U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is making permanent the end of the maximum 540-day automatic extension of Employment Authorization Documents. The final rule, scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on October 14, 2026, responds to comments on the interim final rule of October 30, 2025 and reaffirms it without change. An advance copy was available on October 13. The final rule is here .
Under the interim rule, renewal EAD applications filed on or after October 30, 2025 no longer receive the automatic extension that once ran up to 540 days past the EAD’s expiration date. For those applicants, work authorization ends when the EAD expires and does not resume until USCIS approves the renewal, unless the person has a separate basis for work authorization. The final rule does not affect EADs that were already automatically extended before October 30, 2025, or extensions provided by law or by a Federal Register notice, such as blanket extensions for Temporary Protected Status. F-1 students seeking a STEM extension keep their separate 180-day automatic extension.
The categories affected include asylum applicants (C08), self-petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act (A31) and Temporary Protected Status holders (A12 or C19). USCIS also confirmed the change reaches the employment-based dependents and green-card applicants who previously qualified, including H-4 and L-2 spouses and people with a pending adjustment-of-status application (C09). For those applicants, USCIS said it does not change the underlying eligibility to apply for an EAD; it ends only the automatic extension based on a timely filed renewal. Spouses of L and E nonimmigrants whose work authorization is incident to status remain work-authorized while that status lasts, even if an EAD expires.
DHS estimates the rule could let 20,000 to 33,000 EADs lapse in a single 18-month window beginning in May 2027. It puts the productivity cost to employers that cannot easily replace affected workers at about $138.1 million, labor-turnover costs at about $312.1 million and the tax effect at about $14.5 million over that period, with roughly 1,700 to 2,800 employers affected.
The final rule takes effect on publication. USCIS first raised the automatic extension from 180 days to 540 days in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic and made the longer period permanent in December 2024, before the October 2025 interim rule reversed it.
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Source: Federal Register