Extending or Amending Your Stay

An Extension or Amendment of your H-1B status must be coordinated with your employing department. Please allow considerable time for this process as extension/amendment applications take as long as initial applications.

Employment authorization is retained with a timely filed extension or amendment petition; the petition does not have to be approved by USCIS until 240 days into the new H-1B period.

Extending Your Stay

• H-1B status may be extended in three-year increments up to a total of six years; persons with an approved I-140 immigrant petition who are not able to file an adjustment of status petition due to visa bulleting backlog may extend their H status beyond six years in increments of up to three years.
• Time spent outside the U.S. during the six years of H-1B can be recaptured. To request recapture of H-1B time, follow the H-1B extension/amendment application instructions.  
  • You must provide evidence of H-1B time spent outside the U.S. (I-94 travel history, entry stamps, exit stamps, boarding pass, itineraries, etc.) as well as complete the H-1B recapture chart.  

Amendments

• Substantive changes in H-1B employment must be approved by USCIS with an amended petition submitted prior to the change in employment circumstances; substantive changes include moving between represented and nonrepresented positions or between different represented positions, or from research to clinical care.  A normal stepwise progression within an employment series (e.g. Assistant Project Scientist to Associate Project Scientist) will not require an amended petition.