Who Was the Oldest U.S. President?

Which "oldest president" record are people asking about?

"Oldest president" can mean at least four different things, and each has a different answer. The age someone starts a term, the age someone is while still serving, the age someone is on Election Day, and the age someone reaches over a whole lifetime are separate records. Mixing them up is the most common reason quick answers online seem to disagree.

Every age in this article is counted in completed years plus days, from the birth dates and term dates listed by the University of Virginia's Miller Center ^[1]. Presidential terms begin and end at noon on January 20 under Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment ^[6], so January 20 is both a first day and a last day for many presidents.

Record	Holder	Age	Date
Oldest at inauguration	Donald Trump	78 years, 220 days	January 20, 2025
Oldest on Election Day	Donald Trump	78 years, 144 days	November 5, 2024
Oldest while in office	Joe Biden	82 years, 61 days	January 20, 2025 (last day)
Longest-lived president	Jimmy Carter	100 years, 89 days	December 29, 2024 (death)

Who was the oldest president at inauguration?

Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, and began his second term on January 20, 2025 ^[1]. That makes him 78 years and 220 days old on Inauguration Day, the oldest age at which anyone has ever been sworn in as president of the United States.

He took the record from Joe Biden. Biden was born on November 20, 1942, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2021 ^[2], at 78 years and 61 days. The gap between the two is only 159 days. Before Biden, the record was Trump's own: he was 70 years and 220 days old at his first inauguration in 2017.

Lists like this one count the start of each presidency, which is why Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump each appear twice in the complete list of presidents in order. Second inaugurations of presidents who won back-to-back terms are usually left out. That convention matters for Ronald Reagan: he was 69 years and 349 days old at his first inauguration in 1981 ^[3], but he turned 74 in February 1985, so he was 73 when his second term began on January 20, 1985. Even counting second terms, Trump's 2025 inauguration is still the oldest.

How the record moved over time

Only eight inaugurations have set a new age record in 236 years, counting George Washington's as the first.

Year	President	Age at inauguration
1789	George Washington	57 years, 67 days
1797	John Adams	61 years, 125 days
1829	Andrew Jackson	61 years, 354 days
1841	William Henry Harrison	68 years, 23 days
1981	Ronald Reagan	69 years, 349 days
2017	Donald Trump	70 years, 220 days
2021	Joe Biden	78 years, 61 days
2025	Donald Trump	78 years, 220 days

William Henry Harrison's record lasted from March 4, 1841, to January 20, 1981, about 140 years. He was inaugurated at 68 and died on April 4, 1841, one month into his term ^[4], the first president to die in office. He therefore holds two records at once: the shortest presidency and, for 140 years, the oldest inauguration.

The chart shows a pattern that is easy to miss in a table. For most of American history, presidents started their terms in their 50s. Three of the four oldest inaugurations have happened since 2017. At the other end, Theodore Roosevelt remains the youngest president, at 42 when he took office in 1901.

Who was the oldest sitting president?

Joe Biden is the oldest person ever to serve as president. On his final day in office, January 20, 2025, he was 82 years and 61 days old ^[2]. No earlier president had served past the age of 78. Before Biden, the oldest serving president was Ronald Reagan, who was 77 years and 349 days old when he left office on January 20, 1989.

President	Age on last day in office	Last day
Joe Biden	82 years, 61 days	January 20, 2025
Ronald Reagan	77 years, 349 days	January 20, 1989
Donald Trump (first term)	74 years, 220 days	January 20, 2021
Dwight D. Eisenhower	70 years, 98 days	January 20, 1961
Andrew Jackson	69 years, 354 days	March 4, 1837

Has anyone passed Biden's age in office?

As of November 2026, no. Donald Trump turned 80 on June 14, 2026, so during November 2026 he is 80 years old (80 years and 140 days on November 1). That is younger than Biden's 82 years and 61 days. Trump would pass Biden's mark on August 14, 2028, if he is still serving on that date. His current term is scheduled to end at noon on January 20, 2029 ^[6], when he would be 82 years and 220 days old. These are calendar calculations from his birth date, not predictions.

Who was the oldest president when elected?

Donald Trump was also the oldest person ever elected president. The 2024 election was held on November 5, 2024, and Trump won with 312 electoral votes ^[8]. He was 78 years and 144 days old that day.

Joe Biden had been 77 on Election Day in 2020: he won the 2020 Electoral College vote with 306 electoral votes ^[9] and turned 78 on November 20, 2020, after the election and before his inauguration. Ronald Reagan was 73 when voters re-elected him in November 1984.

The Election Day record and the inauguration record usually go together, because the gap between November and January 20 is only about 11 weeks. They split only when a birthday falls in between, as Biden's did in 2020.

Who was the longest-lived president?

Jimmy Carter lived longer than any other president. He was born on October 1, 1924, and served one term, from January 20, 1977, to January 20, 1981 ^[5]. He died at home in Plains, Georgia, on December 29, 2024. The Carter Center's statement that day called him "the longest-lived president in U.S. history" ^[10]. Counted from his birth date, Jimmy Carter lived 100 years and 89 days, the only president to reach 100.

President	Born	Died	Age at death
Jimmy Carter	October 1, 1924	December 29, 2024	100 years, 89 days
George H. W. Bush	June 12, 1924	November 30, 2018	94 years, 171 days
Gerald Ford	July 14, 1913	December 26, 2006	93 years, 165 days
Ronald Reagan	February 6, 1911	June 5, 2004	93 years, 120 days
John Adams	October 30, 1735	July 4, 1826	90 years, 247 days

Carter passed George H. W. Bush's age in March 2019 and held the record for the rest of his life. He also left office young by modern standards: he was 56 when his term ended in 1981, which helps explain why he lived nearly 44 years as a former president, longer than anyone else. Before them, John Adams, the second president, held the longevity record for 175 years. He died on July 4, 1826, the same day as Thomas Jefferson, and no president passed his age of 90 years and 247 days until Ronald Reagan did so in October 2001.

As of November 2026, the oldest living former president is Joe Biden, born November 20, 1942.

Why do presidents' ages keep rising?

Article II of the Constitution sets a minimum age of 35 for the presidency but no maximum ^[7], so the records above reflect the choices of voters rather than any rule. Across the 47 presidencies, only five have begun with the president aged 68 or older, and all five appear in the inauguration table above. Four of those five came after 1980.

Several factors could plausibly play a part, such as longer life expectancy, longer political careers before a run for the White House, and the value of name recognition. The sources used for this page do not measure any of them, so we list them as possibilities, not findings.

Age has also shaped how some presidencies ended. Four presidents died in office of natural causes and four were assassinated; you can read about the second group in our article on presidential assassinations. For dates connected to each president, our On This Day pages list events by calendar day, and our editorial policy explains how we choose sources and check facts like the ones on this page.