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US Presidents Tier List Maker
Rank all US presidents from George Washington to the present day. Sort them by legacy, leadership or your own politics-free opinion.
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Meet every president (45)
These 45 presidents load into the maker above. Each write-up covers what the president is and what to weigh when you rank it. Facts were last checked on .
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George Washington
A Founding Father and the first president, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army he led Patriot forces to victory in the American War of Independence against the British Empire.
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John Adams
A Founding Father and the second president, serving from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency he was a leader of the American Revolution, which achieved independence from Great Britain.
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Thomas Jefferson
A Founding Father and the third president, serving from 1801 to 1809. A prolific writer and philosopher, he was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.
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James Madison
A Founding Father and the fourth president, from 1809 to 1817. Before the presidency he was a statesman and diplomat, and was acclaimed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his role in drafting it.
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James Monroe
A Founding Father and the fifth president, serving from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as president and the last of the Virginia dynasty, as a Democratic-Republican.
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John Quincy Adams
The sixth president, serving from 1825 to 1829. Before that he was the eighth secretary of state, minister to Great Britain, Prussia and Russia, and a senator for Massachusetts.
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Andrew Jackson
The seventh president, serving from 1829 to 1837, who rose to fame as a U.S. Army general. His political philosophy became the basis for Jacksonian democracy, and his legacy is still debated.
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Martin Van Buren
The eighth president, serving from 1837 to 1841. He co-founded the Democratic Party with Andrew Jackson and was Jackson's vice president from 1833 to 1837, and was born in Kinderhook, New York.
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William Henry Harrison
The ninth president, who served from March to April 1841. He died 31 days into his term, making him the shortest-serving president and the first to die in office.
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John Tyler
The tenth president, serving from 1841 to 1845. He was elected vice president on the 1840 Whig ticket and succeeded to the presidency after William Henry Harrison died 31 days into his term.
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James K. Polk
The 11th president, serving from 1845 to 1849, a protégé of Andrew Jackson and an advocate of American expansionism. Texas joined the Union in his first year in office.
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Zachary Taylor
The 12th president, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. He was a career army officer who rose to major general and became a national hero in the Mexican–American War.
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Millard Fillmore
The 13th president, serving from 1850 to 1853. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in office, and the last to be neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
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Franklin Pierce
The 14th president, serving from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democrat, he signed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, which alienated anti-slavery groups.
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James Buchanan
The 15th president, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who served from 1857 to 1861. He upheld a pro-slavery reading of the Constitution as the sectional crisis between North and South deepened.
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Abraham Lincoln
The 16th president, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the nation through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederacy, and played a major role in the abolition of slavery.
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Andrew Johnson
The 17th president, serving from 1865 to 1869. As the 16th vice president he assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and he had run on the National Union ticket in 1864.
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Ulysses S. Grant
The 18th president, serving from 1869 to 1877, and the commanding general of the Union Army, which he led to victory in the Civil War in 1865. He was born in Ohio.
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Rutherford B. Hayes
The 19th president, serving from 1877 to 1881. Before that he was Cincinnati's city solicitor and a staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court, and he left his law practice for the Civil War.
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James A. Garfield
The 20th president, serving from March 1881 until his death that September after being shot in July. A preacher, lawyer and Civil War general, he served nine terms in the House of Representatives.
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Chester A. Arthur
The 21st president, serving from 1881 to 1885. A Republican from New York, he was vice president under James A. Garfield and assumed the presidency after Garfield's assassination.
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Grover Cleveland
The 22nd and 24th president, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first Democrat elected after the Civil War and the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms.
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Benjamin Harrison
The 23rd president, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Founding Father Benjamin Harrison V, and a Union army veteran.
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William McKinley
The 25th president, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A Republican, he led a realignment that made the party largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades.
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Theodore Roosevelt
The 26th president, serving from 1901 to 1909, who became president after William McKinley's assassination. He was 42 at his first inauguration, which made him the youngest person to hold the office.
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William Howard Taft
The 27th president, from 1909 to 1913, and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person ever to have held both offices.
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Woodrow Wilson
The 28th president, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated, and made significant economic reforms.
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Warren G. Harding
The 29th president, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A Republican, he was one of the most popular presidents at the time of his death, before scandals damaged his reputation.
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Calvin Coolidge
The 30th president, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he was vice president under Warren G. Harding and earlier the 48th governor of his state.
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Herbert Hoover
The 31st president, serving from 1929 to 1933. His term was dominated by the Great Depression, and his response to the economic calamity made him unpopular and cost him re-election.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
The 32nd president, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving president and the only one to serve more than two terms, and his first terms centered on the Great Depression.
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Harry S. Truman
The 33rd president, serving from 1945 to 1953. He assumed the presidency as vice president on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945, and set up the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
The 34th president, serving from 1953 to 1961. In his military career he commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, including Operation Torch and the Normandy landings.
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John F. Kennedy
The 35th president, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43, and the first Catholic president, and served at the height of the Cold War.
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Lyndon B. Johnson
Also known as LBJ, the 36th president, serving from 1963 to 1969. As vice president under John F. Kennedy he assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination. A Democrat from Texas.
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Richard Nixon
The 37th president, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A Republican, he represented California in both houses of Congress and was the 36th vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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Gerald Ford
The 38th president, serving from 1974 to 1977. He assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, having served as the 40th vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew.
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Jimmy Carter
The 39th president, serving from 1977 to 1981, a Democrat who earlier served as governor of Georgia and in the state senate. He lived to 100 and was also known as a humanitarian.
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Ronald Reagan
The 40th president, serving from 1981 to 1989. A Republican and former actor, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement, and his presidency is known as the Reagan era.
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George H. W. Bush
The 41st president, serving from 1989 to 1993. A Republican, he was also the 43rd vice president under Ronald Reagan, and his son George W. Bush later served as the 43rd president.
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Bill Clinton
The 42nd president, serving from 1993 to 2001. A Democrat, he previously served as attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and then as governor of Arkansas.
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George W. Bush
The 43rd president, serving from 2001 to 2009. A Republican, he was the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and is the eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush.
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Barack Obama
The 44th president, serving from 2009 to 2017, and the first African American to serve as president. A Democrat, he represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 2005 to 2008.
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Donald Trump
The 45th president from 2017 to 2021 and the 47th, so he is counted twice in the numbering. A Republican and businessman born into a wealthy New York City family.
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Joe Biden
The 46th president, serving from 2021 to 2025. A Democrat, he represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009 and was the 47th vice president under Barack Obama.
US Presidents tier list questions
Why does this list keep each president separate when some served two terms?
Each person appears once, in order of when they first took office. Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump served nonconsecutive terms, so they hold two numbers but a single entry each.
Do the write-ups judge presidencies?
No. They stay on the record, such as dates, offices held and notable events, so that the list is a neutral starting point, and the ranking itself is up to you.
How should I rank US presidents?
Common criteria include leadership in a crisis, domestic and foreign policy, legacy, character and your own values. Many people rank by era, since the challenges of each period were so different.
Sources
Facts on this page were checked against these references on .