When Your Course or Job Ends: Grace Periods for F-1 and H-1B, and Planning Your Departure

NEW Published 31 October 2026

The short windows that follow a finished program or a lost job — what they are for, what they forbid, and how to leave on your own terms.

SECTION 01What a grace period is — and what it is not

A grace period is departure preparation time that the system grants automatically when a stay ends in the normal way. It exists so that a student whose course finishes, or a worker whose job ends, can wrap up a life — end a lease, sell a car, book a flight — without becoming an overstay the following morning. It is not an extension of your status for living purposes, and it is definitely not a continuation of your permissions.

The two grace periods in this guide look similar on a calendar and behave very differently underneath. The F-1 period is described by the Department of Homeland Security as a fixed feature of completing a program in status. The worker period is written into the regulations, but USCIS describes it in discretionary terms: it decides whether the grace period applies to you when it adjudicates your next benefit request. Both end early on departure. Both forbid work. Almost everything else about them differs.

SECTION 02Students: the 60 days, the 15 days, and the endings with none

For F-1 students, the size of your window depends on how your stay ended. DHS's Study in the States guidance and ICE's SEVP pages describe three distinct endings.

Read the three cards as a hierarchy of how a stay ends, because that is how the system reads them. The same student, in the same month, gets sixty days, fifteen days or none at all depending entirely on whether the ending was a completion, an authorised withdrawal or a termination — which is why talking to your DSO before a problem becomes a termination is worth more than anything you can do afterwards.

SECTION 03Inside the student's 60 days: no work, no re-entry

No employment. The grace period is framed by every official source as time to depart, and that framing is the rule: your employment authorisation as a student ended with your program or your practical training, and the grace period does not revive it. Working during those 60 days — even for an employer you already know, even unpaid where payment is expected — is not something the grace period permits, and it converts an orderly departure into a status problem. If an employer asks you to "finish out the month," the answer the system expects is no.

No popping back in. ICE's SEVIS travel guidance answers the student who hopes to use the grace period for a quick trip: "No. The 60-day 'grace' period is only to prepare to leave the country." The grace period is a one-way door. Depart during it, and whatever remained of the 60 days is gone; re-entry afterwards requires a new status and a new admission on its own terms.

What the days are for. Ending a lease and settling deposits. Closing or reordering bank arrangements. Shipping belongings. Saying the goodbyes. DHS's framing — a period "to depart" — is literal, and planning backward from a booked departure date inside the window is the safest way to use it.

SECTION 04Workers: up to 60 days after the job ends

The worker grace period lives in the regulations at 8 CFR 214.1(l), and USCIS explains its operation on its page for workers whose employment has ended. The regulation covers workers in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN status — and their dependents. Its core sentence: such a worker "shall not be considered to have failed to maintain nonimmigrant status solely on the basis of a cessation of the employment" for the grace period. In plain terms, losing the job does not by itself make you a status violator on day one — provided the discretion described below is exercised in your favour.

How long. Up to 60 consecutive days, or until the end of the authorised validity period, whichever is shorter. If your I-94 validity ends twenty days after your job does, your window is twenty days, not sixty. The period is available once during each authorised validity period.

When it starts. USCIS is specific: the grace period starts the day after the termination of employment — typically the last day for which a salary or wage is paid. It applies whether the ending was voluntary or involuntary. One hard edge: if you are already outside the United States when the employment ends, the grace period does not apply to you at all.

Why "discretionary" matters. USCIS introduces the whole provision with a qualifier: the regulations "permit a discretionary grace period." The worker and family are considered to be maintaining status when DHS exercises its discretion favourably. Crucially, USCIS states that it will determine whether the grace period applies when it adjudicates your next filing — which is why its page advises that a cover letter to anything you file next should ask USCIS to favourably exercise its discretion. The regulation itself reserves the same power: DHS may eliminate or shorten the 60-day period as a matter of discretion. Plan as though the period will be honoured — but file as though it must be asked for, because that is what USCIS describes.

No work. The regulation's condition is explicit: unless otherwise authorised under the employment-authorisation rules, the worker may not work during the grace period. Not for the old employer as a favour, not for a new employer whose petition is still being prepared. USCIS's companion point matters for households: a dependent spouse whose employment authorisation is incident to their status — an H-4 or L-2 spouse with authorisation tied to the status itself — remains authorised during the principal's grace period, because that authorisation hangs on the status, not on the job.

Departure ends it. USCIS states that the grace period ends upon the worker's departure from the United States. And departure raises a cost question workers rarely know to ask: if the ending was involuntary, USCIS's H-1B guidance makes the employer liable for the reasonable transportation costs of returning the worker to their last place of foreign residence — a liability its H-1B page says does not apply when the worker voluntarily resigns. The equivalent rule for O workers places the cost on the employer and petitioner jointly.

SECTION 05The 10-day periods at the edges of a worker's stay

Separate from the post-employment grace period, the same regulation allows workers in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, L-1 and TN status — and their dependents — up to 10 days before the validity period of an approved petition begins, and up to 10 days after it ends. These bookend periods exist so a worker can enter slightly early to settle in, and leave slightly after the job's authorised end. The condition is the same as every other window in this guide: the worker may not work during them, except during the validity period itself, unless separately authorised. Do not confuse the two mechanisms — the 10 days follow the petition's own dates; the 60 days follow the end of the employment.

SECTION 06Filing from inside the window

A grace period is not only for leaving. The regulation states that a person in one of these periods may apply for an extension of stay or a change of status if otherwise eligible — and USCIS's worker page works through what that means in practice. Two cautions frame everything in this section. First, eligibility is real, not assumed: the discretion discussion in Section 04 applies to whatever you file. Second, timing: because the worker's window is capped by the authorised validity period, a filing plan built on "60 days" that your I-94 cuts to twenty is a plan built on sand.

USCIS also explains the unlawful-presence mechanics of a worker's change-of-status filing, and they are worth understanding precisely. If you file a timely, nonfrivolous application to change status before your authorised stay expires, you are considered to be in a period of authorised stay, and unlawful presence does not accumulate while it is pending — provided you did not work without authorisation before or during its pendency, and maintained status beforehand. If the application is approved, the authorised stay covers the whole pendency. If it is denied, unlawful presence begins accruing from the day after the denial. And a change-of-status filing alone never authorises you to start the new job — employment permission is a separate question.

The detailed mechanics of changing status — who files Form I-539, who files what else, and the deadlines that govern all of it — are the subject of our companion guide, changing or extending your status inside the USA. Read it before filing anything; this guide's role is the clock, not the form.

SECTION 07The worker's options, as USCIS lists them

USCIS's page for workers after a termination lists the potential avenues for remaining in the United States beyond the grace period. They are summarised here at the level USCIS itself summarises them; a dedicated guide in this section will take the worker's job-loss options deeper, and nothing below substitutes for advice on your own case.

• A new employer's petition. A prospective employer may file a nonimmigrant petition for you. For H-1B workers specifically, you may begin working for the new employer as soon as that petition is properly filed — the portability rule; for other classifications, you generally must wait for approval.
• A change of status. To dependent status such as H-4 or L-2 if your spouse holds status (some dependent spouses hold employment authorisation incident to status); to F-1 student status; or to B-1/B-2 visitor status — noting USCIS's caution that visitors are precluded by statute from engaging in skilled or unskilled labor in the United States.
• Adjustment of status. If you are eligible — through a family relationship, an employer, or a self-petition route such as the EB-1 extraordinary-ability or EB-5 investor categories USCIS names — an application to adjust status may be the path.
• A compelling-circumstances EAD. A discretionary stopgap for certain workers with an approved immigrant petition whose immigrant visa is not yet available: an employment authorisation document of up to one year. USCIS is candid that it is a last resort, and that a worker in this posture is no longer maintaining nonimmigrant status, though generally in a period of authorised stay.
• Departure and readmission. If none of the above is filed, the instruction is plain: depart within the grace period. USCIS notes that H-1B workers who leave may later seek readmission for the remaining period of their H-1B approval.

A student whose program has ended faces a parallel, shorter menu: transferring to another SEVP-certified school before the deadline your DSO confirms, a change of status filed inside the window (see Section 06), or departure. The 60 days are long enough to execute any of them — and too short to begin exploring them in week seven.

SECTION 08Planning the departure itself

If the grace period will end in a departure, plan it like a project with a hard deadline — because it is one, and because overstaying it has consequences that follow you. For the student, DHS states the consequence plainly: failure to depart within the grace period could adversely impact your ability to re-enter under a different classification. For anyone, the broader legal machinery of overstay and unlawful presence is its own subject; our guide to your visa, your status and your I-94 explains the framework, and this guide deliberately does not re-derive it.

• Fix the date first. Count your window from its actual trigger — the I-20 program or OPT end date for a student; the day after employment ended, capped by your validity date, for a worker — and book travel comfortably inside it, not on its final day.
• Close the household in order. Lease notice periods, utility accounts, vehicle sale or storage, bank and phone arrangements: start these in week one. The grace period is long enough for all of it, in sequence, and too short for any of it done in a panic.
• Tell the people who keep your records. Students: your DSO should know your plan; your SEVIS record is part of your history. Workers: confirm your final pay date in writing — it is the date USCIS treats as the start of your window.
• Keep the evidence of an orderly exit. Boarding records and your I-94 travel history are how a future officer sees that you left in time. Our I-94 guide shows how to check that history and what to do if it is wrong.
• Deal with the address duty. If you remain in the USA for any part of the window at a new address — a friend's spare room counts — the change-of-address rules still apply to you; see our AR-11 guide.

FAQQuestions readers ask about grace periods

SOURCESOfficial references and verification status

This guide was checked line by line against primary sources on 31 October 2026: USCIS's page for nonimmigrant workers following termination of employment; the text of 8 CFR 214.1(l), which contains the worker grace period and the 10-day periods; USCIS's H-1B programme page, for the return-transportation liability; DHS Study in the States guidance for F-1 students; ICE/SEVP's SEVIS Help Hub pages on terminating a student record and on travel; and an ICE/SEVP broadcast bulletin on grace periods. Where a point rests on a source with limits, the article says so at the point of use, and the limits are recorded honestly below.

Honest limits of this guide. (1) The F-1 rule against working during the grace period is stated at the level the fetched official text supports: DHS and ICE frame the period exclusively as departure preparation, and student employment authorisation ends with the program or training period; no single fetched page carries a sentence in the form "students may not work during the grace period," so the guide does not quote one. (2) USCIS's worker guidance was read in its most recent retrievable full copy; its discretionary framing was cross-checked against the current regulatory text, which it matches. (3) Rules governing how long a person may be admitted, and any changes to them, are outside this guide's scope: it works from the dates on your own documents — your Form I-20, your Form I-94 — which are the dates that govern your case regardless. Nothing in this guide is legal advice.

• USCIS, Options for Nonimmigrant Workers Following Termination of Employment — discretionary framing, start date, work prohibition, departure, filing protections, options list, return transportation: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/information-for-employers-and-employees/options-for-nonimmigrant-workers-following-termination-of-employment
• 8 CFR 214.1(l) (eCFR) — the worker grace period, the 10-day periods, filing from within the periods: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-214/subpart-A/section-214.1
• USCIS, H-1B Specialty Occupations page — employer liability for return transportation; voluntary-resignation exception: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations
• DHS Study in the States, Students: F-1 Students at Postsecondary Level — 60-day grace period after program or OPT completion: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/students/prepare/f-1-students-at-postsecondary-level
• ICE/SEVP, SEVIS Help Hub: Terminate a Student — 15 days after Authorised Early Withdrawal; no grace period after termination for a status violation: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/student-records/manage-program-dates-registration-and-course-load/terminate-a-student
• ICE/SEVP, Broadcast Message 25297c6 — 60 days (F-1) and 30 days (M-1) measured from the program or practical training end date on the Form I-20: ICE/SEVP broadcast bulletin, as distributed
• ICE, SEVIS: Travel — the 60-day grace period is only to prepare to leave the country: https://www.ice.gov/sevis/travel

General information only. This guide is based on official sources publicly available and checked on the date shown on this page. Visa rules change, and consular and USCIS officers decide every case on its own facts — nothing here is a confirmation or a guarantee for your individual case, and this is not legal advice. Always confirm the current requirement on the official page linked in this guide before you act, and consider a qualified immigration attorney for your specific situation.