Do I need a sailing permit if I am on H-1B?

The IRS list of people who do not need one names the F-1, F-2, H-3, H-4, J-1, J-2 and Q-1 visas. H-1B is not among them. The exceptions are listed individually, so read them against your own status rather than assuming.

Does handing in my green card at the airport end my status?

USCIS records abandonment through Form I-407, which it describes as the way to let them know you are voluntarily abandoning lawful permanent resident status. Filing it is what causes the record to be updated.

Can I combine my US and Indian Social Security years?

Combining years across two systems is what a totalization agreement does, and the SSA's published list of those agreements does not include India. That is a different question from whether your own US record entitles you to anything, which is governed by 20 CFR 404.460 - a regulation that suspends payment after six consecutive calendar months abroad for a non-citizen, and that names an exception turning on ten years of US residence or forty quarters of coverage on the earnings record. It carries further conditions; read the section, and use the SSA's Payments Abroad Screening Tool for your own case.

How early can I get the tax clearance?

The IRS says at least two weeks before departure, and no earlier than thirty days before the planned date. It is obtained at a local IRS office by appointment.

OfficialInternal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit) · Last verified 23 Aug 2026

Telling the three agencies you are leaving for good

Going home permanently is not the same as a long trip, and three separate agencies have to be told in different ways. None of them hears it from the others.

The tax clearance most people have never heard of

The IRS describes a departing alien clearance, also called a sailing permit or departure permit, as a document most aliens must secure before leaving the United States. It is proof that US tax liabilities have been settled before a planned, long-term or permanent departure, and it is issued after filing Form 1040-C or Form 2063. It is separate from the annual tax return: Form 1040-C is not an annual return, and filing one does not replace the return due at the end of the year.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

Who is exempt, and the visa missing from that list

The IRS lists students, industrial trainees and exchange visitors, and their spouses and children, as not needing a permit - naming the F-1, F-2, H-3, H-4, J-1, J-2 and Q-1 visas, provided US income was limited to study allowances, authorised employment or bank interest. H-1B does not appear anywhere in that list of exceptions. Those are the categories this page is written for, and they are not the whole of the IRS's list, which also covers M-1 and M-2 students, B-1 and B-2 visitors within the limits it sets, people in transit on C-1, diplomatic and international-organisation households, frequent commuters resident in Canada or Mexico, and military trainees. Read the exceptions at the source against your own status rather than against the shorter list here.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

At least two weeks, and no earlier than thirty days

The IRS says to get the permit at least two weeks before the planned departure, and that it cannot be applied for earlier than thirty days before that date. It is obtained at a local IRS office by appointment, and the appointment has to be booked separately. Two weeks and thirty days are the numbers the IRS states; what happens to somebody who leaves it later than that is not something any agency publishes, and this page does not guess.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

Giving up a green card is a form, and it is voluntary

USCIS describes Form I-407, Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status, as the way to let them know you are voluntarily abandoning your status as a lawful permanent resident, after which they update their records to show you are no longer one. Separately, the IRS says a permanent resident with no definite plans to return must notify the Department of Homeland Security of the termination of residency and file Form 8854 if they plan to surrender the card and have been a lawful permanent resident in at least eight taxable years of the previous fifteen, counting the year of surrender. Eight of fifteen is a test to check against your own history rather than a rule that applies to everybody leaving.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

There is no Social Security agreement with India

The Social Security Administration publishes the list of countries the United States has a totalization agreement with, and India is not on it. The SSA says such agreements do two things: they eliminate dual Social Security taxation, and they help fill gaps in benefit protection for workers who have divided their careers between the United States and another country. Neither of those mechanisms is available between the United States and India.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

That is a statement about the agreement, not about your record

Whether payments continue to somebody living outside the United States is a separate question, governed by 20 CFR 404.460 rather than by any agreement. That regulation says that for a person who is not a US citizen or national, "after the sixth consecutive calendar month during all of which he is outside the United States ... no monthly benefit may be paid". It then sets out exceptions, one of which turns on the earnings record itself: where "the individual upon whose earnings the benefit is based ... has resided in the United States for a period or periods aggregating 10 years or more or has earned not less than 40 quarters of coverage". The section carries further conditions that this page does not reproduce - among them separate residence requirements that apply to dependents and survivors rather than to the worker, and provisions keyed to the beneficiary's own country. Read the section itself before concluding anything about your own case; what is set out here is the rule, not an answer about you.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

Amounts and waiting times are not on this page

No fee or processing time appears above, on purpose. Both move, and a figure remembered wrongly is worse than no figure at the moment somebody is deciding what to pay or how long to allow. USCIS publishes current fees in its fee schedule at uscis.gov/g-1055, and each IRS form page carries its current filing instructions. Check the amount at the source on the day it matters.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

What people get wrong

Handing a green card to an airline or a border officer is not the same as filing Form I-407, and neither is simply staying away. Assuming the tax clearance does not apply because a colleague on a student visa did not need one ignores that the exceptions are listed by visa category, and that the list is longer than the part quoted above. Waiting until the flight is booked collides with a window that opens thirty days out and asks for two weeks' notice. And reading the absence of a totalization agreement as an answer about your own Social Security record confuses two different questions - the SSA's screening tool is where the second one is answered.

Source: Internal Revenue Service - Departing alien clearance (sailing permit)

Official

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a sailing permit if I am on H-1B?: The IRS list of people who do not need one names the F-1, F-2, H-3, H-4, J-1, J-2 and Q-1 visas. H-1B is not among them. The exceptions are listed individually, so read them against your own status rather than assuming.
Does handing in my green card at the airport end my status?: USCIS records abandonment through Form I-407, which it describes as the way to let them know you are voluntarily abandoning lawful permanent resident status. Filing it is what causes the record to be updated.
Can I combine my US and Indian Social Security years?: Combining years across two systems is what a totalization agreement does, and the SSA's published list of those agreements does not include India. That is a different question from whether your own US record entitles you to anything, which is governed by 20 CFR 404.460 - a regulation that suspends payment after six consecutive calendar months abroad for a non-citizen, and that names an exception turning on ten years of US residence or forty quarters of coverage on the earnings record. It carries further conditions; read the section, and use the SSA's Payments Abroad Screening Tool for your own case.
How early can I get the tax clearance?: The IRS says at least two weeks before departure, and no earlier than thirty days before the planned date. It is obtained at a local IRS office by appointment.