Rule Limiting International Students’ Time in U.S. Finalized

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July 16, 2026

DHS Finalizes Rule Limiting How Long International Students Can Stay in U.S.

International students previously could stay as long as their program lasted. The Trump administration is ending that 1978 policy.

By

Johanna Alonso

Critics of the policy say it could deter international students from studying in the United States.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images | Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images | Shuke Li/iStock/Getty Images | Rawpixel

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security scrapped a long-standing policy Thursday that allowed international students to stay in the U.S. until they finish their program of study. The new rule, which will be formally published Friday, will limit their stay in the U.S. to just four years unless they receive an extension, as well as limit students’ ability to change majors and institutions once in the country.

International education leaders and experts have argued that four years is not enough time for a significant number of students to complete their degree; almost all Ph.D. programs are longer than four years, while the average undergraduate takes more than four years to complete their bachelor’s degree. Additionally, students pursuing optional practical training, the work authorization for F-1 students following their graduation, typically stay in the U.S. more than four years.

But the government has argued that the old policy known as duration of status allows students to stay in the U.S. indefinitely without having to interact with immigration officials, leading to overstays and national security concerns.

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In the final rule, DHS recognized that students could take longer than four years to complete their programs of study but argued the rule is “intended as a law enforcement and screening tool to assess whether a student is maintaining normal academic progress and eligibility for F-1 status.”

Officials added that “nothing in this rule would prevent students from continuing their studies and research as long as individual students are complying with the terms of their nonimmigrant classification. Long-standing policy, which is not changing, allows F-1 and J-1 students to continue their studies for as long as their [extension of stay] application is pending.”

International students already in the country can “remain through their current program period or up to four additional years.”

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The first Trump administration also proposed an end to duration of status, but it was struck down after Biden took office. It proposed the rule once again late last summer, receiving nearly 22,000 comments, most of them opposing the change. Comments came not only from institutions, arguing that most Ph.D. students need more than four years to complete their degree, but also from hospital leaders, who spoke to the important role that doctors on J-1 visas play in the health-care system.

Now, the rule is slated to go into effect Sept. 15—60 days after it was finalized.

Uncertainty and Administrative Burden

F-1 students—international students pursuing a degree at an institution of higher education in the U.S.—have been granted duration of status since 1979, before which they had to reapply annually. The 1978 regulation that created duration of status stated that the rule aimed to “facilitate the admission” of international students without overburdening the workload of what was then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

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Now, overburdening immigration officials is one of the key concerns that international education experts have raised regarding the new rule. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services currently has a backlog of over 11.65 million cases as of the final quarter of 2025, according to the American Immigration Council’s USCIS tracker, and the average processing time is over a year. Now that international students are required to file extensions, that backlog is only going to worsen, and delays processing those extensions could leave students in limbo for months, unsure whether they can continue their education.

“We have little faith that USCIS can actually respond to the volume and tsunami of program extensions … If USCIS says, ‘Well, we’re going to be able to turn this around in X period of time,’ I do not believe a single word of it,” said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, prior to the rule’s finalization. “I do not. They’ve not been able to do it before.”

Delo Blough, a retired director of international services, said earlier this year she is most concerned about how many extensions will even be approved. The regulation states that...