What Are the Requirements to Maintain a Green Card?

The requirements to maintain a Green Card come down to a short list: keep the United States as your actual home, file U.S. tax returns on your worldwide income every year, obey the law and avoid a specific set of deportable convictions, tell USCIS when you move, renew the card before it expires (or remove the conditions on a two-year card), and get a re-entry permit before any trip abroad of a year or more. Do these things and your status continues indefinitely. Fall short on any one of them and you can lose the card, be found to have abandoned it, or be placed in removal proceedings.

Keep the U.S. as Your Real Home

Permanent residence means the United States is your permanent base. You can travel, work overseas temporarily, and visit family abroad, but USCIS expects your center of life to be here. The clearest way to show that is a set of ordinary facts: a U.S. address, a U.S. driver’s license, bank accounts, employment, and family ties in the country.

Filing a U.S. federal income tax return every year, and reporting worldwide income, is part of the same picture. The IRS treats permanent residents the same as citizens for filing purposes, and the obligation continues even during long stretches spent outside the country. If USCIS ever questions whether you’ve abandoned residency, the tax return is one of the first documents an officer looks at. Filing as a nonresident, or not filing at all, undercuts your status directly.¹

Travel Rules for Green Card Holders

Short trips are fine. The length of the absence is what changes the analysis.

Trips Under Six Months

Ordinary vacations and short work trips generally raise no issue. You re-enter with your Green Card and a passport from your country of citizenship.

Trips Between Six Months and One Year

Once an absence reaches six months, an officer may ask questions on re-entry, and the trip can disrupt continuous residence for later citizenship purposes. Whether you’ve abandoned residency turns on the facts of your life: did you keep a U.S. home, bank accounts, a driver’s license, U.S. employment, and family here, and did you continue filing tax returns as a resident? The more of those you can show, the stronger your position that the trip was temporary.²

Trips of One Year or Longer

An absence of a year or more is the point at which USCIS may formally treat you as having abandoned your status. Before you leave, apply for a Re-entry Permit on Form I-131. The permit protects you from an automatic abandonment finding based only on the length of the absence, though it does not guarantee admission. A re-entry permit is normally valid for two years; if you’ve already spent more than four of the last five years outside the U.S., it may be limited to one year.³

Coming Back After a Year Without a Permit

If you stayed abroad more than a year without a re-entry permit, or your permit expired while you were away, you generally need a new immigrant visa to return. One option is a Returning Resident (SB-1) visa. To qualify you must show that you always intended to return, kept ties to the U.S., and that circumstances beyond your control kept you abroad, such as a medical emergency or an employer’s requirements. The application uses Form DS-117 and supporting evidence like tax returns, proof of U.S. property or family ties, and documentation of the reason you couldn’t come back sooner. Contact the nearest U.S. embassy at least three months before you plan to travel.⁴

Criminal Convictions That Make You Deportable

A permanent resident can be placed in removal proceedings for specific categories of convictions, regardless of how long they’ve been in the country. Immigration judges have very limited discretion in some of these categories.

Aggravated Felonies

An “aggravated felony” as defined under immigration law triggers mandatory deportation with almost no exceptions. The term is broader than it sounds. It covers offenses like murder, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, money laundering involving more than $10,000, and theft or burglary offenses where the sentence is at least one year. A crime does not need to be classified as a felony under state law to count as an aggravated felony for immigration purposes.⁵

Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude

Offenses generally involving dishonesty or vile conduct, such as fraud, theft, or assault with intent to harm, fall in this category. A single conviction can make you deportable if the crime was committed within five years of your admission as a permanent resident and the potential sentence was one year or more. Two or more such convictions at any time after admission trigger deportability even if they arose from separate incidents.⁶

Drugs and Firearms

Almost any drug conviction after admission makes you deportable. The only statutory exception is a single offense of possessing 30 grams or less of marijuana for personal use. Possession of other controlled substances, distribution, and conspiracy charges all fall within the deportation ground. Firearms convictions follow a similar pattern: any conviction related to buying, selling, possessing, or carrying a firearm or destructive device in violation of law is deportable.⁶

Domestic Violence and Related Offenses

Convictions for domestic violence, stalking, child abuse, child neglect, or violating a protective order are independent deportation grounds. There is no minimum sentence and no timing window. A single conviction at any point after admission is enough.⁶

Paperwork You Owe USCIS

Report Every Address Change Within 10 Days

Every move requires notifying USCIS of your new address within 10 days. This applies to all noncitizens in the U.S. except certain diplomatic visa holders and visa waiver visitors, and it applies to conditional and permanent Green Card holders alike. Ignoring it is a federal misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $200 or up to 30 days in jail.⁷

The fastest method is through a USCIS online account, which updates the agency’s systems almost immediately. If you have pending applications, enter the receipt number for each one so the change applies across all your cases. A paper Form AR-11 also satisfies the requirement.⁸

Renew the Card Before It Expires

A standard Green Card is valid for 10 years. The card expires, but the underlying permanent resident status does not. You still need a valid card for employment verification, travel, and other purposes, so timely renewal matters.

File Form I-90 within the six months before the printed expiration date. You can file online or by mail. The current fee is listed on the USCIS G-1055 fee schedule. After filing, USCIS issues a receipt notice that extends the validity of the expiring card for 36 months from its printed expiration date, so you keep proof of status while the new card is being produced.⁹

Remove the Conditions on a Two-Year Card

Not every Green Card is a 10-year card. If you got permanent residence through a marriage less than two years old at the time, or through an EB-5 investor visa, your first card is conditional and valid for two years. A conditional card cannot be renewed. You must petition to remove the conditions before it expires, or lose your status.¹⁰

Marriage-based conditional residents file Form I-751, jointly with the U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, in the 90 days immediately before the card expires. The petition requires evidence of a genuine marriage: joint bank accounts, a shared lease or mortgage, children’s birth certificates, insurance policies, and similar records. The fee as of March 2026 is $700 online or $750 by mail. If you’re divorced, widowed, or experienced domestic abuse, you can file alone with a waiver of the joint filing requirement; waivers based on battery or extreme cruelty carry no filing fee.¹¹

EB-5 investors file Form I-829 instead, within the same 90-day window before the two-year anniversary of conditional status. The fee is $3,750 as of March 2026. Missing the deadline results in automatic termination of conditional status.¹²

USCIS may accept a late I-751 for good cause if the petition includes a written explanation. Acceptable reasons include hospitalization, serious illness, a death in the family, a family emergency, or a spouse on active military deployment. Late filings without any explanation prompt a request for evidence before a decision.¹³

Other Rules Specific to Green Card Holders

Carry the Card

Federal law requires every permanent resident 18 or older to carry the Green Card at all times. Not having it on you is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $100, up to 30 days in jail, or both. In practice, enforcement during routine daily activities is rare, but you’ll need the card for employment verification, re-entry at a port of entry, and any interaction with immigration authorities.¹⁴

Selective Service for Men 18 to 25

Male permanent residents between 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service System. Registration is free at sss.gov and takes a few minutes. The statutory penalty for failing to register is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but the practical problem shows up later: once you turn 26 it is too late to register, and unregistered men between 26 and 31 need a Status Information Letter from Selective Service plus a convincing explanation to USCIS that the failure wasn’t deliberate when they apply for citizenship.¹⁵¹⁶

Do Not Vote in Federal Elections

Permanent residents cannot vote in any federal election. Doing so is a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine, can jeopardize the Green Card, and can permanently bar citizenship. A narrow exception exists for someone whose parents were citizens, who grew up in the U.S. before age 16, and who genuinely believed they were a citizen when they voted. Political donations are different: federal election law’s “foreign national” definition excludes lawful permanent residents, so Green Card holders can contribute to campaigns, PACs, and party committees under the same rules as citizens.¹⁷¹⁸

Public Charge on Re-entry

The public charge ground of inadmissibility usually doesn’t affect a permanent resident who stays in the country, but it can come up on re-entry from abroad or when applying for a new immigration benefit. Under the standard in effect as of early 2026, the question is whether the person is primarily dependent on the government for basic needs, measured by cash assistance for income maintenance or long-term institutionalization at government expense. Medicaid (other than for long-term care), SNAP, and housing vouchers do not by themselves trigger a public charge finding under this standard. A proposed rule published in November 2025 would broaden the benefits considered, so anyone relying on means-tested benefits should check USCIS updates before international travel.¹⁹

How These Rules Feed Into Citizenship

Maintaining the Green Card is the foundation for naturalization, but citizenship adds its own continuous residence and physical presence requirements on top. An extended absence handled correctly for immigration purposes, with a re-entry permit, can still reset your naturalization clock. If your employer is sending you abroad for a year or more and you want to protect your eligibility for citizenship, Form N-470 lets qualifying applicants preserve continuous residence, provided you file before you’ve been continuously outside the country for a year and you’ve already had one uninterrupted year of physical presence as a permanent resident.²⁰

1
Internal Revenue Service. U.S. Citizens and Residents Abroad – Filing Requirements
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. International Travel as a Permanent Resident
3
USCIS. Instructions for Form I-131, Application for Travel Documents, Parole Documents, and Arrival/Departure Records
4
Travel.State.Gov. Returning Resident Visas
5
Legal Information Institute. Definition: Aggravated Felony from 8 USC 1101(a)(43)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Chapter 10 – Changes of Address
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. AR-11, Aliens Change of Address Card
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Replace Your Green Card
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Conditional Permanent Residence
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Removing Conditions on Permanent Residence Based on Marriage
12
USCIS. Form I-829, Instructions for Petition by Investor to Remove Conditions on Permanent Resident Status
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Revised Guidance Concerning Adjudication of Certain I-751 Petitions
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1304 – Forms for Registration and Fingerprinting
15
Selective Service System. Who Needs to Register
16
Selective Service System. Frequently Asked Questions
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 611 – Voting by Aliens
18
Federal Election Commission. Foreign Nationals
19
Federal Register. Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility
20
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes