Guides
Plain-English guides to the paperwork, deadlines and money decisions that come with living in the US on a visa — official rules and community experience, always labelled separately and always dated.
Premium processing buys a guaranteed period for USCIS to act. It does not buy an approval, and it does not buy a date. What surprises people is what counts as acting — and what stops the count and starts it again from nothing.
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A 2025 presidential proclamation attached a $100,000 payment to new H-1B petitions. A court vacated the guidance implementing it in June 2026 and the government is complying while it considers what to do next. It never applied to extensions, renewals or people already holding an H-1B.
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H-1B normally stops at six years. Two provisions of the same 2000 law let you go past it while a green card case is under way — one gives a year at a time, the other up to three. Which applies depends on how far along your case is.
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A short, ordered checklist for the moment it happens, so nothing that is time-limited gets missed while you are dealing with everything else.
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Most new H-1B petitions go through an annual numerical cap and an electronic registration. Some employers are outside it altogether.
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You do not have to wait for an approval notice to start a new job on an H-1B. Here is what the portability rule says and what has to be true for it to apply to you.
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If your H-1B job ends, federal regulation gives you a discretionary grace period of up to 60 days to find another employer, change your status, or leave. Here is exactly how long you have and what starts the clock.
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Once your adjustment application has been pending long enough, you can move to a new employer and keep the case — and the priority date — you already have. The two conditions are a length of time and a likeness between the jobs.
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A child stops counting as a child at 21, and for families waiting years in line that birthday can arrive first. The Child Status Protection Act subtracts the time the petition sat with the government — here is how that subtraction works and the one-year deadline that switches it on.
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Leaving the United States while your adjustment application is pending can be treated as giving it up — unless you got permission first, or you are in one of the statuses that is specifically excepted. Here is which of those you are in.
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Fees change, and a fee quoted from anywhere other than the agency on the day you file may be wrong. Here is the one place to look.
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Both routes end in permanent residence. One happens inside the United States on Form I-485, the other at a consulate abroad.
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The State Department publishes two charts every month, and which one applies to you depends on an announcement USCIS makes separately. Here is what each column means.
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An F-1 student may work on campus without asking USCIS for anything. The limit is 20 hours a week while school is in session, full-time on vacation — and "on campus" means something narrower than working in a building on campus.
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The same final rule that ends duration of status also restricts moving between schools, majors and degree levels. For graduate students the restrictions are close to absolute, and they apply from 15 September 2026.
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From 15 September 2026, F-1 students are admitted until a fixed date printed on the I-94 instead of for "duration of status". Which rules apply to you depends on when you were admitted — and students already in the United States keep most of what they have.
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A terminated SEVIS record ends your student status and the work permission attached to it. There are two ways back — asking to be reinstated, or leaving and returning on a new record — and one deadline that decides whether the first is still open.
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F-1 status depends on a small number of concrete obligations. Most problems come from a lapse in one of them rather than from anything dramatic.
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The US government is making its Visa Bond Program permanent.
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Almost every non-citizen in the United States must report a change of address to USCIS within 10 days of moving. It is a criminal offence not to, and it can make you deportable. A USPS forwarding order does nothing.
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Most people who entered on a visa and have an I-94 are already registered and do not need to file anything. What does apply to nearly everyone: if you are 18 or over you must carry evidence of registration at all times, and a child who turns 14 here has 30 days to re-register.
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A visa lets you travel to the border and ask to come in. The officer at the counter is the one who decides, and being sent to a second room is a routine step rather than a verdict. Here is what is being checked and by whom.
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The visa in your passport controls entry. The I-94 controls how long you may stay. People confuse the two and miss the deadline that actually applies to them.
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USCIS treats a card that was produced and mailed but not delivered as its own problem, with its own route that is not a new application. Here is that route, and when a replacement does not cost you a second time.
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The EAD is the card that proves you may work. Form I-765 is how you ask for it, and the eligibility category on the form decides everything else.
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Post-completion OPT allows 90 days of unemployment in total. The STEM extension adds 60 more, for 150 across both. Going over ends your status.
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A job offer that arrives by email from overseas, or asks you to pay to receive it, is the shape USCIS names as a scam. And even a real offer does not let you work — that depends on your own status, not on the employer's enthusiasm.
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Only two kinds of people may represent you before USCIS: an attorney, or an accredited representative at a Department of Justice recognised organisation. A consultant or a notario is neither — and you may not need anybody at all.
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The quickest way to recognise an immigration scam is to know the short list of things USCIS never does. It never asks you to pay a person, never takes gift cards, and never messages you on your personal social media.
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An SSN is needed for payroll, and it is issued by the Social Security Administration rather than by an immigration agency. What you need depends on your status.
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A U.S. credit file starts empty, and the things that build it are specific and slow. Here is what actually goes into the score.
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In August 2026 SEVP warned designated school officials that it is increasing scrutiny of CPT, and that authorising it improperly can cost a school its certification. No regulation changed. What changed is the standard a school has to be ready to defend before it signs your Form I-20.
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CPT is work authorization tied to your curriculum, authorized by your school rather than by USCIS. Twelve months or more of full-time CPT removes your OPT eligibility at that degree level.
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Naturalization has a small number of hard requirements: time as a permanent resident, continuous residence, physical presence, and the tests.
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H-4 is the dependent status for the spouse and unmarried children under 21 of an H-1B holder. Work authorization is separate, and it depends on where the H-1B holder is in the green card process.
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Your priority date is your place in the queue. An approved I-140 generally lets you keep it, and a pending I-485 can let you change employers without starting again.
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PERM is a Department of Labor process, not a USCIS one. It tests whether qualified U.S. workers are available for the role, and it comes before the I-140.
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The STEM extension adds 24 months to post-completion OPT. It needs an E-Verify employer, a signed training plan, and a filing window that closes when your current EAD expires.
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Tax residency is not the same thing as immigration status. The Internal Revenue Service applies its own test, and F and J visa holders have an exemption that runs out.
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Removing the conditions on a marriage-based green card does not require you to still be married. USCIS provides an individual filing request and three waivers of the joint filing requirement, and which one applies depends on how the marriage ended.
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If you got conditional permanent resident status through marriage, you must file Form I-751 to remove those conditions before your status expires. The deadline depends on whether you are filing jointly with your spouse or filing alone, and missing it does not automatically end the matter.
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