An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a sensor, a pattern forming section, and a position correction section. The position correction section specifies a first reference position and a second reference position. In a registration correction carried out when the image bearing member is in a time-elapsed state that is a state after the initial state, the position correction section specifies the position of each of the patch images of the respective colors included in the registration correction pattern formed by the pattern forming section at the time of registration correction and corrects based on the first reference position and the second reference position the correction amount to be applied to each image forming position specified in the registration correction currently being carried out.