Create a USCIS online account

USCIS runs a free online account system. It is worth setting up even if you have no case pending: it is where notices appear first, where you respond to requests for evidence, and where a delayed case can be queried without telephoning anyone.

Cost

Free

You need

An email address and a phone for two-factor codes

Time

About 15 minutes

Warning

Only ever use the uscis.gov domain

What the account gives you

• Case status and history for anything filed online, and for paper filings you add with the receipt number
• Electronic notices — often several days before the paper copy arrives, which matters when a deadline runs from the notice date
• Secure messaging with USCIS, and the ability to submit a case enquiry once a case is outside normal processing time
• Online filing for many common forms, with immediate confirmation of receipt instead of a fortnight of uncertainty
• Address changes applied across pending cases at once, which is the reliable way to meet the 10-day reporting duty

Setting it up

1. Go to my.uscis.gov and choose to create an account.
2. Use an email address you will keep for years, not a work address — an account tied to an employer's domain becomes unreachable exactly when a job ends and an immigration question becomes urgent.
3. Set up two-factor authentication. Choose an authenticator app over SMS if you can: SMS codes fail when you change phone number, and new arrivals change numbers often.
4. Save the backup codes offline. Losing access to a USCIS account while a case is pending is a genuine problem to unwind, and the identity checks to recover one are slow.

Enter your name exactly as it appears on your immigration documents, including the order of family and given names. A mismatch between the account and the filing causes avoidable confusion later.

Adding a paper case to your account

If your case was filed on paper, you can still track it online. Add it using the receipt number from your I-797 notice — a three-letter prefix followed by ten digits, for example EAC2190123456.

What the account does not do

It does not replace your lawyer's copy of the file, and it does not show everything: some notices exist only on paper, and status text is deliberately terse. It also does not tell you when something has gone wrong at the postal address on file — for that, see checking your case status.

Keep every receipt number

Your receipt number is how every future enquiry — by you, by a lawyer, by a congressional office — identifies your case. Photograph each I-797 notice as it arrives and keep the numbers in one list alongside your other documents to protect. Reconstructing a lost receipt number without it is possible but slow, and slow is expensive when a deadline is running.