Effective May 4, 2022, certain foreign nationals who timely filed to renew their Employment Authorization Document (“EAD”) will receive an automatic extension of the period of employment authorization up to 540 days beyond the original expiration date. This is an effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) to temporarily alleviate the current situation involving extremely long processing times of pending EAD applications. In the short term, this will help avoid gaps in employment for certain foreign nationals with pending EAD renewal applications.
Currently, a pending EAD renewal application receives up to a 180-day automatic extension if timely filed and the application meets specified requirements. The Temporary Final Rule (“TPR”) permits an extra 360-day extension (for a total of 540 days) to eligible applicants with a timely filed EAD renewal application while USCIS continues to work through pending caseloads. The TPR is set to last through October 27, 2023 to allow USCIS an opportunity to address staffing shortages, implement additional efficiencies and meet USCIS’s recently announced goal of achieving a three-month cycle time for EAD applications by the end of FY 2023.
The automatic extension will end for a foreign national’s EAD upon notification of a final decision by USCIS on the renewal application or the end of the up to 540-day period (meaning, up to 540 days after the expiration date on the foreign national’s expired EAD), whichever comes earlier. Beginning October 27, 2023, automatic extensions of employment authorization and EAD validity will revert back to the up to 180-day period for those eligible foreign nationals who timely file EAD renewal applications.
If employers have a foreign national employee with an expiring EAD or a recently expired EAD, please reach out to your Hall Render Immigration Team to determine whether the employee will temporarily be able to continue working beyond the EAD expiration date to avoid a gap in work authorization.
If you have any questions or would like more information on this topic, please contact:
- Lindsay C. Ramsey at (317) 429-3637 or lramsey@wp.hallrender.com;
- Charlotte M. Fillenwarth at (317) 977-1476 or cfillenwarth@wp.hallrender.com;
- Michael L. Kim at (317) 977-1418 or mkim@wp.hallrender.com; or
- Your primary Hall Render contact.
Hall Render blog posts and articles are intended for informational purposes only. For ethical reasons, Hall Render attorneys cannot—outside of an attorney-client relationship—answer specific questions that would be legal advice.
