From Petition to Green Card

Step 1 — Adjustment of Status

Once a family or employment petition is approved, adjustment of status is the final step to becoming a permanent resident.

If you're already in the U.S., you file Form I-485 to adjust from your current status to permanent resident, without leaving the country.

Step 1 — Consular Processing

If you're outside the U.S., your case goes through the National Visa Center and a visa interview at a U.S. consulate abroad.

While Your Case Is Pending

Work authorization — you may be able to apply for an EAD while adjustment of status is pending.

Travel document — advance parole allows travel abroad without abandoning your application.

10–15 months, immediate relatives.

Other family and employment categories can take considerably longer depending on the visa preference category and country of birth. We'll give you a case-specific estimate.

Bottom Line

Current USCIS timelines for immediate relatives commonly run 10–15 months, though this varies by category and service center.

First Question: Is a Visa Available to You Yet?

Before either path can be used, a visa number has to be available in your category. This is the step that determines whether you are waiting months or years, and it has nothing to do with how well your case is prepared.

Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens — spouse, unmarried child under 21, and parent of a citizen 21 or older — are not subject to an annual limit. A visa is treated as available at all times, so the green card application can follow the petition immediately or be filed alongside it.

Family preference categories and the employment-based preference categories are subject to annual numerical limits, capped again by country of birth. Your priority date is your place in that queue, and the Department of State's monthly Visa Bulletin shows how far the queue has moved. USCIS posts each month which of the bulletin's two charts adjustment applicants may use.

Cut-off dates can move backward as well as forward. Retrogression is a normal feature of the system and is not a sign that anything went wrong with your case.

Choosing Between the Two Paths

For many people there is no choice — you are either in the United States in a posture that allows adjustment, or you are not. Where there is a choice, the trade-offs are worth naming.

Adjusting status inside the United States means you never leave, you can apply for work authorization and a travel document while you wait, and the interview happens at a USCIS field office. It is generally the safer route for anyone with a complicated immigration history, because departing the country can trigger consequences that staying does not.

Consular processing means the interview happens at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad and the person arrives already approved. It can be faster in some categories and at some posts, and it is the only option for someone who is outside the United States or who is not eligible to adjust here.

Eligibility to adjust generally requires that you were inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States. Certain status problems that follow a lawful entry are forgiven for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens; entry without inspection is a different issue and usually is not. This is the question to settle first, because it decides everything after it.

The Medical Examination

Every applicant needs a medical examination, and it must be done by the right doctor. Inside the United States, that means a civil surgeon designated by USCIS — not your own physician. Abroad, it means a panel physician authorized by the specific consular post handling your case.

The exam covers a required vaccination record along with screening for certain communicable diseases and other health-related grounds of inadmissibility. Bring your vaccination records with you; missing doses can usually be given at the appointment, but only if you know they are missing.

Timing matters, and the rules about how long a completed exam remains usable have changed in recent years. USCIS publishes current guidance on this, so confirm before scheduling — an exam done too early or too late is a delay that is entirely avoidable.

Working and Traveling While You Wait

Neither work authorization nor permission to travel is automatic. Both come from separate applications that can be filed alongside an adjustment of status application, each with its own fee and its own processing time.

Advance parole is the travel document. Leaving the United States while an adjustment application is pending, without an approved advance parole document, can be treated as abandoning the application. Some nonimmigrant categories allow their holders to travel and return without advance parole — confirm whether yours is one of them before you book anything, rather than after.

There is a separate and larger risk for anyone who has accrued unlawful presence. Departing can trigger a three- or ten-year bar on returning, and as of August 13, 2026 an approved advance parole document no longer prevents that. The Board of Immigration Appeals held in Matter of Delcarmen-Lara that leaving on advance parole counts as a departure for those bars, overruling the rule that had applied since 2012. Advance parole still protects the application from being treated as abandoned; it no longer protects the person. If you were ever in the United States without status, treat any international travel as a decision to discuss before you book it.

The rules governing automatic extensions of expiring work permits have changed recently and are less generous than they were. File renewals early and do not assume a gap will be covered.

The Interview and the Decision

Most adjustment cases include an interview, though USCIS waives it in some categories where the record is complete and consistent. Consular cases always include an interview at the post.

The officer will confirm your identity, go through the application questions with you — including the ones about arrests, prior filings, and misrepresentations — and confirm the basis of your case. Bring originals of what you filed, plus anything that has changed since.

A decision does not always arrive at the interview. Cases are frequently taken under advisement while an officer completes background checks or reviews something further, and that is routine rather than ominous.

If something is missing, expect a request for evidence with a firm deadline on it. Note that USCIS has stated it may deny a filing without first issuing a request for evidence where required initial evidence is missing, which makes the completeness of the original package more consequential than it once was.

After the Green Card Arrives

Check the card carefully as soon as it arrives — the name, the date of birth, the category code, and the expiration date. Errors happen, and they are far easier to correct immediately.

If your permanent residence came through a marriage that was less than two years old on the day residence was granted, the card is conditional and valid for two years. That card cannot be renewed; the conditions have to be removed by a separate filing during the 90 days before it expires. See our removal of conditions guide.

Permanent residence can be affected by long absences from the United States. Extended trips abroad raise questions about whether you have maintained residence, and they affect naturalization eligibility separately. Talk to us before a long trip, not after.

Keep the card valid, keep your address updated with USCIS, and keep a copy of everything filed in your case. The file you build now is the file your naturalization application will draw on years from now.

Who This Guide Is Not For

This guide starts after a petition exists. If you have not filed one yet, see the I-130 guide for family cases or the family petition guide for who you are eligible to sponsor.

If your case is marriage-based, the marriage green card guide follows that specific path more closely, including the interview and the conditional card.

If past unlawful presence, a prior misrepresentation, or a criminal issue may stand in the way, the waivers of inadmissibility guide describes the tools that exist for that problem — and it is a conversation to have before filing, not after a denial.

If your path to status runs through asylum, a T or U visa, or a VAWA self-petition, those categories reach permanent residence on their own terms and have their own guides.