Is Your I-94 Alien Registration Number on Your Passport?

No, your I-94 admission number is not printed on your passport. When you enter the United States by air or sea, a Customs and Border Protection officer stamps your passport with the date and class of admission, but the 11-character I-94 number lives in a separate electronic record in CBP’s database. To find it, you retrieve your I-94 from the official CBP website at i94.cbp.dhs.gov or through the CBP Link mobile app.¹

Why the Number Isn’t in Your Passport

Before April 2013, CBP officers stapled a small paper I-94 card into travelers’ passports. That card carried the admission number, visa class, and departure deadline. Many travelers still expect to find that card, but CBP retired the paper process for air and sea arrivals on April 30, 2013, replacing it with an automated electronic system.² The change eliminated manual paperwork and saves CBP an estimated $15.5 million per year.³

Now, CBP creates your I-94 record automatically from the flight or vessel manifest combined with your passport data. The stamp an officer places in your passport is a short summary of the admission: date and class. The complete record, including the admission number and the authorized stay date, sits online for you to pull up.

How to Look Up Your I-94 Number

Go to i94.cbp.dhs.gov and select “Get Most Recent I-94” from the menu.¹ You can do the same thing through the CBP Link mobile app after signing in with Login.gov.⁴

The system asks you to enter details exactly as they appear in the machine-readable zone at the bottom of your passport’s biographical page:

First and last name, using only the alphabetic characters shown in the MRZ. Tildes, accent marks, and other special characters are not accepted. If chevrons (<) appear in the last name zone, use spaces instead.
Date of birth as your passport shows it.
Passport number copied from the MRZ. Watch for characters that look alike, such as zero and the letter O, or the number one and the letter I.
Country of issuance matching the code in the MRZ, which reflects the issuing authority rather than where you physically picked up the passport.

Once you submit the form, the site displays your electronic I-94 record. Print it or save it as a PDF. The printout is official proof of lawful admission.³

If the System Says “Record Not Found”

The most common reason your record won’t appear is a name mismatch. If your passport lists two last names or two first names, enter both exactly as the MRZ shows them. Passport number errors are the other frequent culprit, especially when digits and letters look alike on the printed page.¹

If you renewed your passport between trips, search using the passport number you carried when you last entered the country, not the new one. As an alternative to typing, you can scan the MRZ of your passport directly through the website. If nothing works after several attempts, you can file a Freedom of Information Act request with CBP to obtain your records.¹

What the Admission Number Looks Like

The I-94 admission number is an 11-character identifier unique to each entry into the United States. Government agencies, employers, and schools use it to verify your immigration status. Before May 2019, the number contained only digits. To avoid running out of numeric combinations, CBP switched to an alphanumeric format: nine digits, then a letter in the tenth position, then a final digit.³ If you have an older all-numeric I-94 that hasn’t expired, it remains valid until its admitted-until date.

You may also see this number called the “Departure Number” or the “Admission Record Number,” depending on the form asking for it.² They all refer to the same 11-character number on your I-94 record.

Where You’ll Need It

The most common place employees enter the I-94 number is on Form I-9, which employers use to verify work authorization. Nonimmigrants authorized to work enter the admission number in Section 1 as one of their identifying numbers.⁵ A foreign passport paired with the I-94 record can also serve as a List A document proving both identity and work authorization. Because these documents carry expiration dates tied to your admission period, your employer will need to reverify your authorization before that date passes.

When a Paper I-94 Still Shows the Number Directly

Although most travelers get only an electronic record, CBP still issues paper I-94 cards in certain situations. Refugees, asylees, and parolees receive a physical card. Land border crossers may also receive a paper form, though CBP now encourages travelers to apply for a provisional I-94 electronically through the website or the CBP Link app before arriving.³

If you receive a paper I-94, the admission number is printed on the card itself. Keep it safe. You can also request a paper copy from the CBP officer at the time of inspection, but that request is handled in secondary inspection, which adds time to your crossing. When you leave the United States through a land port, you must surrender the paper form to CBP, the commercial carrier, or the Canadian Border Services Agency.³

Fixing an I-94 With Wrong Information

If your electronic I-94 shows a misspelled name, wrong date of birth, incorrect visa classification, or wrong admission date, do not file USCIS Form I-102. Visit the nearest CBP Deferred Inspection office or port of entry and have the officer correct the record directly.⁶ A list of Deferred Inspection sites is available on cbp.gov under the “Ports” link.¹

Form I-102 is specifically for replacing a paper I-94 that was lost, stolen, or damaged. To file, you submit a copy of your passport’s biographical page, the page showing your admission stamp, and documentation supporting the request. If the form was stolen, include a police report or explain why one is unavailable. If USCIS made the error, attach the original form with a letter explaining what went wrong.⁶

If CBP did not record your departure on a previous trip, your travel history may show you as still in the country. Send your surrendered paper I-94, if you kept it, along with evidence of your departure such as boarding passes, entry stamps from another country, or airline records, to CBP. Correcting a missing departure record matters because it can otherwise look like an overstay the next time you apply for a visa or seek entry.

One Habit Worth Building

Pull your I-94 record right after every entry into the United States and save the PDF. That habit keeps the admission number, the class of admission, and the admitted-until date at your fingertips whenever an employer, school, or government form asks for them, and it gives you a dated record if something on the entry needs to be corrected.

1
Homeland Security. I-94/I-95 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, Information for Completing USCIS Forms
3
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Arrival/Departure Forms: I-94 and I-94W
4
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Link Mobile Application
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 3.0 Completing Section 1 – Employee Information and Attestation
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Application for Replacement/Initial Nonimmigrant Arrival-Departure Document