H-1B Revoked: What Ends, What Survives, What Is Next
People use the word “revoked” for three different things, and the difference decides what you do next. An employer cannot revoke anything. Only USCIS can revoke the approval of an H-1B petition, and only the State Department or a consular officer can revoke the visa stamp in a passport. A job ending is a third thing again. Keep those three separate and most of the confusion in this area goes away.
Start with the petition. There are two kinds of petition revocation, and they work in opposite ways.
Automatic revocation needs no hearing, no warning, and no chance to respond. The approval is revoked immediately and automatically if the employer goes out of business, if the employer files a written withdrawal of the petition, if the Department of Labor revokes the labor certification the petition rests on, or — for H-1B — if the employer notifies USCIS that the worker is no longer employed. That last point is the one that matters in an ordinary layoff or resignation: the employer has a duty to notify USCIS promptly when the employment ends, and that notice itself triggers the automatic revocation. The legal effect is immediate under the regulation, even if the letter, the online case status, and the paperwork take longer to catch up. Do not plan around slow paperwork. An automatic revocation also cannot be appealed.
Revocation on notice is USCIS acting on its own information. USCIS sends the petitioner a Notice of Intent to Revoke — a NOIR — stating the grounds in detail: for example, that the worker is no longer employed in the job described in the petition, that a statement in the petition, the registration, or the labor condition application was not true and correct or misrepresented a material fact, that the petitioner violated the terms of the approval, or that the approval itself involved gross error. The petitioner then has 30 days from receipt of the notice to submit evidence in rebuttal, and USCIS decides on the full record. Two practical points follow. First, the NOIR goes to the petitioner, the employer — not to the worker — so a worker who hears that a NOIR has arrived needs the employer acting, fast. Second, unlike an automatic revocation, a revocation on notice can be appealed. USCIS may also revoke a petition even after it has expired, which is why a fraud-based revocation can reach back into a case everyone thought was closed.
A revoked visa stamp is different from both. A consular officer or the State Department may revoke a visa at any time, in its discretion. If you are inside the United States, that revocation by itself does not cancel your H-1B status and does not revoke your petition — status is what governs your stay here. What it does is kill the stamp as a travel document: after a trip abroad you cannot use it to come back, and you would need a new visa application. Do not confuse the stamp, the petition, and your status. They are three records, held by two agencies, and a problem in one does not automatically mean the same problem in the others.
What actually ends your right to work is the end of the employment the petition was approved for. H-1B status is tied to one employer and one job. When that employment ceases — layoff, termination, or resignation — you may not keep working for that employer, and you may not work for anyone else unless a new authorization covers you. What does not necessarily end on the same day is your ability to remain in the United States while you sort out the next step. That is the grace period.
The regulation gives a worker whose H-1B employment has ceased — and his or her dependents — up to 60 consecutive days, or until the end of the authorized validity period shown on the I-94, whichever is shorter, without being treated as having failed to maintain status solely because the employment ended. Read every qualifier in that sentence, because each one does work. It is up to 60 days, not a guaranteed 60. It is discretionary: DHS may shorten or eliminate it in an individual case, and USCIS decides whether it applies when it adjudicates whatever you file next — so ask for it, in the cover letter of that filing. It is available once during each authorized validity period; a new approved petition with a new validity period can carry a new one. It starts the day after employment ends, which USCIS typically measures by the last day for which a salary or wage is paid. And it is not work authorization: unless you are otherwise authorized, you may not work during it.
Severance pay does not stretch that clock. A severance payment is compensation for the loss of the job, not pay for ongoing employment, so do not count severance checks as extra weeks of status. Get your last day of employment, and your last day of paid salary, confirmed in writing by the employer — that date drives every deadline that follows. There is a separate, shorter cushion of up to 10 days before a validity period begins and after it ends; it is not the same as the 60 days, and it authorizes no work either.
Inside the grace period there are four real moves. The first, and usually the best, is a new employer. If a new employer files a nonfrivolous H-1B petition for you — with a certified labor condition application — before your authorized stay expires, H-1B portability generally lets an eligible worker start the new job when the petition is filed, or on the start date the petition requests, whichever is later, without waiting for approval. Eligible means you were lawfully admitted in, or otherwise given, H-1B status, the new petition is filed in time, and you have not worked without authorization since your last admission. Portability authorization ends when USCIS decides that petition, so a denial ends the right to work on it. One warning: portability belongs to people in H-1B status. If you first change to another status, you generally must then wait for the new H-1B petition to be approved before you start.
The second move is a timely application to change status — for example, to H-4 or L-2 as the spouse of someone who holds that principal status, to F-1 to study, or to B-1 or B-2 while you look for work. Job searching and interviewing are permitted in visitor status; working is not. A timely, nonfrivolous change-of-status filing made before the grace period runs out generally holds your authorized stay while it is pending, provided you do not work without authorization. On work rights in dependent status, be precise: an L-2 spouse is authorized to work incident to status once the change is granted — no separate work permit application is needed — while H-4 status by itself authorizes no work at all. An H-4 spouse may apply for an employment authorization document only if the H-1B spouse has an approved I-140, or an extension of H-1B status beyond the six-year limit based on a long-pending green card case.
The third move, where it fits, is through the green card side: filing for adjustment of status if you are eligible and an immigrant visa is available, or, for a worker with an approved I-140 who cannot yet file for adjustment and who faces compelling circumstances, applying for a temporary employment authorization document on that basis. Note what is not on this list: simply having an employer file an I-140 petition. An I-140 filing by itself gives no status, no right to stay, and no right to work. The fourth move is to leave the United States before the period ends, on your own schedule rather than someone else’s.
A routine revocation does not take your cap number with it. A worker who was already counted against the H-1B cap generally does not have to go through the selection process again when a new employer files — the new petition is filed as not subject to the cap, so long as the worker is not eligible for a fresh six-year period. Two exceptions matter. If the earlier H-1B was for a cap-exempt employer and the worker was never counted, a move to a cap-subject employer is a move into the cap, not around it. And a revocation based on fraud or willful misrepresentation is a different animal entirely: the cap number is taken back, and the consequences run well beyond losing one job.
Two traps deserve a paragraph of their own. The first is staying on the books but going unpaid — “keep me employed, just do not pay me until work picks up.” That is not a loophole. Under the labor condition application rules, an employer must pay the required wage during nonproductive time caused by the employer, such as a lack of work; unpaid benching is a violation that creates back-wage liability for the employer, and a period with no pay creates real problems when the worker later has to show he or she maintained status. Time off at the worker’s own request, for the worker’s own reasons, is a different matter. The second trap is travel. The grace period ends the moment you depart the United States. If your employment ends while you are abroad and the notice period runs out before you return, the grace period may not be available to you at all. Do not take a trip in the middle of this and assume you can resume where you left off — get advice before you go, not after.
For the old employer, ending an H-1B job properly takes more than a last paycheck. The wage obligation on the labor condition application runs until there has been a bona fide termination, which in practice means three things together: the employment relationship is genuinely ended and the worker is told so, USCIS is notified in writing so the petition is cancelled, and, where it is owed, return transportation is offered. On that last point: an employer that dismisses an H-1B worker before the end of the authorized period is liable for the reasonable cost of return transportation to the worker’s last place of foreign residence. That liability does not arise when the worker resigns voluntarily. An employer that skips the notice to USCIS has not finished the job — its wage obligation keeps running, which is the expensive way to learn this rule.
Finally, the rehiring question, because it comes up often. If the same employer wants the worker back and the petition was never withdrawn, resuming the same job may need no new filing; a changed job may need an amended or new petition. But if the employer already notified USCIS of the termination, the approval was automatically revoked, and the employer has to file a new petition. There is no undo button.
The through-line in all of this is timing. The grace period is short, it runs from the end of employment and not from the day you learn the petition was revoked, and the strongest option — a new employer filing under portability — has to be set in motion while time remains. If you are the worker, treat the first week as the working week, not the thinking week. If you are the employer, send the notices, offer what is owed, and close the file properly.
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General information, not legal advice. Requirements and processing change; we confirm current rules for your case.