House arrest curfew rules require you to stay inside your home during the hours set by the court, leave only for reasons your supervising officer has approved in advance, and keep your electronic monitor working at all times. The federal Bureau of Prisons uses a default curfew of 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, though the exact window and how strict it is depend on which level of home confinement you were placed on.1Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 7320.01 – Home Confinement Break the rules, even by a few minutes, and the response can range from a warning to a new criminal charge.
Which Level of Home Confinement You Are On
The federal system uses three confinement levels, and the rules that apply to you depend entirely on which one your court order names.2United States Courts. Overview of the Federal Home Confinement Program 1988-1996
- Curfew. The least restrictive. You must be home during set hours, usually overnight, and you have broad freedom the rest of the day.
- Home detention. You stay home unless the court has approved a specific reason for leaving, such as work, school, medical treatment, or grocery shopping. This is what most people picture when they hear house arrest.
- Home incarceration. The strictest. You remain home at all times with narrow exceptions, typically religious services or medical emergencies.
Someone on a curfew-level order lives a fundamentally different daily life than someone on home incarceration. If your paperwork does not clearly say which level applies, ask your supervising officer before you assume anything about leaving during the day.
Standard Curfew Hours
The federal default is 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM every night, and it has been the standard since the federal curfew parole program started in 1986.1Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 7320.01 – Home Confinement Your court order will spell out the exact hours that apply to you, and those are the hours that govern.
One minute late reads the same as an hour late from the monitoring system’s perspective. Both register as an unauthorized absence. If a night shift or another scheduling conflict makes the standard window impossible, you need that adjustment approved before your confinement starts, not after the first alert fires.
What You Can Leave Home For
Even at the home detention level, several categories of activity routinely qualify for approved departures:
- Employment. Travel to and from work is the most commonly approved exception. Your officer will need the employer’s name, address, and your exact schedule.
- Medical care. Doctor visits, dental appointments, mental health counseling, and substance abuse treatment. Bring documentation of the date, time, and expected duration.
- Court appearances and meetings with your attorney. Approved as a matter of course.
- Religious services. Often included, and sometimes one of the only approved reasons to leave at the home incarceration level.
- Education and vocational training. Court-ordered or pre-approved programs qualify.
Every departure requires advance approval from your probation or pretrial services officer. Leaving for a legitimate purpose without that approval still counts as an unauthorized absence. Officers weigh requests based on necessity and how well you have followed the rules so far. A strong compliance record earns you flexibility over time; late returns and missed check-ins take it away.
Requesting Approval or a Schedule Change
When your work hours shift, a new medical appointment comes up, or any other approved activity needs different travel times, submit a formal schedule modification request. The documentation rules are strict but not complicated.
For employment changes, you need a letter from your employer on company letterhead showing the updated schedule and the workplace address. Medical appointments need a notice with the date, time, and expected duration. Whatever the reason, your request must include the exact time you plan to leave, the address of your destination, the anticipated duration, and the precise time you will return. The full address matters because it lets the monitoring software build a temporary inclusion zone or travel corridor for the trip.
Submit requests through whatever channel your officer has set up. Some districts use an online portal, others take email or fax. Submit well in advance, because review times vary and a request sent the day before an appointment may not clear in time. A denied or unprocessed request means you stay home. When approval comes, it will specify the time window you can be gone. Stick to it. Returning a few minutes late gets flagged.
Emergencies
Emergencies are the one situation where you may need to leave before you have permission. If your home is on fire or you are having a medical crisis, you leave. The notification duty kicks in immediately after. You must contact your supervising officer as soon as physically possible to explain the emergency and the fact that you left or removed your monitoring equipment.3United States Courts. Home Confinement
The same immediate-notification rule applies to equipment problems, power outages, and loss of phone or internet service. Do not assume the monitoring center will piece together what happened. Call your officer, explain the situation, and keep records. A house fire is easy to verify after the fact. A vague explanation with no supporting evidence is much harder for your officer to defend when the alert hits their desk.
Your Monitor Is Part of the Rules
Your compliance is tracked through either a GPS unit or a radio frequency (RF) transmitter worn on your ankle at all times. GPS monitors track your exact location continuously, and your officer sets an inclusion zone where you must be during curfew hours, plus any exclusion zones you cannot enter, such as a victim’s residence.4United States Courts. Use of Location Monitoring in the Field RF monitors talk to a base station in your home and register whether you are within range.
You are responsible for keeping the device charged. A dead battery triggers the same alert as leaving your inclusion zone, and the monitoring center does not distinguish between “forgot to charge” and “absconded.” Many people build charging into their daily routine the way they would brushing their teeth. Tampering with the device is treated as a serious violation on its own; many states classify removing or disabling an electronic monitor as a felony, and even without a specific tampering statute, the act will be handled as a substantive breach of your release conditions.
Monitoring Fees
House arrest is not free. Most programs charge daily monitoring fees that vary by jurisdiction and device type. Reported daily fees range from under a dollar to as much as $40, with GPS costing more than basic RF. One-time installation or activation fees can run from $25 to $300 on top of the daily charge. Some programs use a sliding scale based on income; others require the full cost upfront. If you cannot afford the fees, ask your attorney or supervising officer whether a waiver or reduction is available. The process and eligibility vary by jurisdiction, but the option exists in many programs.
What Happens When You Violate Curfew
Violations fall on a spectrum, and the consequences turn on how serious the breach is and what your record looks like.
Technical Violations
A technical violation is any breach of the conditions you were ordered to follow: coming home a few minutes late, missing a check-in, forgetting to charge the monitor. Federal probation officers often handle a first-time technical violation with a graduated response, meaning a warning, tightened curfew hours, added reporting, or a treatment referral. Data from federal revocation hearings shows offenders with technical violations are more likely to receive modified conditions than jail time.5United States Courts. A Theoretical Basis for Handling Technical Violations
A pattern is different. Repeated failures to report or return on time will eventually push an officer to seek a warrant, and at that point the violation stops being technical in practice.
Substantive Violations and Escape Charges
Leaving home confinement without any authorization, or simply not coming back, is treated far more seriously. Under federal law, escape from federal custody carries up to five years in prison if the original confinement stems from a felony conviction, or up to one year for a misdemeanor.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 751 – Prisoners in Custody of Institution or Officer Because BOP home confinement counts as federal custody, walking away from it can produce a new, separate criminal charge on top of whatever sentence you were already serving.
For pretrial defendants, failing to appear or violating release conditions carries its own set of penalties that scale with the underlying charge. If you were released pending trial on a felony punishable by 15 or more years, a failure-to-appear conviction alone adds up to 10 years, served consecutively.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3146 – Penalty for Failure to Appear
The Revocation Hearing
When a violation is serious enough to go before a judge, you first appear before a magistrate, who tells you the alleged violation and your right to counsel.8Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 32.1 – Revoking or Modifying Probation or Supervised Release If you are in custody, a preliminary hearing decides whether there is probable cause. If probable cause is found, the case moves to a full revocation hearing.
At that hearing you are entitled to written notice of the alleged violation, disclosure of the evidence, a chance to present your own evidence, the right to question witnesses, and the opportunity to make a statement. The court can then modify your conditions, extend your supervision, or revoke your release and send you to prison. The outcome depends on the nature of the violation, your compliance history, and how persuasive your explanation is. Documented evidence of good faith, such as an immediate call to your officer, records showing an emergency was real, or a long stretch of clean compliance, makes a real difference here.