How Long After Marriage Should I Wait to Get a Green Card?

Many engaged or recently married couples wonder how long after marriage they can get a green card in the United States. It’s a great question, and obviously super important to your future plans. Here’s what the law says about how long you need to be married before getting a green card, and how it could impact you.

Green Card Applications Aren’t Automatic

First of all, it’s important to be aware that absolutely nothing in immigration happens automatically after an immigrant marries a U.S. citizen. Sometimes couples believe that they have done all they needed by legally marrying each other, but nope! You have to take the needed steps to also apply for a green card or else nothing will happen. (The process of applying for a green card through marriage can be done several different ways. Check out my other articles and online courses if you want to learn more about that process and how to do it.)

No Legally Mandated Wait Time

The good news is that U.S. immigration laws don’t require couples to wait any specific length of time after marriage to be able to file a marriage-based immigration case! I have had many many clients over the years who even hired me before their wedding to pre-prepare everything so we could file immediately once they got married, sometimes even while they were still on their honeymoon!

Other couples may take the complete opposite approach and wait years or even decades after their marriage before starting a filing. Fortunately, there is no requirement that you file within a certain time frame of the marriage either. 

However, just because you could legally file your I-130 marriage petition at any time doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good idea to do so. Each couple should make an overall immigration strategy that makes sense for them. 

Make Sure You Meet All the Legal Requirements

It may also come as a surprise to you that not every immigrant who is married to a U.S. citizen is actually even able to get a green card. The U.S. immigration laws have a long list of all of the types of issues or problems that an immigrant might have that could legally prevent them from qualifying for a green card. These problems are called “Grounds of Inadmissibility.” The most common grounds of inadmissibility I see immigrants have are:

• Criminal history in the U.S. or a foreign country
• Prior U.S. immigration problems like unlawful entry, overstaying a visa, or deportations
• Having lied to government officials previously or presented false documents
• Not being able to show that someone has promised to be financially responsible for them once they’re in the U.S. 

These are not the only grounds of inadmissibility that exist however; the list is extremely long. Also, just because you are subject to a ground of inadmissibility does NOT mean you can never get a green card. In many cases there may be exceptions that apply to you or ways that we can get waivers or ask for your history to be forgiven. 

If you’d like to get a consultation to make sure you are legally eligible for a green card before you start the process, I’m happy to help. Just click here to schedule a consult by phone, videochat or WhatsApp.

Make Sure You Have All the Documents

Once you know that you legally qualify for a green card through your marriage, great! Then you need to move to the next step and make sure you have or can get all of the needed documents. That means, for example, that you can’t file until you receive your official marriage certificate. You will also need numerous personal documents like long form versions of your birth certificates, unexpired identification documents, and information about your prior residences and employment. 

You will also need lots of evidence to prove that you are living your lives together as a real married couple (and that this is not just a sham marriage to get a green card). Your evidence might include things like proof that you rent or have purchased a home together, pay your bills together, vacation together, and more.

Sometimes Waiting to File is a Good Strategy

Some couples may decide to wait a bit to file their green card case – not because they are legally required to, but because they think they will have a better chance of getting their case approved if they wait longer. Sometimes I recommend this approach to couples who were very recently married and they did not date very long before marrying. This is because a quick courtship, quick marriage, and quick green card application can be a red flag to the U.S. government. They may be suspicious that your wedding was really just a plan to get a green card and not about your love for each other. However, sometimes couples really in love do decide to get married quickly. For these couples, living more time as a married couple can be a good way to show that their marriage is real. 

Other couples may have been married for a while but simply do not have enough good documentation to show that they have a relationship and have been living together. I meet couples who for whatever reason have been living in a house or apartment where both of their names are not on the lease and not on the bills. If they also don’t use social media or have other good proof documenting their lives together, it can sometimes be hard to prove that they really do live together at all as a married couple. We might make a strategy to wait until their living situation improves and is more trackable on paper before starting their green card case.

Sometimes Couples Aren’t Yet Ready to Move to the U.S.

Many couples want the immigrant spouse to get a green card so that the couple can live together in the U.S. as soon as possible. However, there are other couples who are happily living abroad and do not want to relocate to the US until many years in the future. Because green card holders are expected to live inside the US, it is not allowed for someone to get a green card and then live indefinitely in a foreign country. (There is a way to get special permission if you are a green card holder and need to be outside the US for an extended period of time though.) So if you aren’t planning to move the to the US and live here permanently within the next one to two years, it might make more sense to wait until you are in that timeframe before starting your marriage-based immigration case to get a green card.

There is One Possible Advantage to Waiting to File Your Green Card Case

There is one other part of the immigration laws that you should know about, because it can give one small advantage to married couples who wait a little longer to get the green card through a marriage. The law says that any couple who gets a green card before they have been married for at least two years has to go through another add-on step later called “Removal of Conditions” where they have to file another application and submit more evidence that they are continuing to live together as a married couples two years after receiving the green card. Couples who have already been married for at least two years when the green card case is approved do not have to go through this step, so they save some money and hassle by avoiding that second step. 

Is it worth it to you to delay your green card application intentionally just to avoid Removal of Conditions? For most couples, it’s not, because they want to be able to live in the U.S. as soon as possible. Also, usually when the immigrant spouse gets work authorization in the U.S. sooner, they can quickly earn much more money at their job than what they will later have to pay for the Removal of Conditions application. 

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Hopefully this information helps you make the best decision for you and your family about whether it makes sense to file your marriage green card application right away or wait longer. If you need legal advice about your particular situation, click here to schedule a consultation.

Also check out my online course library for detailed, low-cost classes about how to prepare and file your case, along with other topics in U.S. immigration law.