The presidential transition of Jimmy Carter began when he won the 1976 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Carter was inaugurated on January 20, 1977. Carter had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 3, 1976, the day after the election.

Carter's presidential transition was headed by Jack Watson, and was headquartered in Plains, Georgia. The transition experienced delays in naming appointees.

Carter's transition effort was significantly larger and more complex than previous presidential transitions, and cost more than previous transitions. Analysts have argued that Carter's transition marked an evolution in United States presidential transitions, approaching as a systematic exercise to what had previously been a smaller-scale and more informal process. They have also argued that he set a precedent for undertaking serious pre-election efforts to plan out his transition, as Carter began preparing for a potential presidential transition in the months before the election (having a substantial planning effort in place by June). Carter was the first United States presidential candidate to provide substantial pre-election staff and funding to transition preparations.

In 1976, legislation was passed which increased federal funding for presidential transitions to $2 million for the incoming president's transition effort and $1 million to the administration of the outgoing president, an increase from the total of $450,000 that had been originally allotted under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

Carter had a significant pre-election effort planning for a prospective presidential transition. While some presidential candidates had previously conducted some pre-election transition plannings, Carter was the first presidential candidate to allot significant funds and a significant number of personnel to such an effort.

The origins of this effort came in April 1976, after Carter's victory over Henry M. Jackson in the Pennsylvania primary, by many accounts, made Carter the Democratic Party's likely nominee. Jack Watson had gotten the idea for such an effort around this time, after separate discussions with Jule Sugarman and Charles Kirbo, the latter of whom was serving as the Carter campaign's finance chairman for the state of Georgia. After discussions about this, Watson prepared a memorandum for Carter, with Sugarman and Kirbo's input, outlining the need for presidential transition planning. Carter received Watson's memorandum in June, and was accepting of the idea. On June 10, Carter informed Watson that he would like him to head the transition planning effort. It was later recalled that Watson had been surprised by this, expecting that Carter would have instead selected a Washington, D.C. political insider for the job. Watson accepted Carter's request. Carter also made the demand that the transition planning should be operated separately from the campaign, so that campaign staff would not be distracted from focusing on their campaign work.

By July, following the Democratic National Convention, a formal transition planning team was put in place. Watson hired a group of youthful Washington, D.C., insiders to assist him with policy planning. Nearly the entire team was in their 30s. The pre-election transition staff numbered roughly 50 people. Anthony Lake headed the foreign policy team. Harrison Wellford, who was Senator Philip Hart's chief legislative assistant, headed efforts related government reorganization and White House staffing. Among the member of the economic team was Bowman Cutter. While Carter's campaign was heavily staffed by Washington, D.C. outsiders from Georgia, the team for his pre-election transition planning effort was started largely by individuals with Washington, D.C. experience who, were primary not from Georgia. The group was based in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to policy planning, they also conducted a limited preliminary search for potential appointees to a potential Carter administration.

In July, Carter had attempted to get the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to exempt transition planning expenses from being their definition of "qualified campaign expenses", which would have allowed private contributions, instead of utilizing federal campaign matching funds. However, the FEC voted in a partisan split on this, with Republican members opposing it, thus preventing this change from happening. After this decision by the FEC, Carter diverted $150,000 in campaign money to his pre-election transition effort, which created tension between Watson and Carter's campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan. His failed effort to get the FEC to make that change also made the existence of his pre-election transition planning team public knowledge.