Update (September 18, 2026): The rule took effect today as scheduled. The same day, USCIS formally folded its August 18 adjudication guidance into Volume 8, Part G of the Policy Manual (update log). On September 14, 22 states plus the District of Columbia, and a group of 6 cities and counties led by New York City, filed separate lawsuits in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking to vacate the rule. As of the effective date, no court had issued an injunction in either case, and the rule is being enforced as normal. Details on the litigation are in a new section at the end of this article.
Correction and update (September 25, 2026): The original article said New York City led "7 cities and counties." According to the complaint, the correct number is 6 (New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Seattle and King County). This has been fixed. In addition, a third lawsuit was filed on September 17 (by Make the Road New York and 3 other organizations, 4 in all). All three cases have been assigned to the same judge, with an initial conference set for October 9. No one has asked for an injunction so far. For the latest on the litigation, see our tracking page.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rescinded the 2022 public charge rule, and the new rule took effect on September 18, 2026. On August 18, USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) issued accompanying guidance explaining how officers will make these determinations in practice.
This is a final rule, not a proposed rule, and it took effect on September 18.
Everything below comes from the text of the rule and the USCIS guidance. The rule is RIN 1615-AD06, document number 2026-14539, docket number USCIS-2025-0304. It runs 154 pages and was published in the Federal Register on July 20, 2026.
What changed
Under the 2022 rule, officers could consider only two kinds of benefits: cash assistance for income maintenance and long-term institutionalization at government expense. Receiving food stamps or living in government-subsidized housing didn't count.
The new rule removes that limit. The rule's position is that Congress used the broad term "public benefits" and did not restrict it to cash assistance, so both cash and non-cash means-tested benefits should count.
The USCIS guidance applies this to specific programs. It says officers will consider the five statutory factors and any other relevant factors, including the applicant's receipt of means-tested public benefits, such as cash assistance for income maintenance, housing assistance, food stamps, college financial aid, or any other similar benefit.
"College financial aid" deserves a special mention. If you or your spouse studied in the US and received means-tested financial aid, that record now falls within the scope of review, when it didn't before.
Two date lines, not one
This is the easiest part to get confused about. The rule and the guidance each draw a line, and they draw it differently:
| Based on | What it means | |
|---|---|---|
| Which rule applies | Filing date | Adjustment of status applications postmarked or electronically filed on or after September 18, 2026 are governed by the new rule |
| How benefits are evaluated | Date received | Benefits received before September 18 are still evaluated under the 2022 rule's standard; for benefits received on or after that date, "any benefit counts" |
So keep two things separate: when you file your application determines which rule it's reviewed under, and when you received a benefit determines whether that benefit counts. If you received food stamps before September 18, that record is still treated under the old standard. If your application was mailed or electronically filed before September 18, the whole application is governed by the old rule.
Who is covered and who is exempt
The USCIS guidance gives a complete two-column list. The covered column includes:
- Every family-based preference category: spouses, children, parents and siblings of US citizens; spouses and children of green card holders; and fiancé(e)s (K visas)
- Employment-based first through fifth preferences: first preference (extraordinary ability, multinational executives and so on), second preference (advanced degrees or exceptional ability), third preference (skilled workers, professionals and other workers), investors, and religious workers
- Diversity visa (lottery) immigrants
The exempt column covers humanitarian categories: refugees and asylum applicants, T visas (trafficking victims), U visas (crime victims), Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) self-petitioners, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applicants, Special Immigrant Juveniles, Cuban Adjustment Act applicants and others.
In other words, the vast majority of people filing an I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status) through an employment-based or family-based category are in the covered column. One exception worth noting: VAWA self-petitioners are listed as exempt, even though that path is also based on a family relationship.
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The five statutory factors
The Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't define "public charge." The rule notes that Congress requires officers to consider at least five factors: the applicant's age, health, family status, assets and financial status, and education and skills.
The change is in the words "at least." The 2022 rule limited officers to seven factors (five of them from the statute). The new rule explicitly authorizes officers to consider any other relevant factor or information as part of a totality of the circumstances review.
Bonds are back
If an officer finds that an applicant is inadmissible solely because they are likely to become a public charge, the officer may invite the applicant to post a public charge bond. The amount is based on the officer's estimate of the government benefits the applicant might receive over the next five years. It can be a cash bond or a surety bond from a company certified by the US Treasury, submitted on Form I-945 (Public Charge Bond).
One limit is spelled out firmly: only people who have been invited by USCIS in a Notice of Intent to Deny can submit Form I-945. If you send it without an invitation, USCIS won't accept it.
Background: this is the fourth reversal
It's hard to make sense of this round without knowing what happened in the previous ones.
For a long time, the public charge standard rested on a 1999 interim field guidance. The 2019 rule (84 FR 41292) greatly expanded the scope of review, and the 2022 rule (87 FR 55472) narrowed it back to cash assistance. The current rule rescinds the 2022 rule and opens the scope up again.
One sentence in the USCIS guidance explains where the guidance sits in the overall framework:
"This guidance is controlling and supersedes any related prior guidance, including the 1999 Interim Field Guidance and any related guidance addressing public charge inadmissibility."
The two Federal Register citations above (84 FR 41292 and 87 FR 55472) come from the text of the current rule itself. We searched the official Federal Register lookup service by volume and page number for the publication dates of those two earlier rules and got no results, so we give only the citations here, not the dates.
Same day as the new I-485 edition
The September 18 date is no coincidence. USCIS had already announced a new edition of Form I-485 and said all older editions would be rejected starting September 18. We covered that (see "New I-485 edition: older versions rejected starting September 18, no grace period"). The form change and the public charge rule take effect on the same day, and the new form collects exactly the information the new standard calls for.
What's still unsettled
The rule has been published and the date is fixed, but a few things can't be answered yet:
Where "any benefit counts" draws the line in practice. The guidance gives four examples plus "any other similar benefit," and officers decide case by case what counts as "similar." Boundaries like this usually only become clear once a batch of decisions comes out.
How much weight benefit use carries in the totality review. The guidance repeatedly stresses "case-by-case decisions in the totality of the alien's circumstance". It does not say that receiving a particular benefit means you'll be denied. It is one factor among several. Having received a benefit does not mean you'll be denied, and neither the rule nor the guidance puts a number on how much weight it carries.
We haven't run any estimates on this and won't draw conclusions. This rule affects the adjudication standard, not the visa bulletin, and the visa bulletin history data we have can't tell us anything about it.
Two lawsuits, both in the Southern District of New York
On September 14, four days before the effective date, two groups of plaintiffs separately sued DHS in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York:
- 22 states plus the District of Columbia, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, with Pennsylvania joining through its governor. The complaint is based on the Administrative Procedure Act and argues the rule is arbitrary and capricious, exceeds DHS's statutory authority and departs from Congress's longstanding meaning of "public charge." It asks the court to declare the rule unlawful and vacate it. Source: New York Attorney General's press release.
- 6 cities and counties led by New York City, including Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Seattle and King County. Their position is that the rule is unlawful and seriously harmful, and that it sweeps aside law settled for more than a century. Source: New York City Mayor's Office press release.
Neither press release mentions a request for a temporary injunction. As of the September 18 effective date, no court order was blocking the rule, and USCIS's move that same day to fold the guidance into the Policy Manual signals that enforcement is proceeding as normal.
That's a different path from last time. The 2019 rule was set to take effect on October 15, but several federal courts blocked it days beforehand. Only after the Supreme Court stayed those injunctions in January 2020 was it actually enforced, starting in February. This time the plaintiffs didn't get an injunction before the effective date, so the rule is already in force and the litigation is playing catch-up. We'll follow the cases.
We'll keep following this
The rule is RIN 1615-AD06, document number 2026-14539. We'll update this article when there's a ruling in the Southern District of New York cases or when USCIS makes further substantive changes to the Policy Manual.