Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record: Lookup, Errors, and Overstays

The Form I-94 arrival/departure record is the document U.S. Customs and Border Protection creates each time a nonimmigrant is admitted to the country, and the date on it, not the date on your visa, controls how long you can legally stay. Your visa lets you ask for entry at the border; the I-94 is what actually grants that entry and sets the clock on it. If you arrived by air or sea, CBP issued yours electronically, and you can pull it up online whenever you need proof of status, an admission date, or the deadline for leaving.

What the I-94 Shows

Every I-94 carries the same core fields: an eleven-character admission number tied to that specific entry, your class of admission (the visa category you were admitted under, such as B-2, F-1, or H-1B), your name and date of birth as the officer recorded them, the port and date of your most recent arrival, and an “Admit Until Date.”¹

That admit-until date is the field that matters most. It is the deadline by which you have to be out of the country, and you must depart by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on the day shown. Do not confuse it with the expiration date printed on your visa sticker. The visa expiration date only tells you the last day you can present that visa at a port to request entry. Once you are admitted, the I-94 date is what governs your stay, and the two dates are often different.¹

When Your I-94 Says “D/S”

Not every I-94 shows a calendar date. F-1 students, J-1 exchange visitors, and certain diplomatic categories are admitted for “D/S,” which stands for Duration of Status.² Your authorized stay lasts as long as you keep meeting the conditions of your category.

For F-1 students, that means finishing your program by the end date on Form I-20, staying enrolled in a full course load, and not working without authorization.³ Fall out of any of those conditions and your D/S authorization ends, even though nothing on the record changes. There is no expiration date to warn you, which is why D/S holders should be checking their I-20 or DS-2019 program end dates on their own schedule.

How to Retrieve Your I-94 Online

Your electronic record lives at i94.cbp.dhs.gov and inside the CBP One mobile app. Both pull from the same data.⁴

Have the passport you used at your most recent entry open in front of you. On the website, click “Get most recent I-94/I-95,” accept the consent screen, and enter your full legal name, date of birth, passport number, and country of citizenship exactly as they appear on the passport biographical page.⁵ Include middle names and suffixes. Small mismatches cause the system to return nothing.¹

Once the record appears, save it as a PDF. Employers, benefit agencies, and future immigration filings will ask for it. The site also has a “View Travel History” tab covering the past ten years of arrivals and departures, which is useful evidence for green card applications and for anything that hinges on time physically present in the country.¹

When the System Returns No Results

A “No Results” message usually means the search fields do not match what the officer keyed in, not that your record is missing. Try these variations before giving up:

Enter your name as it appears on your visa or boarding pass rather than the passport. Try combining first and middle names, reversing the order, or removing spaces between multiple first names.
Retry in all lowercase. The search is case-sensitive.
If you have renewed your passport since entering, search with the old passport number.
For Mexican passports, try dropping the first two digits, which may represent the year of issue.

If nothing works, go to a Deferred Inspection Site. Any deferred inspection office, or any CBP office inside an international airport, can help you regardless of where you originally entered.⁶

Fixing Errors on Your I-94

Officers occasionally misspell names, record the wrong visa classification, or enter the wrong admission period. An inaccurate I-94 can make you look like you overstayed or entered under a status you were not granted, so corrections should not wait.

Deferred Inspection Sites are the office for this. They handle biographical mistakes, wrong classifications, and incorrect admission dates, and any deferred inspection location will help even if you entered through a different port.⁶ Many require an email or appointment first; walk-in availability is inconsistent. Bring your passport, boarding pass, printed itinerary, and any previous I-94 printouts. The stronger the paper trail, the faster the officer can verify and update the record, often the same day.

There are limits. Deferred inspection only corrects mistakes made at entry. Extensions of stay, changes of status, and replacement of a lost crewman’s landing permit go through USCIS instead, and mail-in correction requests are generally not accepted.

Extending Your Stay Before the Date Passes

If you need longer than your I-94 allows, file Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, with USCIS before the admit-until date. USCIS recommends filing at least 45 days before your authorized stay ends, and not more than six months ahead.⁷

Filing on time is the whole game. If your I-539 is pending when the I-94 expires, you are generally treated as being in an authorized period of stay while USCIS decides. Miss the deadline and USCIS may still accept a late filing, but only if you can show extraordinary circumstances beyond your control, a reasonable length of delay, no other status violations, and that you remain a bona fide nonimmigrant not in removal proceedings.⁷ Most late filings do not clear that bar.

Check the current I-539 fee on the USCIS website before submitting. Premium processing is available for an added fee if you need a faster decision.

What Happens If You Overstay

Staying past your admit-until date triggers two separate problems, and they compound.

First, the visa you used to enter is automatically void. Federal law cancels any nonimmigrant visa used for an entry where the holder overstayed, effective the moment the authorized stay ends.⁸ Even if the sticker in your passport looks unexpired, you cannot use it to come back. A new visa application at a consulate in your home country is the usual path forward.⁹

Second, unlawful presence accumulates day by day. Leave voluntarily after more than 180 days but less than one year of unlawful presence and you face a three-year bar on re-entry. Accumulate one year or more and the bar is ten years.¹⁰ The bars are triggered by departure, not by remaining, which is why some people who overstay find themselves in a worse position after leaving than before.

One exception matters: if you filed a timely, non-frivolous extension or change-of-status application before the I-94 expired and it is pending or has been approved, the automatic visa voiding under INA 222(g) does not apply.⁹ Filing before the date passes is what preserves that protection.

Short Trips to Canada or Mexico on an Expired Visa

A situation that surprises many travelers: your visa sticker has expired, but your I-94 is still valid, and you want to make a quick trip across the northern or southern border. Under the automatic revalidation rule, you can re-enter on the expired visa without applying for a new one, if all of the following are true:

You traveled only to Canada, Mexico, or certain adjacent islands.
You were outside the United States for 30 days or less.
Your I-94 admission period has not expired.
You did not apply for a new visa during the trip, whether it is pending or was denied.

Automatic revalidation is not available to nationals of state sponsors of terrorism, and there are restrictions for F and J holders who travel to Cuba and for M holders who travel anywhere outside Canada and Mexico.¹¹ The rule is a reminder that the I-94 date and the visa date do different jobs, and confusing them can either trap you here or send you home to reapply when you did not need to.

Land Border Entries Work Differently

If you enter at a land port or by ferry, an I-94 is not free. Federal regulations require a fee at the land border, currently $30 (a $6 land border fee plus $24).¹²¹³ Land border I-94s are usually valid for multiple entries unless the officer writes in a limit, and you can apply for a provisional I-94 up to seven days ahead through the website or CBP One to speed up the crossing.⁵ Air and sea travelers do not pay a separate fee; it is folded into the ticket.

The I-94 and U.S. Tax Residency

Your I-94 record also feeds the IRS substantial presence test, which determines whether you are treated as a U.S. tax resident. You meet the test if you were physically present at least 31 days in the current year and at least 183 days under a weighted three-year formula: all days in the current year, one-third of days in the prior year, and one-sixth of days from two years back.¹⁴

The travel history on the CBP site is the record you count from. Students, teachers, trainees, and foreign government officials on A or G visas can be “exempt individuals” whose days do not count, but exclusion requires filing IRS Form 8843 on time.¹⁵ Skip it and you can lose the exclusion and end up classified as a tax resident with full U.S. filing obligations.

1
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I-94/I-95 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I-94 Fact Sheet
3
Study in the States. F-1 Students: Remember to Check for D/S on Your Form I-94
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Announces the Addition of I-94 Features to CBP One Mobile App
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I-94/I-95 Website – Official Site for Travelers Visiting the United States
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Deferred Inspection Sites
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Instructions for Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status (Form I-539)
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1202 – Application for Visas
9
U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 9 FAM 302.1 – Ineligibility Based on Inadequate Documentation of Qualification
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens
11
U.S. Department of State. Automatic Revalidation
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eCFR. 8 CFR 235.1 – Scope of Examination
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I-94 – Payment Process
14
Internal Revenue Service. Substantial Presence Test
15
Internal Revenue Service. Form 8843 – Statement for Exempt Individuals and Individuals With a Medical Condition