Process and timing

Change of address

Also called Form AR-11, AR-11, Alien's Change of Address Card.

Change of address is the duty every registered noncitizen in the United States owes USCIS to report a new address in writing within ten days of moving, a duty that attaches to registration rather than to any pending case and applies just as much to a move down the same street as to a move across the country.

What it decides

The obligation sits in the statute at INA 265(a), 8 U.S.C. 1305(a), and is owed by each alien required to be registered who is within the United States, so it does not depend on having a filing pending and it does not stop when the green card arrives. USCIS takes the report through the change of address tool in a USCIS online account, which it prefers because it updates its case systems almost at once, or on paper Form AR-11 by mail, which meets the legal requirement but does not update those systems automatically. A and G visa holders and visa waiver visitors are excepted. A change filed with the Postal Service does not reach USCIS and USCIS mail is not forwarded. The quiet cost is procedural: a request for evidence, a notice of intent to deny or a biometrics or interview notice goes to the address on file, and under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(13) a missed response or a missed appointment is denied as abandoned, with a change of address received by the appointment time one of the few things that can excuse a failure to appear. 8 U.S.C. 1306(b) makes the failure itself a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to 200 dollars or thirty days or both, and makes the person removable unless the failure was reasonably excusable or not wilful.

Governed by INA 265(a), 8 U.S.C. 1305(a) for the ten day duty; 8 U.S.C. 1306(b) for the misdemeanor, the fine and the removal consequence; 8 CFR 103.2(b)(13) for denial as abandoned and for the change of address that can excuse a failure to appear. USCIS, How to Change Your Address, last reviewed 4 August 2026, and the Form AR-11 page, last reviewed 3 June 2026, for the online and paper routes, the Postal Service warning and the A and G and visa waiver exceptions, which appear nowhere in 8 U.S.C. 1305 itself. The statute carries the duty but not the exceptions or the filing routes; the USCIS pages carry those but not the penalty.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into change of address rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Request for EvidenceA Request for Evidence, or RFE, is a written USCIS notice that the record as filed does not establish eligibility and that named further evidence must reach USCIS by a stated deadline, which can never exceed twelve weeks and cannot be extended. It is a stage in the adjudication rather than a denial, but USCIS is under no duty to issue one before denying.
Adjustment of statusAdjustment of status is the process under 8 U.S.C. 1255 by which someone already in the United States becomes a permanent resident without leaving, on Form I-485, instead of collecting an immigrant visa at a consulate abroad. An EB-5 investor who adjusts is granted conditional permanent residence for two years, the same status a consular applicant receives on admission.
Form I-797Form I-797 is not a form anyone completes but the family of notices USCIS sends about a case, a plain I-797 plus suffixes A to F, each carrying a different message, from a receipt to a request for evidence.
Lawful permanent residentA lawful permanent resident is a person lawfully accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the United States as an immigrant under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20), and it is the status an EB-5 case delivers: conditional for the first two years, then unconditional once Form I-829 is approved.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary