How to replace a lost or stolen green card

USCIS lists exactly two ways permanent residence ends: you complete naturalization, or you lose or abandon the status. Abandonment is about intent and conduct — moving abroad permanently, declaring yourself a nonimmigrant on your tax returns, or staying outside the country for an extended period without a temporary purpose. Mislaying a plastic card is not on the list, and neither is having it stolen. Your right to live and work in the United States is unaffected on the day you notice it is gone.

What is affected is your ability to demonstrate that right, and the law does put a duty on you here. Section 264 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, quoted by USCIS on its own replacement page, requires every registered noncitizen aged eighteen or over to carry their registration document at all times, and says failure to do so is a misdemeanor. USCIS restates the same point on the Form I-90 page: you must have a valid, unexpired green card or equivalent documentation with you, and applying for naturalization does not change that.

The regulation that governs replacement is 8 CFR 264.5. It requires a permanent resident to apply for a replacement card when the previous one has been lost, stolen or destroyed, and separately when it was mutilated, when it will expire within six months, when biographic data has legally changed, when the card was issued but never received, when the holder turns fourteen, and when the card carries incorrect data because of a government error. Replacing a lost card and renewing an expiring one are the same form and the same regulation, but they are not the same situation.

Conditional permanent residents — people whose two-year card came through marriage or through investment — sit slightly differently. Under the same regulation a conditional resident uses Form I-90 to replace a card that was lost, stolen, destroyed, mutilated, never received or wrong, but must not use it to deal with an expiring card. That is Form I-751 or Form I-829, and USCIS puts a specific warning to that effect at the top of the I-90 page. Filing the wrong one wastes a fee that is not refunded.

There is also a provision most people never need but should know exists. Under 8 CFR 264.5(g), someone in deportation, exclusion or removal proceedings remains entitled to evidence of permanent resident status until an order is actually issued, and USCIS will provide a temporary document valid until the proceedings conclude. Separately, subsection (i) lets USCIS waive the photograph, in-person filing and fingerprinting requirements where the applicant is confined by advanced age or physical infirmity.

Treat the whole exercise, then, as document recovery rather than as an immigration case. Nothing about your residence is being reassessed because you lost a card. The one exception worth flagging is that the I-90 page invites you to check your naturalization eligibility before filing — if you are close to qualifying, USCIS is hinting that the money may be better spent on Form N-400, though you would still need interim proof of status either way.

Start by working out whether the card is lost or stolen, because the two lead to different follow-up work even though they lead to the same form. A card that fell out of a bag is a document problem. A card taken in a burglary, a mugging or a stolen wallet is a document problem plus a data problem, because the card carries your name, your photograph, your date of birth and your Alien Registration Number, and those are the raw materials of an identity theft.

If it was stolen, file a police report with the local department. Neither USCIS's replacement page nor 8 CFR 264.5 lists a police report among the supporting documents for Form I-90, so do not delay filing while you wait for one. File it because it timestamps the loss independently, because insurers and employers sometimes ask, and because it is the document you will want if the card is later used by someone else.

Then treat the identity exposure on its own track. The Federal Trade Commission runs IdentityTheft.gov as the federal reporting and recovery service for exactly this, and it produces a personal recovery plan rather than simply taking a complaint. Do that on the day you discover the theft rather than waiting to see whether anything happens, because the plan is built around the documents and numbers that were exposed, and an A-number attached to your name and date of birth is a durable set of details that does not expire the way a card does.

Next, reconstruct what you know about the card. The application will go far more smoothly if you can supply your Alien Registration Number, the date your permanent residence began, and the card number. Look for a photocopy or a phone photograph, an old employer's Form I-9 file, an immigrant visa in your passport, the CBP admission stamp from when you first entered, or approval and receipt notices from your original case. Any of them may carry the A-number.

Update your address with USCIS before anything else is mailed to you. USCIS puts the duty plainly on the Form I-90 page: if you move, you must update your address, either through a USCIS online account or by filing Form AR-11, Alien's Change of Address Card, online or by mail. Secure documents are couriered, notices are posted, and a replacement card sent to an address you left two years ago is the most avoidable failure on this list.

Finally, decide whether you want help, and check anyone who offers it. USCIS says you do not need a representative and may file and represent yourself, and that only a US-licensed attorney, a representative accredited by the Department of Justice and working for a recognized organization, a qualifying foreign attorney, or a supervised law student or graduate may act for you. A genuine representative files Form G-28. The Department of Justice publishes lists of accredited representatives, of attorneys offering immigration services free or cheaply, and of practitioners currently under discipline.

USCIS gives you two filing channels and they are not equivalent. Filing online requires a USCIS online account and lets you pay the fee electronically, track the case, receive notifications and personalized completion estimates, respond to a request for evidence, and update your contact details in one place. Filing on paper means posting the form to a lockbox, waiting for a receipt notice, and dealing with everything by mail unless you later link the case to an account.

The paper addresses are specific to the form. USCIS directs Form I-90 sent by US Postal Service to USCIS, Attn: I-90, P.O. Box 21262, Phoenix, AZ 85036-1262, and packages sent by FedEx, UPS or DHL to USCIS, Attn: I-90 (Box 21262), 2108 E. Elliot Rd., Tempe, AZ 85284-1806. USCIS warns that filings sent anywhere other than the correct location may be delayed, so check the Where to File section on the I-90 page on the day you post rather than relying on an address you were given.

If you file on paper, USCIS now scans the documents into its electronic system anyway, and creates an online account for you if you do not have one. You will receive a USCIS Account Acceptance Notice with instructions and access codes. Your case is processed either way whether or not you ever use that account, and paper filers keep receiving notices by post — but the account is the only route to same-day tracking, so it is worth activating.

Get the form edition right. USCIS publishes an edition date on the form page and at the foot of every page of the PDF, and it may reject a filing where pages come from different editions or where the edition and page numbers are not visible. The edition of Form I-90 listed by USCIS at the time of writing is 01/20/25, and the safest habit is to download the PDF the same week you file rather than reusing one saved months ago.

Three fields are unforgiving. USCIS says it will reject Form I-90 outright if Part 1 is missing your family name, your mailing address or your date of birth, and it will reject any unsigned form. Those are rejections rather than denials, which means the package comes back and you start again — usually weeks later, and usually at the moment you most needed the receipt notice. Check them last, deliberately, before the envelope is sealed.

There are two small options worth taking. Form G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance, clipped to the front of a paper filing, gets you an email or text when the lockbox accepts it, which is much faster than waiting for the posted receipt. And if you ever need to withdraw the application, USCIS requires a written request to the Texas Service Center at 6046 N Belt Line Rd., Suite 114, Irving, TX 75038-0015 — with no refund of the fee.

USCIS does not publish the I-90 fee on the form page any more. It points instead to the Fee Schedule, Form G-1055, which it reissues whenever amounts change and republishes with a new edition date. The rule attached to it is unforgiving: every application must be accompanied by the correct fee, and if the fee is wrong the filing is rejected rather than held while you make up the difference. Check the schedule on the day you file, not the week you started filling in the form.

Form I-90 is one of the forms explicitly eligible for a fee waiver. USCIS lists it first on the Form I-912 eligibility list, and the underlying regulation is 8 CFR 106.3(a). A waiver is granted on demonstrated inability to pay, and the most straightforward evidential route is receipt of a means-tested benefit — by you, your spouse, a parent if you are under twenty-one or disabled, a sibling, or a child living with you. The evidence must name the person, the agency, the benefit type, and show the benefit is currently being received.

The waiver has a hard procedural rule that catches people out. Form I-912 must be submitted together with the application it relates to; USCIS will not accept it after the underlying form has already been received. And you cannot file Form I-90 online if you are requesting a fee waiver — the waiver route is a paper filing, or an upload of the completed I-912 PDF alongside certain eligible forms through an online account. Deciding to request a waiver therefore decides your filing channel too.

How you pay has changed and old habits no longer work. Payment for a mailed filing is electronic by default: a credit, debit or prepaid card authorized on Form G-1450, or a direct debit from a US bank account authorized on Form G-1650. Anyone who qualifies for an exemption from the electronic payment requirement must send a completed and signed Form G-1651 with the package. Filings made online are paid through Pay.gov, and cash is never accepted for a filing or biometrics fee — not even in person at a USCIS office.

Two payment rules are worth reading twice. If you are submitting more than one form, pay each fee separately; USCIS warns that a single combined payment covering several forms can cause the entire package to be rejected. And fees are final. USCIS states that filing fees are non-refundable regardless of the outcome or of a withdrawal, and that a card payment made to it cannot later be disputed with your bank.

After USCIS accepts the filing you get a receipt notice, and in most replacement cases a biometrics appointment follows. The appointment notice is a Form I-797C carrying the date, time and location of an Application Support Center. USCIS is candid about why it matters here: as well as confirming identity and running background checks, the biometrics you give at that appointment are used to produce the replacement card. Skip it and there is nothing to print.

Bring the appointment notice — all of them, if you received more than one — and valid photo identification. USCIS names a green card, a passport or a driver's license as examples, which is a small problem for the reader of this page and a good reason to bring a passport or state ID. Your attorney does not need to attend. Firearms, knives, pepper spray and ammunition are prohibited at any USCIS facility, permit or not.

If the date does not work, reschedule through your USCIS online account before the appointment time and with good cause, and do not mail the request. USCIS warns that failing to follow the rescheduling requirements and then not appearing can lead it to treat the application as abandoned and deny it. An appointment already rescheduled twice, one within twelve hours, or one that has passed cannot be moved online — that is a Contact Center call.

You can check the case online seventy-two hours after filing, and a USCIS online account adds personalized case completion estimates, case notifications and a route to respond to a request for evidence. Do not calibrate your expectations from a friend's experience or a forum post, because the workload behind those estimates shifts. If something goes wrong or a notice never arrives, USCIS directs immigration-related questions to its Contact Center at 800-375-5283, and asks you to have your name, date of birth, receipt number and A-number ready.

If USCIS denies the application it sends a letter explaining why, and there is no appeal — 8 CFR 264.5(f) says so and the USCIS page repeats it. What you can file is a motion to reopen, which must state the new facts and include supporting evidence, or a motion to reconsider, which must show that USCIS applied immigration law or policy incorrectly and that the decision was wrong on the evidence in the file. Both go back to the office that decided the case.

Two practical points about correspondence sit alongside that. USCIS communicates with a representative as well as with you where a Form G-28 is on file, so if you used an attorney the notices may be going to them; and if you filed on paper without an online account, USCIS creates one for you and sends a USCIS Account Acceptance Notice with instructions for reaching it, which is worth acting on rather than filing away. A case that appears silent is often a case whose mail is going somewhere you are not reading.

This is the part that decides whether the wait is tolerable. Under 8 CFR 264.5(h), USCIS may issue temporary evidence of registration and lawful permanent resident status to a permanent or conditional resident who has properly filed a replacement application. The regulation also says you must surrender that temporary evidence when the real card arrives, unless USCIS placed it in your passport. So temporary proof is a right the regulation contemplates, but it is issued on request rather than by default.

The document is the ADIT stamp, also called a temporary I-551 stamp. USCIS explains on the replacement page that if you no longer have your green card and need evidence of status while waiting for the replacement, it may issue an ADIT stamp after you file Form I-90, and that the Contact Center is the route to arranging one. Historically the stamp went into a passport; USCIS also issues it on a Form I-94 with a DHS seal and a printed photograph.

The mechanics, as USCIS described them when it introduced mail delivery of the stamp, are that you call the Contact Center, an immigration services officer verifies your identity, your physical mailing address and whether that address can receive UPS or FedEx express mail, and the officer then either books an in-person field office appointment or asks the field office to produce and mail the stamped Form I-94. That announcement is now in the USCIS archive, so confirm the current mechanics on the call rather than assuming.

Some people still have to attend in person. USCIS named three groups: those with urgent needs, those without a usable photograph already in USCIS systems, and those whose address or identity cannot be confirmed remotely. If you have never had biometrics taken since the card was issued, or you have just moved, assume you are in that group and ask for the appointment early rather than discovering the problem the week you need the stamp.

Validity is discretionary. USCIS said it determines whether to issue an ADIT stamp and sets the validity period according to the individual's situation, not to exceed one year unless regulation or policy says otherwise. Treat the expiry date as a real deadline: if the replacement card has not arrived by then, you need to go back to the Contact Center rather than let the only proof you hold quietly lapse.

One caution about the receipt notice, because it is the most common misunderstanding on this subject. USCIS says a Form I-90 receipt notice can be used as evidence of status together with your expired green card if you are renewing, and quotes the wording that extends the card's validity for thirty-six months beyond the expiration date. That construction needs two documents. If the card is lost, you only have one of them, which is precisely why USCIS points lost-card filers at the ADIT stamp instead.

Most readers are already employed, and the reassuring answer is that a lost card usually changes nothing at work. USCIS's employer handbook says an employer is not required to reverify — and should not reverify — the employment authorization of a lawful permanent resident who presented a green card, or a driver's license and unrestricted Social Security card combination, when they were hired. The Form I-9 was completed years ago and the card going missing does not reopen it.

The problem arises at two moments only: starting a new job, and a reverification that was already due. There, USCIS's rules on acceptable receipts do the work. A document showing an employee applied to replace a lost, stolen or damaged document is an acceptable receipt for Form I-9, valid for ninety days from the date of hire, or ninety days from the date employment authorization expired if the trigger was reverification. At the end of that window the actual replacement document is expected.

Ninety days is short against USCIS processing times, so know the alternatives before you reach the end of it. If the replacement has not arrived, the handbook allows the employee to present a different List A document instead, or one document each from List B and List C — for most permanent residents, a state driver's license paired with an unrestricted Social Security card. The employer records that on a new Form I-9 and notes why something other than the replacement was presented.

The ADIT stamp is a separate and stronger option. USCIS treats the arrival portion of a Form I-94 carrying an unexpired temporary I-551 stamp and a photograph of the employee as a List A receipt, valid until the stamp expires, or one year from the date of admission if the stamp shows no expiry date. A foreign passport bearing a temporary I-551 stamp is a List A document in its own right. Both are subject to later reverification, unlike the green card itself.

Employers get some of this wrong in good faith, and it helps to know where the authority sits. USCIS runs a dedicated line for questions about presenting an I-90 receipt notice with an expired green card for Form I-9 purposes, published on its own replacement page: 888-897-7781, or 877-875-6028 for callers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Sending an employer to that number is more effective than arguing from a printout.

One principle underpins all of it. USCIS's handbook is explicit that the employee chooses which documents to present from the Lists of Acceptable Documents, and that an employee presenting an acceptable List A document should not be asked for anything else. An employer who insists on seeing a green card specifically, when you have offered a valid alternative combination, is not applying the rules USCIS publishes for them.

If the card disappears while you are abroad, Form I-90 is the wrong form. USCIS's guidance on international travel says a permanent resident whose green card or reentry permit is lost, stolen or destroyed while temporarily outside the United States may need to file Form I-131A, Application for Carrier Documentation. The point of it is narrow and practical: it produces a boarding foil that lets an airline or other carrier board you for the United States without being penalized for carrying someone without documents.

The eligibility windows are measured, not approximate. Form I-131A is for a permanent resident returning from temporary travel of less than one year whose card was lost, stolen or destroyed, or returning from travel of less than two years whose reentry permit was lost, stolen or destroyed. USCIS measures the absence from the day you departed the United States to the day you pay the I-131A fee — not to the day you fly home. You must have been a permanent resident when you left and still be one when you return.

The filing is unusual in that it happens in person overseas. You must file Form I-131A with a consular section at a US embassy or consulate, and you must pay the fee first through the USCIS online payment system, then bring evidence of payment such as the confirmation page or the emailed receipt. USCIS asks you to contact the consular section or check its website beforehand to confirm it can process Form I-131A at all, which is not universal.

Take the documents seriously because you will not get a second appointment easily. USCIS's checklist starts with your original passport and a copy of its biographic page, plus evidence that you are a lawful permanent resident. Anything in another language needs a full English translation with a translator's certification of competence and accuracy. Anyone anywhere in the world can pay the fee on your behalf, provided they enter the correct name, date of birth and A-number, because those details print on the boarding foil.

There is no fee waiver for Form I-131A — USCIS says so directly — and the fee is final and non-refundable whatever happens next, with card payments explicitly not disputable. If the payment system throws an error, USCIS's instruction is to take the error message to the consular section rather than to keep retrying.

Two adjacent situations get confused with this one. If you knew in advance you would be outside the United States for more than a year, the document you needed was a reentry permit applied for on Form I-131 before departure. If you have already been outside for more than two years, any reentry permit has expired and USCIS advises considering a returning resident visa, the SB-1, at the nearest embassy or consulate, which requires establishing immigrant visa eligibility and a medical exam. Neither is a substitute for the other, and neither is what a lost card alone calls for.

Underneath all three sits the abandonment question. USCIS is clear that brief travel does not usually affect status, but that an officer may weigh whether you intended to visit abroad only temporarily, whether you kept US family and community ties, employment, a mailing address, bank accounts, a driver's license, property or a business, and whether you filed US income taxes as a resident. Rebuild that evidence file before you travel to the consulate; a missing card plus a long absence attracts questions that a missing card alone does not.