What happened
A visa and permission to stay are two different documents from two different agencies, and the dates on them do not have to match. The State Department’s own manual for consular officers, 9 FAM 403.9-4(A), opens with this: “A visa is not the same as immigration status. Many travelers confuse the two. A visa does not entitle the bearer to enter or remain in the United States.” It then defines what the visa’s dates are for: “The validity of a visa refers to the time in which an applicant may make application to an immigration officer at POE for admittance into the United States. It has no bearing on the length of time for which the individual may be admitted.” The manual gives both directions of the example. A traveler “whose B-1 visa may expire a month after entry into the United States, could be admitted by a DHS officer at POE for a stay of up to one year.” And “a traveler whose B-1 visa has a validity of one year may be granted a stay of only one month, as may be determined by a DHS official at POE.” The visa, in other words, is the document for the door; the stay is decided at the door.
The record of that decision is the Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, kept by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP’s I-94 page, last modified July 22, 2026, says the paper form is no longer handed out and that CBP “now gathers travelers’ arrival/departure information automatically from their electronic travel records.” Anyone who needs to prove their status “to employers, schools/universities or government agencies” can get their record from the I-94 website, i94.cbp.dhs.gov, or the CBP Link mobile app, using “Get Most Recent I-94.” The page refers to the date on that record as the “Admit Until Date,” and to “the expiration date stamped in your passport.” CBP’s I-94 fact sheet, linked from the same page, puts the rule in one sentence: “The traveler must exit the U.S. on or before the departure date on their I-94.” It also says CBP may stamp a passport with “the date of admission, class of admission, and admit-until date.”
USCIS is the agency that describes what happens when someone stays past that date. Its page on unlawful presence, last updated August 14, 2026, defines the term as “any period of time when you are present in the United States without being admitted or paroled, or when you are present in the United States after your ‘period of stay authorized by the Secretary’ expires.” It ties that period to the I-94, not the visa: “In general, if you were admitted or paroled into the United States, you were issued or received a Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, which shows your authorized period of stay. Typically, you start accruing unlawful presence if you stay in the United States after the date noted on your Form I-94.” The page then lays out the consequences written into the Immigration and Nationality Act, at INA 212(a)(9)(B)(i): a person who accrues “more than 180 days but less than 1 year of unlawful presence during a single stay,” leaves before removal proceedings begin, and seeks admission again within 3 years is inadmissible, unless an exception applies; a person who accrues “1 year or more” during a single stay, leaves or is removed, and seeks admission within 10 years is inadmissible. USCIS’s separate Extend Your Stay page says the same thing in plainer words: “If you remain in the United States longer than authorized, you may be barred from returning and/or you may be removed (deported) from the United States,” and tells readers to “check the date in the lower right-hand corner of your Form I-94, Arrival-Departure Record, to determine the date your authorized stay expires.”
Who this is about
These pages are about nonimmigrants: people admitted at a port of entry on a temporary visa, whose I-94 carries a date. The State Department text speaks of the visa holder applying for admission; the CBP page speaks of “foreign visitors”; the USCIS unlawful presence page speaks of anyone “admitted or paroled” whose I-94 “shows your authorized period of stay.” USCIS also describes a different group: people admitted for “duration of status,” whose I-94 is marked “D/S” rather than a date. For them, USCIS says they “may stay in the United States for the duration of your program, course of study, or temporary work assignment,” plus any grace period, and they “generally begin accruing unlawful presence the day after their status ends.” And USCIS lists people the statute says do not accrue unlawful presence at all, including anyone “under age 18,” people with a “bona fide asylum application” pending, and certain VAWA self-petitioners and trafficking victims.
What the sources do not say matters as much. The State Department manual says the visa’s expiration has “no bearing” on the length of stay, but it says nothing about what happens to a person already inside the country when the visa date passes; it is written for the officer issuing the visa. The CBP page explains how to find and print the I-94 and what the Admit Until Date is; it does not describe the consequences of staying past it. The USCIS page describes unlawful presence and the 3- and 10-year grounds of inadmissibility in general terms, and says plainly that “determining whether you are inadmissible after accruing unlawful presence can be complex.” None of the three pages says anything about any individual person’s case, and none of them says that what an expired visa means “depends on each person’s immigration situation,” as the short puts it; the sources describe the rules, not how they land on one family.
What it does not mean
- It does not mean an expired visa, by itself, ends permission to be in the United States. The State Department’s own example is a visa that “may expire a month after entry” while the person is admitted “for a stay of up to one year.” The stay runs to the I-94 date, not the visa date.
- It does not mean a visa that is still valid lets someone stay past the I-94 date. The same manual’s other example is a visa valid for a year and a stay of “only one month,” and CBP’s fact sheet says the traveler “must exit the U.S. on or before the departure date on their I-94.”
- It does not mean every day past the I-94 date counts the same for everyone. USCIS lists exceptions in the statute, people under 18 among them, says people admitted for “duration of status” are counted differently, and says the question “can be complex.”
- It does not mean the visa can be used again later. The State Department manual defines an “expired NIV” as a visa “no longer valid due to the passage of time or because the maximum number of entries for which the visa is valid has been reached.” Staying inside the country on a valid I-94 is one thing; leaving and coming back on an expired visa is a separate question the sources do not address in these pages.
What to do with this
If you came in on a temporary visa and are not sure which date applies to you, the two documents these agencies point to are the visa in your passport and the I-94 record CBP keeps at i94.cbp.dhs.gov, and the person to ask about what those dates mean for you is a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ-accredited representative. Whether any time past the I-94 date counts as unlawful presence, and what that would mean for a future application, is exactly the kind of question USCIS says is complex and that only a qualified advisor can answer against your own facts. The organizations below are a place to start.
Advocasí is not a law firm. We explain what a policy says and help people prepare their own paperwork once a qualified advisor has told them which path applies.