When Is Elizabeth Holmes Getting Out of Prison? Here’s Why She’ll Leave Earlier Than Expected

Elizabeth Holmes on February 3, 2025 ; Elizabeth Holmes on July 17, 2019Credit: TheImageDirect.com; Kimberly White/Getty

Elizabeth Holmes is scheduled for release in February 2030 after her sentence was reduced for good behavior

She will move to a Texas halfway house in August 2027 while remaining in federal custody

Holmes has served at a minimum-security facility since May 2023 and works as a reentry clerk

Disgraced Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Holmes founded the healthcare and blood-testing startup in 2003, rising to prominence with the company’s claims that its technology, specifically the Edison device, could run hundreds of medical tests with a few drops of blood. A 2015 The Wall Street Journal exposé revealed that the technology didn’t work — leading to Holmes and Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani getting indicted on charges of misleading and defrauding investors and patients.

After her trial in 2022, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy, and began serving out her prison sentence in May 2023. She will move to a halfway house in August 2027, and is scheduled for release in February 2030.

Her rise to fame and criminal conviction were depicted in the 2018 book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, the Hulu miniseries The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried and Nathan Fielder‘s documentary, You Can See Everything, which premiered in theaters on Oct. 16.

“It’s surreal. People who have never met me believe so strongly about me,” Holmes said of her time in prison in an interview with PEOPLE in February 2025. “They don’t understand who I am. It forces you to spend a lot of time questioning belief and hoping the truth will prevail. I am walking by faith and, ultimately, the truth. But it’s been hell and torture to be here.”

So, how long is Elizabeth Holmes in prison? Here’s everything to know about Holmes, her prison sentence and when she is expected to be released.

Holmes founded Theranos, a $9 billion startup focused on blood-testing technology

After dropping out of Stanford University in 2003, Holmes founded Theranos, a healthcare startup designed to make blood testing less invasive and more affordable.

Holmes claimed that Theranos would revolutionize healthcare with the Edison device, a portable blood analyzer she alleged could perform hundreds of blood tests with only a few drops of blood from a finger prick, as opposed to the vials needed in conventional methods.

By 2014, Forbes valued Theranos at $9 billion — and Holmes herself at a net worth of $4.5 billion for her 50% stake in the company.

Holmes’ company’s technology didn’t live up to its claims, misled investors and provided patients with inaccurate test results

A 2015 Wall Street Journal exposé revealed that Theranos’ devices didn’t work as Holmes claimed they did.

The Journal revealed that Theranos lied about the success of its blood testing-devices and used outside machines to perform what they claimed were their own blood tests. Former Theranos employees later told 60 Minutes that Holmes lied to investors about the abilities of the Edison machines because the equipment didn’t work.

Patients also came forward to claim that Theranos had provided them with inaccurate test results — including false diagnoses of prostate cancer, HIV, and a miscarriage. By the following year, more reports emerged about Theranos’ failed testing and non-compliance with health and safety regulations, and companies including Safeway and Walgreens ended their partnerships with the company.

Holmes also misled investors who bought into the company. She and Balwani raised more than $700 million from investors including Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, they raised the funding through false and exaggerated claims of Theranos’ business and finances, as well as the technology’s efficacy.

Holmes was charged with defrauding investors and patients in 2018, and was convicted on four charges related to wire fraud

In June 2018, Holmes and Balwani were each indicted for defrauding investors and patients — each charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Holmes was accused of misleading patients and physicians about the accuracy and reliability of Theranos’ tests, as well as lying to investors about the company’s finances and business projections. She pleaded not guilty and stepped down as CEO of Theranos.

Her criminal trial was delayed from its original mid-2020 date to late 2021. In the interim, Holmes and her partner Billy Evans welcomed their first child, son William, in July 2021.

Holmes’ trial began in August 2021, and the jury delivered a verdict in January 2022 — convicting her of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud relating to investors. She was found not guilty on fraud counts relating to patients, and the jury was hung on three counts. She was also ordered to pay restitution.

Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison

Elizabeth Holmes in 2023Credit: A24

In November 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison — less than the 15-year prison term prosecutors asked for — with 135 months in a federal prison and 3 years of supervised release.

Holmes appealed her conviction in April 2023, on the grounds that the prosecution’s case “parroted the public narrative” and the conviction was unjust. In her 132-page appeal, Holmes asked for a reduction in prison time and claimed that she did not intend to deceive investors.

She also requested that she be allowed to remain out of prison pending her appeal after giving birth to her second child, daughter Invicta. Both her request to remain out of prison pending her appeal and the appeal itself were denied.

In the weeks before Holmes entered federal prison to begin serving out her sentence, she allowed Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into her home for their documentary,You Can See Everything — filmed over her last 34 days at home. The documentary is the first project about her story that Holmes agreed to participate in, and documents “her every move,” according to the official synopsis.

Holmes has been serving her sentence since May 2023 in Bryan, Texas

On May 30, 2023, Holmes turned herself in to begin her 11-year sentence at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, Texas — a minimum-security, all-female prison facility that houses non-violent offenders.

Her sentence was later reduced by two years for good behavior, and she is scheduled for release in February 2030.

Holmes’ partner Evans is raising their two children near the prison, and the family is allowed to visit Holmes every weekend.

Holmes told PEOPLE during her first interview behind bars in February 2025 that watching her family leave after their visitation “shatters my world every single time.” She added, “The people I love the most have to walk away as I stand here, a prisoner, and my reality sinks in.”

While in the facility, Holmes has continued working, earning 31 cents an hour as a reentry clerk, helping women slated for release to write résumés and prepare to apply for tax credits and other government benefits. As a prison law clerk, she helps women with their legal cases and has counseled inmates who are rape survivors.

“Human beings are not made to be in cells,” she told PEOPLE. “It goes so far beyond understanding ... I’m trying to grow, as every moment matters. And if one person’s life can be touched trying to help them in a crisis, it matters.”

Holmes is set to move to a halfway house in 2027

Elizabeth Holmes on February 3, 2025Credit: TheImageDirect.com

Holmes has been approved to move to a halfway house — Austin Transitional Center in Del Valle, Texas — in August 2027.

Moving to the halfway house will not mark the end of Holmes’s sentence. She will remain in federal custody while in the halfway house, known as a residential reentry center.

A Department of Justice source told PEOPLE in September 2026 that the center serves as a supervised environment for inmates nearing release, offering services including career counseling and financial management assistance.

“She will be able to go to work and come back. She’s not allowed to go out or party,” the source told PEOPLE, adding that Holmes will be allowed to get a job anywhere she chooses. “She will be able to have visitors and they don’t monitor them 24/7. No one is allowed to sleep over or have overnight guests, but she will be able to have visitors and her kids.”

Source: Crime