H-1B 60-Day Grace Period: DHS Rule Could End It

DHS Wants to End the H-1B 60-Day Grace Period — What Workers Should Do While the Rule Sits at the White House

For nine years, a laid-off H-1B worker has had sixty days. Sixty days to find another sponsor, file a transfer, switch to a dependent status, or pack up on their own terms. On 6 August 2026, the Department of Homeland Security sent the White House a rule whose title says exactly what it wants: eliminate that window.

Nothing has changed yet. The grace period is still there today. But the direction of travel is now official, and the workers most exposed are the ones who assume a layoff is survivable.

What is happening to the H-1B 60-day grace period?
DHS has submitted a proposed rule to the White House that would eliminate the discretionary 60-day grace period for certain employment-based nonimmigrant workers after their job ends. It is under regulatory review, its text is not public, and it is not in effect. The current 60-day protection still applies.

What DHS has actually done — and what it has not

Precision matters here, because the headlines have run ahead of the paperwork.

A USCIS regulation titled “Eliminating the Discretionary 60-day Grace Period” was submitted for Executive Order 12866 regulatory review, received on 6 August 2026, and is currently at the proposed rule stage. The proposal carries the identifier RIN 1615-AD22 and is under review at the Office of Management and Budget.

What that means in plain terms: DHS has written something, and the White House’s regulatory office is looking at it before anyone outside government gets to read it.

The proposed regulation has not taken effect, its full text has not been made public, and the existing 60-day grace period therefore remains in place. Details will not be known with any specificity until publication.

Anyone telling you today exactly what the final rule will say is guessing. Even what would happen to a worker immediately after a job loss under the proposed system cannot be established from the publicly available information.

What the 60-day grace period does today

This is the protection currently on the books, and it is worth understanding properly before it is debated.

Under current rules, eligible workers may remain in the United States for up to 60 days after their employment is terminated — or until the end of their authorised stay, if that arrives sooner. During that window they can look for another qualifying job, transfer to a new employer, or in some cases apply to change immigration status, without immediately leaving the country.

The provision is codified at 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2). It came from a DHS regulation finalised in 2016 and implemented in January 2017 as part of a broader package affecting high-skilled workers.

Two features are easy to miss. First, it is capped by your I-94 — if your authorised stay ends in three weeks, you get three weeks, not sixty days. Second, it is discretionary. DHS already has the authority to shorten or deny the grace period in certain circumstances.

Who would be affected

Not just H-1B holders. The grace period covers E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN workers, along with eligible dependents.

That sweep is the part most coverage underplays. An L-1 manager whose project is cancelled, a TN professional whose contract ends, an O-1 researcher between grants, an E-2 employee at a shrinking investor company — all sit inside the same regulation. So do spouses and children, whose status is tied to the principal visa holder and who would face consequences alongside them.

What losing it would mean in practice

If the 60-day grace period were eliminated, foreign nationals whose employment ceases early — and their dependents — would no longer be maintaining status. They would generally be required to depart the United States immediately, and would be unable to change status or change employers from inside the country, unless USCIS chose to forgive the lapse in status.

Read that last clause carefully. It does not say every case ends in departure. It says the safety net becomes an act of discretion rather than a right. That is a very different thing to plan around.

Without the 60-day cushion, losing a job would put an affected worker’s immigration status at immediate risk. The practical consequences stack up fast: a pending green card process built on maintained status, a mortgage, a child mid-school-year, a spouse’s own work authorisation.

How long do workers realistically have?

This is the question nobody in the current coverage is answering, and it is the one that determines whether you should be worried this month or this year.

A rule at this stage still has several gates to pass. White House regulatory review comes first, and only after it clears does the proposed rule get published in the Federal Register. Publication triggers a public comment period. DHS must then review the comments and issue a final rule, which normally carries its own delay before taking effect. Each of those stages takes weeks to months, and rules of this kind are routinely challenged in court afterwards.

There is also a legal constraint DHS itself has acknowledged. USCIS has previously accepted that changing the grace period requires regulatory rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act — which is precisely why this is arriving as a proposed rule rather than a memo. It also means the process is reviewable, and the comment record matters.

None of that guarantees delay. It does mean the 60-day window is very unlikely to vanish next week.

What you can do now — while the rule is still under review

The value of this moment is that it is a warning, not an emergency. Six practical moves, all available today:

1. Know your I-94 date, not just your approval notice date. The grace period has always been capped by your authorised stay. If your I-94 expires soon, you already have far less protection than sixty days — with or without this rule.

2. Keep an extension filed early. An extension of stay filed before your current period expires puts you in a materially stronger position than one filed after a job loss. Timing is the variable you control.

3. Build the transfer file before you need it. Updated CV, degree evaluations, previous approval notices, pay records, and a copy of every I-797 you have ever received. A new employer’s attorney can move in days with a complete file and weeks without one.

4. Understand employer-change mechanics before a crisis. H-1B portability generally allows work to begin once a new, non-frivolous petition is properly filed, rather than waiting for approval. That mechanism is separate from the grace period and is not what this rule targets. It only helps, however, if a petition is actually filed while you are in status.

5. Map your fallback statuses in advance. Dependent status through a spouse, a student status change, or another employment category each carries its own filing timeline. Working out which is realistic for you now takes an afternoon; working it out on day three of a layoff does not go well.

6. File a comment when the rule publishes. Once the proposed rule appears in the Federal Register, the comment period is a genuine input to the record — and employer groups, universities and workers all use it.

A necessary caveat: this is general information, not legal advice. Immigration outcomes turn on individual facts, and the rule text is not even public yet. Anyone whose employment is at risk should speak to a licensed US immigration attorney about their specific case.

Why this lands hardest on Indian professionals

The exposure is not evenly distributed. Indian nationals made up 71 per cent of successful H-1B applicants in fiscal year 2024, and the Indian-American population in the United States is estimated at 5.2 million.

The proposal is particularly significant for Indian professionals because many face lengthy waits for employment-based green cards, which makes continuous maintenance of lawful nonimmigrant status especially important while they sit in the permanent-residence queue.

A green card case that has been running for a decade can be jeopardised by sixty days that no longer exist.

The wider context

This is not an isolated measure. The possible removal of the 60-day window comes as the administration continues to pursue changes to the H-1B programme, arguing that the visa system has been misused by employers.

Supporters of the change frame it in exactly those terms. One argument made publicly is that ending the grace period would limit the scope for extended unauthorised presence while workers search for new sponsorship or prepare to leave. Critics counter that the window is what allows an orderly transfer between employers at all, and that removing it penalises workers for their employer’s business decisions.

Both readings will be argued at length once the text is public. Until then, the honest summary is: proposed, unpublished, unresolved.

Key Takeaways

• Nothing has changed yet. The 60-day grace period at 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2) still applies today.
• DHS submitted RIN 1615-AD22 to OMB on 6 August 2026, titled to eliminate that grace period.
• The text is not public. Anyone stating its precise contents is speculating.
• Scope is broad: E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1, TN and dependents.
• If finalised, affected workers would generally have to depart immediately and could not change employer or status from inside the US absent USCIS discretion.
• Several procedural stages remain — publication, comments, final rule, effective date — before anything binds.
• Act on what you control now: I-94 awareness, early filings, a ready transfer file, mapped fallback statuses.

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