Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility takes effect on 18 September 2026

Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility was published on 20 July 2026 and takes effect on 18 September 2026. That date is effective since 18 September 2026. In the agency's own words: “This final rule eliminates the 2022 public charge regulations to restore broader officer discretion in assessing whether aliens are likely to become public charges. DHS will consider any and all factors in the totality of the circumstances.”

Adjustment to Premium Processing Fees took effect on 1 March 2026. In the agency's own words: “DHS is adjusting premium processing fees for inflation as authorized by statute. The fee for Form I-140 increases to $2,965.”

The framework officers apply is unchanged: they first count how many of the ten regulatory criteria your evidence satisfies, then make a final merits determination on whether the record as a whole shows sustained acclaim.

The most recent substantive change to the evidence guidance is an October 2024 update to the USCIS Policy Manual, and it is a helpful one. Team awards can count under the prizes criterion. Memberships you have since let lapse still count. Published material about your work no longer has to demonstrate the value of that work. The same update narrowed one point: exhibition now means artistic exhibition, and a trade or science exhibition is weighed only as comparable evidence.

Worth knowing if your field does not fit the ten criteria neatly: where a criterion does not readily apply to your occupation, USCIS will consider comparable evidence in its place. That provision is used far less often than it could be, and it is the route most likely to help someone whose achievements are real but do not come with prizes, memberships or press coverage in the conventional shape.

Nothing above changes what makes a strong petition. The record is built from evidence that already exists in your career and evidence you can still generate over the next several months — judging and peer review, authorship, membership applications, and press coverage. That work is unaffected by any rule on this page, and it is the part you control.

One caution on numbers. Several sites publish specific EB-1A approval rates by fiscal year and claim approvals are falling. Those figures do not currently trace to a published USCIS data release. An unverified statistic is a poor basis for a filing decision.