Check your immigration case status

USCIS publishes case status online for anyone with a receipt number. The tool is free and needs no account, though an account gives you more detail and lets you act on what you find.

Cost

Free — no account needed to look

You need

The receipt number from your I-797 notice

Enquiries

Only once outside published processing time

RFE deadline

Usually 30–90 days, and rarely extended

Reading the status

The status text is terse and easy to misread. The ones that matter most:

Status	What it means
Case Was Received	Filed and accepted. Nothing more to do yet.
Case Was Updated To Show Fingerprints Were Taken	Biometrics done.
Request for Additional Evidence Was Sent	Act now. The notice has a deadline, usually 30–90 days.
Case Was Approved	Approved. Watch for the physical document.
Notice Explaining USCIS Actions Was Mailed	Could be anything. Read the notice itself.
Case Was Denied	Read the denial for appeal or motion deadlines, which are short.

Two habits are worth forming. Check weekly rather than daily — the status updates in batches and daily checking produces anxiety rather than information. And treat any change to "was mailed" as urgent: the clock on whatever arrived started on the date printed on the notice, not the date it reached you.

Processing times

USCIS publishes a processing time for each form at each office. The published figure is the time within which 80% of cases were completed — it is a rough guide, not a promise, and it moves in both directions.

Check the time for your form at your office. The same form at a different service centre can differ by many months, and comparing your wait against a friend's rarely tells you anything.

You can only submit a formal enquiry about a delayed case once it is outside the published normal processing time. Before that point, USCIS will simply reply that the case is pending.

When a case is genuinely stuck

In order, the options are:

1. Submit a case enquiry through your online account, once outside normal processing time.
2. Ask for help from your congressional representative. Every member of Congress has caseworkers who handle federal agency enquiries for constituents; the service is free, works regardless of whether you can vote, and is used far less than it should be. You will be asked to sign a privacy release.
3. Contact the USCIS Ombudsman, which handles cases where normal channels have failed.
4. Consult an immigration lawyer about a mandamus action, which asks a federal court to compel a decision. This is a real remedy but a serious step, and it compels a decision rather than a favourable one.

Work through them in order. Skipping to step four is expensive, and the earlier steps resolve most delays.

Before assuming it is stuck, check two things

Your address. A surprising share of "stuck" cases are cases where a notice was posted to an old address and returned. USCIS requires you to report a move within 10 days, separately from any postal forwarding order — see reporting a change of address.

Whether something has already expired. If the delay has outlasted a work permit or a travel document, the renewal is its own filing with its own timing, and it does not wait for the case underneath it. Tracking your document expiry dates covers how the pieces interact.