U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a new edition of Form I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA, on Aug. 31, 2026. The new edition carries the edition date 08/24/26, and unlike most USCIS form revisions, it comes with no grace period.
Starting Aug. 31, 2026, USCIS will accept only the 08/24/26 edition. The agency has stated it will not process or accept the previous 10/17/24 edition of Form I-864 if the form is postmarked or electronically submitted on or after Aug. 31, 2026. Sponsors who already completed the older edition but have not yet filed must redo the form on the new version. USCIS published a preview version of the form in advance specifically because there is no transition window. The related forms in the same family were updated on the same day: Form I-864A (Contract Between Sponsor and Household Member) and Form I-864EZ also carry new 08/24/26 editions.
The most consequential change is buried in the form itself rather than the headline. According to USCIS, the 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864 includes a privacy release that authorizes USCIS to request information about the sponsor from one or more consumer reporting agencies. In plain terms, signing the new affidavit of support gives the agency permission to pull credit-bureau data as part of assessing whether the sponsor genuinely meets the income and asset thresholds.
That has a practical trap attached. USCIS warns that if a sponsor has a credit freeze or security freeze on their consumer report file, the agency may be unable to access the information needed to evaluate the sufficiency of the affidavit. USCIS advises sponsors to respond promptly to any request to lift a freeze, since a frozen file can stall adjudication of the underlying case. Many people place permanent freezes on their credit files for identity-theft protection and then forget about them — that routine precaution can now become a delay in a green card case.
Form I-864 is required in most family-based immigrant cases and in employment-based cases where a relative filed the petition or holds a significant ownership interest in the petitioning company. For anyone with an adjustment-of-status or consular immigrant visa filing in the pipeline, the immediate action items are simple: confirm you are using the 08/24/26 edition (the edition date appears at the bottom of each page of the form and instructions), check whether the sponsor has a credit freeze in place, and plan for the possibility that USCIS will look at the sponsor’s credit file rather than taking the tax returns and pay stubs at face value.
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Source: Reddit r/USCIS