United States: USCIS Increases Maximum Validity Period to Five Years for Several Categories of EADs, Including Adjustment of Status EADs

The new policy covers a wide range of EAD applicants. Those with pending adjustment of status applications who apply and qualify for an adjustment-based EAD – including employment- and family-based adjustment applicants – will receive a maximum five-year EAD validity period under the new policy, up from a two-year maximum validity under the prior policy.

USCIS is also applying a five-year maximum validity to EAD applicants admitted as refugees, granted asylum, or granted withholding of deportation or removal; those with pending applications for asylum, withholding of removal, or suspension of deportation or cancellation of removal; and to those paroled into the United States as refugees in certain cases.

While the change applies to both initial and renewal EADs for affected applicants, any replacement EADs – those sought to replace a card that is lost, stolen, mutilated, or contains erroneous information – will be issued with the same validity period as the original EAD.

Adjustment of status and other applicants eligible to benefit from the new five-year maximum EAD validity period will not be required to renew their EADs as frequently as they did under the prior policy, reducing some administrative burden associated with their pending immigration processes. USCIS says that in making the policy change, the agency aims to significantly reduce the number of EAD renewal applications filed with the agency in the next several years, which should contribute to a reduction in case processing times and backlogs.