Verified against official sources — 7 November 2026

STEM OPT Extension: How to Apply, Step by Step

NEW Published 7 November 2026

Eligibility, the Form I-983 training plan, the DSO recommendation, the filing window, the 180-day automatic extension while your application is pending, and the reporting cycle that follows approval.

SECTION 01Who Qualifies for the Extension

RULE — You must be in a valid period of post-completion OPT. USCIS's STEM OPT page lists the core conditions: you have been granted OPT and are currently in a valid period of post-completion OPT, and you hold a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree from a school that is accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-recognised accrediting agency and certified by SEVP at the time you submit the application.

RULE — The degree route has three shapes. The extension can rest on the degree your current OPT is based on; on a prior qualifying STEM degree from an accredited, SEVP-certified U.S. institution, even if your current OPT is based on a non-STEM degree, provided that degree has not already supported a STEM extension; or, later, on a further STEM degree earned at a higher educational level. USCIS caps the benefit at two lifetime STEM OPT extensions, each tied to a higher level of study.

RULE — The employer must be enrolled in E-Verify. Your STEM OPT employer must be enrolled in E-Verify and in good standing, hold a valid IRS employer identification number, and provide a formal training programme. An employer who will not enrol, or will not sign the training plan, cannot support a STEM OPT extension at all — establish this before you start the paperwork, not after.

SECTION 02Step 1 — Form I-983: The Training Plan Comes First

RULE — The completed I-983 goes to your DSO before any recommendation. Form I-983, the Training Plan for STEM OPT Students, is completed by you and your employer together, and USCIS's Policy Manual is explicit about both its contents and its position in the sequence: the plan must identify the goals for the training, how those goals will be achieved, the performance evaluation process, and the methods of oversight and supervision, and it must show how the training is directly related to your STEM degree. The form goes to your DSO, and the DSO may not enter the STEM OPT recommendation until they have it.

RULE — The signer and the trainer must be the same entity. USCIS requires that the official who signs Form I-983 is employed by the same entity that provides the training. This is the paperwork expression of the bona fide employer-employee rule: staffing arrangements where one company signs and another actually trains you do not fit the STEM OPT structure.

ADVICE — Write the plan like the evaluation document it is. You will be scored against this plan at the 12- and 24-month evaluations (Section 06). Goals that are concrete enough to evaluate — projects, skills, milestones — make those evaluations straightforward; vague aspirations make them a reconstruction exercise a year later.

SECTION 03Step 2 — The DSO Recommendation and Your New Form I-20

RULE — The recommendation starts a 60-day filing clock. With the I-983 in hand, your DSO enters the STEM OPT recommendation into your SEVIS record and issues a new Form I-20 endorsed for the extension. USCIS requires the Form I-20 in your application to have been endorsed by your DSO within the last 60 days, and DHS's STEM OPT guidance states the matching rule from the other side: USCIS must receive your application within 60 days of the DSO recommendation.

RULE — Filing before the recommendation is as fatal as filing late. DHS guidance is blunt: an application filed before the DSO enters the recommendation, or after the 60-day window closes, will be denied — and the filing fee is not returned. The sequence is therefore not a formality. Do not submit Form I-765 on the strength of an expected recommendation; wait for the endorsed Form I-20 itself.

SECTION 04Step 3 — File Form I-765 Inside the Window

RULE — The window has three edges. USCIS: file Form I-765 "up to 90 days before your current OPT employment authorization expires, and within 60 days of the date your designated school official (DSO) enters the recommendation for OPT into your SEVIS record." DHS adds the third edge: USCIS must receive the application no later than your current post-completion OPT end date. All three conditions must hold at once — earliest 90 days before expiry, within 60 days of the recommendation, and received by the expiry date.

RULE — The category and the package. The STEM extension is filed under eligibility category (c)(3)(C) — USCIS's Form I-765 page lists it as "(c)(3)(C) — File Form I-765 up to 90 days before the expiration of your current OPT, if you are requesting a 24-month STEM extension." USCIS's STEM OPT page specifies the package: Form I-765 with the correct fee; your employer's name as listed in E-Verify together with its E-Verify Company Identification Number (or valid Client Company ID Number); the Form I-20 endorsed by your DSO within the last 60 days; and a copy of your STEM degree.

RULE — The fee is real, its figure is deliberately not printed here. A filing fee applies to Form I-765, and an incorrect fee is a standard cause of rejection. USCIS publishes the amount on its Fee Schedule page (Form G-1055); that schedule's table could not be read reliably in this check, so — rather than print a figure we could not verify from the official table — this guide states the mechanism only: read the current (c)(3)(C) amount on USCIS's Fee Schedule page on the day you file and pay exactly that.

RULE — Premium processing exists for this category. Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service, can be filed for F-1 categories including (c)(3)(C), either with the Form I-765 or afterwards, through USCIS's online filing system or by mail. PARTIALLY VERIFIED — USCIS publishes the service as a guaranteed action window measured in business days; the specific window for this category is set on USCIS's premium processing pages, which summarised it as 30 business days in the material reviewed for this guide — confirm the current window and the I-907 fee (also deliberately not printed here) on uscis.gov before paying for speed.

SECTION 05While It Is Pending: The 180-Day Automatic Extension

RULE — Timely filing extends your work authorisation automatically. In USCIS's words: "If you file your STEM OPT extension application on time and your OPT period expires while your extension application is pending, we will automatically extend your employment authorization for 180 days. This automatic 180-day extension ceases once USCIS adjudicates your STEM OPT extension application." No separate application creates this extension — it is the legal consequence of a timely filing, resting on the employment-authorisation regulations at 8 CFR 274a.12(b)(6)(iv)–(v), the provisions DHS's STEM OPT guidance cites for it.

RULE — The period is capped from both ends. USCIS's Policy Manual frames the same protection precisely: a timely filer may continue working until the date of USCIS's written decision on the extension, or for up to 180 days after the current post-completion OPT expires, whichever is earlier. The extension period begins the day after your post-completion OPT expires, and once approved, the extension itself is a fixed, uninterrupted period of 24 consecutive months beginning the day after the initial post-completion OPT expires.

PARTIALLY VERIFIED — Proving the extension to your employer. For Form I-9 reverification during the 180 days, employer-facing guidance describes a document combination — your expired EAD, the Form I-797C receipt notice for the extension application, and your STEM OPT Form I-20 — as the evidence of the automatic extension. That combination was read in employer guidance reproducing USCIS's Handbook for Employers (M-274) rather than in the handbook text itself in this check, so confirm with your employer's HR what they will accept before your EAD's printed end date arrives.

RULE — If the extension is denied after your EAD has expired. The Policy Manual sets the consequences: employment authorisation ends on the date of the denial decision, and F-1 status ends 60 days after the denial — except where the denial rests on a failure to maintain status, in which case departure is required immediately. A denial is therefore not a soft landing; our STEM OPT RFE and NOID guide covers the evidence fights that happen before this point.

SECTION 06After Approval: Validation Reports and Evaluations

RULE — Report changes within 10 days. On STEM OPT you must report changes to your legal name, residential or mailing address, email address, and your employer's name or address to your DSO within 10 days of the change. The general OPT reporting duty under 8 CFR 214.2(f)(12)(i) — name, address, and any interruption of employment — runs for the whole period.

RULE — Validation reports every six months, even if nothing changed. At 6, 12, 18 and 24 months you must confirm your information to your DSO — legal name, address, employer and employment status — whether or not anything has changed. USCIS's Policy Manual sets the deadline: the report is due to the DSO within 10 business days of each reporting date. Missing a validation report is itself a status problem, independent of your employment.

RULE — Two signed self-evaluations. You owe an initial evaluation within 12 months of your STEM OPT start date and a concluding evaluation at the end, each signed by you and by an appropriate individual at your employer, and each delivered so that your DSO receives it no later than 10 days after the relevant period ends. DHS guidance adds the employment-end case: an evaluation is also due within 10 days of ending any individual employment. These evaluations are measured against the Form I-983 you filed in Section 02 — which is why that plan's wording matters.

RULE — The SEVP Portal has limits on STEM OPT. You may use the SEVP Portal for contact information and updates to an existing employer's details, but new employer information cannot be self-reported there: it must go to your DSO with a new Form I-983 (Section 07).

SECTION 07Changing Employers on STEM OPT

RULE — A new employer means a new Form I-983, within 10 days. For every new employment or training experience you must complete a new Form I-983 with the new employer and submit it to your DSO within 10 days of starting, and the DSO enters a new recommendation reflecting the change. The new employer must meet every STEM OPT condition from Section 01 — E-Verify enrolment above all.

RULE — Material changes to an existing plan need a modified I-983. If the terms of your training change materially — USCIS's examples run through the elements the plan itself records — you and your employer must give your DSO a modified Form I-983 at the earliest available opportunity. Your employer also carries its own duty: it must report your termination or departure to your DSO within 5 business days.

RULE — Unemployment days keep counting across the change. Days between STEM OPT employers accrue against the same 150-day aggregate ceiling that covers your whole OPT period. The mechanics of that counter — what stops it, what SEVIS sees, and what happens at the limit — are the subject of our unemployment-days guide, linked below; the one-sentence version is that a gap is only free of charge if it stays inside the aggregate you have left.

FAQFrequently Asked Questions

Official references and verification status

These official references were accessed and checked on 7 November 2026, and this guide's RULE items were verified claim-by-claim against them (record in the accompanying .sources.md file). Two honest limits. First, fees: USCIS's Fee Schedule (Form G-1055) table could not be read reliably in this check — the same dead end recorded in earlier rounds — so no Form I-765 fee and no Form I-907 fee is printed anywhere in this guide; Section 04 describes the fee mechanism only, and the premium-processing action window for category (c)(3)(C) is labelled PARTIALLY VERIFIED in Section 04 for the same reason. Second, the Form I-9 document combination for the 180-day automatic extension period (Section 05) was read in employer guidance reproducing USCIS's Handbook for Employers (M-274), not in the handbook text itself, and is labelled PARTIALLY VERIFIED in the text. Everything else rests on the pages below, read directly.

• USCIS — Optional Practical Training Extension for STEM Students (STEM OPT) (eligibility, filing window, package, 180-day extension, employer duties)
• USCIS — Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization (category (c)(3)(C) filing window)
• USCIS — Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service (premium processing for Form I-140 and eligible I-765 categories)
• USCIS Policy Manual — Vol. 2, Part F, Ch. 5: Practical Training (Form I-983, evaluations, validation reports, denial consequences)
• Study in the States (DHS) — STEM OPT Hub and F-1 STEM OPT Help Hub (60-day receipt rule, validation report schedule, SEVP Portal limits)
• 8 CFR 274a.12(b)(6)(iv)–(v) — the automatic extension of employment authorisation for timely filed STEM OPT extensions, and 8 CFR 214.2(f)(12)(i) — OPT reporting duties (regulation text, eCFR)

General educational information, not individualized legal advice. Consult your DSO or a qualified U.S. immigration attorney for case-specific questions.

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.