNC end up with an inflated number? According to Snopes, they used some pretty questionable math. When asked about their methodology, Jake Schneider — the RNC staffer behind the claim — said they counted any day spent at a "Biden-style vacation destination"—whether that was Wilmington, Rehoboth Beach, or Camp David—as a vacation day.

The problem was that they counted partial days as full vacation days. If Biden left the White House late at night or returned early in the morning, they still marked the entire day as "vacation."

For example, the RNC claimed Biden was on vacation on April 22, 2022. But according to official reports, he worked that entire day and didn’t even arrive in Delaware until 12:24 a.m. the next day.

Same deal with September 13, 2022—they counted it as a vacation day even though Biden hosted an event celebrating the Inflation Reduction Act, traveled to Delaware to vote, and then flew back to the White House all in the same day.

Another major issue was that they counted time at Camp David as vacation. The thing is Camp David isn’t just a retreat—it’s basically a second White House. Every president since Franklin D Roosevelt has used it for official business. Biden met with his national security team there, signed executive orders, and hosted foreign leaders. Sure it’s a quieter setting, but calling it a vacation every time he was there is misleading.

Snopes found that Biden spent 109 full days (or 7.5% of his presidency) at Camp David or his Delaware homes with no public evidence of work. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t working—it just means there’s no official record of it. But even if you count those days, you still don’t get anywhere close to 40%.

Presidents never really 'go on vacation'

At the end of the day, the idea that Biden was lounging around for 40% of his presidency is just flat-out wrong. The actual number is 12.5% to 12.6% of his presidency spent in vacation settings, and that is nowhere near what the RNC claimed. And even during that time, there’s proof he was working on many of those days.

The number of days where there’s no public record of him working is not more than 5% of his presidency.

It's worth noting that presidents don’t take vacations the way regular people do. They don’t get to fully unplug, whether they’re at the White House, Camp David, or even on a beach — they’re still handling classified briefings, responding to crises, and making big decisions.

Considering, the idea that Biden was totally checked out for almost half his presidency just doesn’t hold up when you look at the facts, Snopes reported.