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OfficialUSCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · Last verified
Will your child age out of the family's green card?
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.
What aging out means
Immigration law defines a child as unmarried and under 21. A son or daughter who reaches 21 while the family waits is no longer a child for this purpose, and moves to a category with its own, usually longer, queue. Families from countries with long backlogs meet this problem far more often than others, for the simple reason that they wait long enough for a child to grow up inside the queue.
Source: USCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · in effect from 2002-08-06
The subtraction the law makes
The Child Status Protection Act does not freeze a child's age. It calculates a separate CSPA age by taking the age when a visa became available and subtracting the time the qualifying petition was pending with the government. The reasoning is that a family should not lose a child to a delay the government itself caused. If the resulting CSPA age is under 21, the child is still a child for this purpose.
Source: USCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · in effect from 2002-08-06
The one-year deadline that switches it on
The calculation is not automatic. To keep the benefit, the child must seek to acquire lawful permanent residence within one year of a visa becoming available, and the visa must remain available for a continuous one-year period. Miss that window and the protection can be lost even though the arithmetic would have worked. This is the part that is most often discovered too late, which is why it is here rather than at the bottom.
Source: USCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · in effect from 2002-08-06
When the year can be excused
USCIS treats the sought-to-acquire requirement as satisfied where the applicant shows extraordinary circumstances that prevented them from acting within the year. That is an exception with a high bar and it is decided case by case, so it is a reason to gather evidence rather than a reason to relax about the deadline.
Source: USCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · in effect from 2002-08-06
Which chart decides that a visa became available
The date a visa becomes available is read from the Visa Bulletin, and which of its charts applies to this calculation is a matter of current USCIS policy rather than a fixed feature of the statute — it has been revised more than once. Check the CSPA page and the Policy Manual for what applies to a filing made today, because this is the part of the topic most likely to have moved since this guide was written.
Source: USCIS — Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) · in effect from 2002-08-06
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Frequently asked questions
- Does my child's age freeze when we file the petition?
- No. CSPA calculates a separate age by subtracting the time the qualifying petition was pending from the age at visa availability. It is a subtraction, not a freeze.
- What is the one-year rule?
- To benefit from the CSPA calculation, the child must seek to acquire lawful permanent residence within one year of a visa becoming available. USCIS may excuse the deadline where extraordinary circumstances prevented it.
- Does getting married affect this?
- Yes. The definition of a child requires being unmarried as well as under 21, so marriage removes a son or daughter from the category regardless of the age calculation.