Executive orders of presidents in US history

The executive orders will cover a range of topics, including border security, immigration, domestic energy production and presidential pardons.
What is an executive order?
An executive order is an official directive issued by the president of the US to run the federal government. While it carries the force of the law, it does not require approval from Congress.
Executive orders apply to federal institutions and agencies, for example, the Department of Homeland Security was put in charge of constructing the US-Mexico border wall through one such directive.
It cannot be used to create new laws and can be overturned if found to be unconstitutional; Congress can pass legislation to override them.
Executive orders are common for a new president’s first day in office and set the tone and priority for their administration.
Executive orders throughout history
Executive orders have been an essential tool for US presidents to change policies without having to go through Congress. Over the span of 236 years – from 1789 to 2025 – 46 US presidents issued at least 15,902 executive orders, averaging 67 per year.
The first executive order was passed by the first president, George Washington, in 1789. In the pre-Civil War era (1789-1861), presidents issued very few orders, averaging zero to four per term, reflecting the limited federal role. During the Civil War and the Reconstruction era (1861-77), the number of orders increased, with Abraham Lincoln issuing 48 orders during the Civil War and Ulysses S Grant reaching 217 orders.
Between 1897 and 1929, there was a sharp rise in orders, led by Theodore Roosevelt (1,081 orders) and Woodrow Wilson (1,803) during World War I.
Franklin D Roosevelt set a record by issuing 3,721 executive orders from 1933 to 1945, primarily to address the challenges of the Great Depression and World War II. Many of these orders were central to his New Deal programmes for economic recovery and wartime measures for national defence and mobilisation.
Post-World War II, presidents issued fewer orders as Congress and courts expanded checks on executive power.
Some of the most influential presidential orders include:
- Emancipation Proclamation (1863) – The order by Lincoln abolished slavery and freed slaves in Confederate states.
- Executive Order 9066 (1942) – Franklin D Roosevelt’s order saw “the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to “relocation” centres further inland, resulting in the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948) – The order by Harry S Truman sought to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion and national origin in the US military.
- Executive Order 10924 (1961) – Introduced by John F Kennedy, it established the Peace Corps.
- Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (2012) – Introduced by Barack Obama, the DACA programme allowed some people who entered the US as children without legal status to receive two years of deferred action from deportation.
- Executive Order 13769 (2017) – Also known as the travel ban, introduced under Trump, it restricted entry into the US by certain foreign nationals. It was labelled as a “Muslim ban” by many and became widely known as such since the ban mostly affected countries with predominantly Muslim populations.
Which president issued the most executive orders?
Franklin D Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the US, issued the most executive orders during his 12-year presidency (1933-45). He issued 3,721 orders, averaging about 308 orders a year.
He was followed by Woodrow Wilson (1,803 orders), Calvin Coolidge (1,203), Theodore Roosevelt (1,081) and Harry S Truman (907).
Recent presidents, including Obama (276 orders), Trump (220 orders during his first term from 2017-21) and Joe Biden (160 orders), had much lower averages.