Family-Based Immigration
Adjustment of Status Through Marriage: The Stages, in Order
People searching for a timeline usually want a number. We will not print one, and the reason is worth a sentence: USCIS processing times differ by office and by form, they change every month, and a figure written on a page today will be quietly wrong for years. The USCIS processing times tool gives your own office's current answer.
What a page can usefully give you is the sequence — what happens, in what order, and what makes each stage move faster or slower.
Stage 1 — Filing
Two applications usually go in together: your spouse's Form I-130 establishing the marriage, and your Form I-485 asking to become a permanent resident. Most couples file employment authorization and travel permission at the same time.
What drives the timing here is you. Gathering evidence of a genuine marriage — joint finances, a shared home, photographs across time, correspondence — is the part applicants control, and it is where preparation pays off later.
Stage 2 — Receipt and biometrics
USCIS issues receipt notices, then schedules biometrics: fingerprints and a photograph at an Application Support Center. This stage is administrative and short.
Stage 3 — Work and travel permission
If you applied for them, employment authorization and advance parole are typically decided before the main application. This is the stage most couples feel most, because it is when normal life becomes possible again.
Do not leave the United States before advance parole is approved. Departing with a pending adjustment application can abandon it.
Stage 4 — The interview
Most marriage-based cases are interviewed. Both spouses usually attend. The officer is assessing whether the marriage is genuine, and the questions follow from the evidence you filed.
Stage 5 — The decision
Approval, a request for more evidence, or a denial. A request for evidence is common and is not a rejection — it is a specific gap the officer wants filled, with a deadline printed on the notice that should be treated as fixed.
What actually makes cases slow
In rough order of how often we see it:
- Thin evidence of the relationship, which produces a request for evidence and adds a full cycle.
- The field office you fall under. Some are simply busier, and it is assigned by ZIP code, not chosen.
- Anything unusual in the immigration history — a prior overstay, a prior denial, an entry without inspection.
- Errors and omissions on the forms, which are the most avoidable cause of delay of all.
Government filing fees change, so this page does not print them — confirm current amounts on the USCIS Fee Schedule (Form G-1055) or the USCIS Fee Calculator. These are government filing fees only. They are not Altius Law's attorney fees.