USCIS to Reject Older Form I-485 Editions Starting September 18: No Grace Period Given

This is the form used by hundreds of thousands of green card applicants each year to adjust their status inside the United States. The new edition carries the date "09/18/26" and replaces the current 01/20/25 edition. As with several other form transitions USCIS has pushed through this year, there is no grace period: applicants who submit the wrong version on or after September 18 risk outright rejection.

According to the agency's newsroom alert, the revision aligns the form with the newly announced Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility Final Rule — the latest DHS rule that rescinds the narrower 2022 public charge regulations and takes effect the same day. USCIS is providing a preview version of the new form and its instructions in advance, explicitly warning applicants: "Do not file the 09/18/26 edition of Form I-485 before Sept. 18, 2026." The agency says it will only accept the new edition if it is postmarked or electronically submitted on or after that date.

As always, our eb-1a experts have discussed this new update in great detail and touched on all the essentials every applicant needs to know about.

A Hard Cutoff, Not a Window

The transition rules cut both ways and hinge entirely on timing rather than when USCIS ultimately reviews an application. Before September 18, 2026, USCIS will only accept the current 01/20/25 edition. Starting that date, it will reject the 01/20/25 edition if postmarked or electronically submitted on or after September 18, and will only accept the new 09/18/26 edition from that point forward. There is no overlap period in which either version is accepted, and no processing delay excuses filing the wrong one.

Michael H. Neifach of Jackson Lewis P.C. described the change bluntly for employers and sponsors tracking pending filings: the revised form "will immediately replace the current 01/20/25 edition without any grace period for the transition." He added that applications filed with the wrong edition on or after September 18 will be turned away outright, no matter how far in advance they were actually prepared. That last point is the one EB-1A attorneys are underscoring most: an application assembled weeks in advance and mailed on the wrong side of the deadline would get rejected just the same as one thrown together the night before.

What Is Actually Changing on the Form

Unlike the routine edition updates USCIS periodically issues, this revision is rather on a grand scale than cosmetic, and nearly all of it is concentrated in Part 9, i.e., the section which covers the public charge.

The most visible change is a consolidation. Previous editions asked applicants two separate questions: whether they had received cash assistance for income maintenance, and whether they had been institutionalized at government expense long-term.

The new form folds both into a single, broader question: "Have you ever received any means-tested public benefit?" That single question now covers a far wider range of programs under the new rule, including SNAP food assistance, government housing benefits, Medicaid, and post-secondary student financial aid. It is a direct reflection of the expanded public charge standard USCIS finalized in its August 18 policy guidance.

The form also restructures how applicants disclose those benefits. USCIS has replaced two separate disclosure tables with a single consolidated table. The agency also dropped the previous column asking whether a benefit was received while the applicant was exempt from the public charge ground. Moreover, they added a new free-text "Reason" field for each disclosed benefit.

Applicants will now only need to list a dollar amount when one actually applies, and a question that used to ask for household size as a simple number now asks applicants to describe their family status in their own words. Because of these structural edits, question numbering throughout much of the rest of the form has shifted as well.