The End of "Duration of Status": What F-1 Students Need to Know

For decades an F-1 student's Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record carried the letters "D/S" instead of an admit-until date. You could stay as long as you were studying and following the rules of your status, and there was no expiry date to track. That arrangement is scheduled to end on September 15, 2026.

This is a rapidly evolving situation. As I was posting this message, the rule was blocked by a court order. This post will not be updated in real time, so please seek advice from your school's international student office or an attorney. See "A rapidly changing situation" below for some additional details.

Under a Department of Homeland Security rule published on July 17, 2026, F-1 students are admitted for a fixed period with a real end date. The same change applies to J-1 exchange visitors and to I foreign media representatives. What follows is about students.

Your new period of admission

Under the new rules, when you are admitted to the United States now, the officer will give you the length of the program shown on your Form I-20 Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status, capped at four years. You'll also normally receive 30 days before the program start date to arrive and 30 days after it ends to depart. Neither 30-day period counts against the four-year cap.

Your I-94 will now have a date you are responsible for watching, and the period to leave after you finish has been cut from 60 days to 30 days.

Students should get into the habit of retrieving their I-94 after every single arrival. You can find this at i94.cbp.dhs.gov. Don't be confused by the expiry date on your visa or your I-20. The admit-until date is what matters and is the date by which you must depart the United States.

If you were already in the United States on September 15

You do not need to do anything immediately, and the changes to the rule do not mean you have lost your student status.

There are special rules for students who held a "duration of status" (D/S) admission and were physically present in the country on the effective date. If you are one of those students, you may remain until the program end date on the Form I-20 that was valid that day, or until the end of your post-completion OPT or STEM OPT, with an outer limit of November 14, 2030. Students covered by this transition also keep the old 60-day departure period instead of the new 30.

This is better than other parts of the rule, and if you leave the country, you might no longer be able to use this special exception.

Leaving the country might change things

If you depart the United States and are readmitted after September 15, you are admitted under the new framework like anyone else. You receive a fixed date on your I-94 and a 30-day departure period, and the transition treatment described above no longer applies to you.

That does not mean you can never travel. It means the trip has a consequence that did not exist before, and that you should work out what you will be admitted for before you book anything, rather than discovering it at the airport on the way back.

Needing more time than your admission period allows

If you cannot finish your program within the period you were admitted for, you have two routes. You can file Form I-539 Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before your admission expires, which now involves biometrics, evidence that you can fund your studies, and a filing fee. And some students might be able leave the country and apply for admission again at a port of entry with an updated I-20, but this could be a risky move for students with expired visas or other, more complicated issues.

Not every reason for needing more time as a student counts. DHS will consider compelling academic reasons, a documented illness or medical condition, and exceptional circumstances outside your control. A record of academic probation, suspension, or repeatedly not completing coursework will not support an extension.

File early if you need to file. If an extension is denied there is no grace period afterwards.

OPT and STEM OPT

The 24-month STEM OPT extension survives, and so does the rule that keeps your existing Employment Authorization Document alive for up to 180 days while a timely-filed application is pending.

Going forward, most students requesting post-completion OPT or STEM OPT will file two applications rather than one: Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization for the work permission, and Form I-539 for the additional period of admission. DHS declined to combine them and recommends filing them together.

There is an important exception to this rule but it only applies for a limited time. If you held a duration of status admission, were in the United States on September 15, and file your I-765 for post-completion OPT or STEM OPT on or before March 18, 2027, you do not need to file a separate I-539 for that period. DHS may extend that date by notice in the Federal Register, but nobody should plan around an extension that has not happened.

Why the dates matter more than they used to

Under duration of status, unlawful presence generally did not start accumulating until USCIS made a formal finding that you had violated your status, or an immigration judge ordered you removed. That protection is gone. If you stay past the date on your I-94 without having filed for an extension in time, unlawful presence begins to run, and enough of it can make you inadmissible to the United States for three or ten years after you leave.

What to do in the next month

Retrieve your current I-94 and write down what it says. Find the program end date on your most recent I-20 and check that it is still accurate. If you are on OPT, note the expiry on your EAD. If you are thinking about STEM OPT, look hard at the March 18, 2027 date. And if you are planning to leave the country, get advice on what your new admit-until date is likely to be upon your return, before you go. (And consider whether you should leave at all).

A rapidly changing situation

A coalition of universities and unions asked a federal court in Massachusetts to block this rule. The motion was argued on September 3, 2026.

On September 14, 2026, the court postponed the effective date of the rule. The order stops DHS from putting any of it into practice for the time being, which means F, J and I nonimmigrants keep their duration of status admissions for now and nothing described above is implemented. We anticipate that the government will appeal the order, so the situation might change again soon.