The site's family petitions explainer covers who may petition for whom, the fee table and the August 2025 guidance. This piece takes one relationship, marriage, from the filing to the removal of conditions, with the rules as they stand in September 2026.
Two spouses, two timetables
A spouse of a United States citizen is an immediate relative. No visa number is needed, and the I-130 petition and the I-485 adjustment application may always be filed together. The applicant must be inside the country after a lawful admission or parole; a spouse abroad goes through the consulate instead.
A spouse of a lawful permanent resident is in the F2A preference category and waits for the Visa Bulletin. Concurrent filing is allowed only when the priority date clears the chart USCIS is honoring that month. For September 2026 USCIS is honoring the Dates for Filing chart for family cases, and the September bulletin shows F2A as current for filing in every country. A resident's spouse with an I-130 on file, or filing one now, may file the I-485 with it. Approval waits for the Final Action Date, August 22, 2026 for most countries and August 22, 2025 for Mexico, a date that advanced a full month between the August and September bulletins. The mechanics of the two charts are in the Visa Bulletin explainer.
What it costs
Under the fee rule in force since April 1, 2024, the I-130 costs $675 on paper or $625 online, and the I-485 $1,440, with biometrics included. The work permit and the travel document are no longer free with the adjustment application. The USCIS I-485 page states the rule by date: an I-485 filed between July 30, 2007 and April 1, 2024 carried the I-765 and I-131 at no extra charge; one filed since does not. The I-765 is $520 on paper or $470 online, the I-131 $630. A couple filing everything on paper pays $3,265; a couple that skips the travel document pays $2,635. Two years later the I-751 costs $750.
One deadline sits inside the fee question. On September 18, 2026 USCIS publishes a new I-485 edition tied to the public charge rule, with no grace period: the 01/20/25 and 09/04/26 editions will be rejected if postmarked on or after that date, and only the 09/18/26 edition will be accepted. Anyone assembling a package in September should check the edition before sealing the envelope.
Proving the marriage
Since October 17, 2025 the Policy Manual's spousal chapter has required the petitioner to show that the marriage "was bona fide at the beginning of the marriage," meaning entered in good faith with the intent to build a life together and not to evade immigration law, and to show it before the petition is approved rather than at the interview. The burden is the petitioner's. USCIS says it reviews the bona fides twice, once on the I-130 and again on the I-485.
The evidence USCIS names is the same list that appears in the I-130 instructions and in 8 CFR 204.2: documents showing joint ownership of property; a lease showing joint tenancy of a common residence; documents showing commingling of finances; birth certificates of children; and affidavits from third parties with personal knowledge, each giving the affiant's full name, address, date and place of birth, and how the knowledge was acquired.
A marriage entered while the foreign spouse is in removal proceedings is a special case. The regulation directs denial of the petition unless the couple proves the marriage bona fide under the exemption in INA 245(e)(3); the denial is without prejudice to a new petition after the beneficiary has lived outside the United States for two years following the marriage.
The interview
The Policy Manual's rule for adjustment has not changed: all applicants are interviewed unless USCIS waives it, and for a family case the petitioning spouse is generally required to attend. The categories in which an officer may waive the interview are parents and unmarried children under 21 of citizens, young children of residents, and applicants who are clearly ineligible. Spouses have never been on that list. A military or incarcerated petitioner's attendance may be excused; the applicant's may not.
What changed in practice is the waiver. Practitioners report that field offices in 2026 are scheduling in-person interviews for nearly every I-485, that the waivers of earlier years are gone, and that notices at high-volume offices such as New York arrive 12 to 18 months after filing. No USCIS memo announcing a universal interview requirement could be located, and none would be needed: the manual always reserved the discretion, and the reports describe the agency ceasing to exercise it.
The I-130 chapter adds a list of cases in which an interview on the petition itself is mandatory: insufficient evidence of bona fides, a record suggesting the marriage is not genuine, reliable evidence still missing after a request for evidence, and any spousal case where a first interview leaves the question open. The spousal chapter adds more: a spouse under 15 at the marriage, or 16 or 17 with a partner ten years older; a resident petitioner who obtained residence through a prior marriage within the last five years, who must prove the new marriage by clear and convincing evidence; a petitioner who previously filed for a different spouse; and any prior spousal petition that was denied or withdrawn.
The separate interview
USCIS may interview the spouses "together or separately at any stage." The separate examination is the Stokes interview, named for Stokes v. INS, a suit brought in the Southern District of New York on behalf of citizen petitioners and their spouses who alleged that the marriage investigations violated due process and the right to counsel. The court denied a preliminary injunction on January 9, 1975, while recognizing that both the citizens and their spouses had "valuable rights at stake"; the case was later settled by a consent decree covering the New York district.
New York practitioners summarize its terms: written notice that a separate examination will be held, a list of documents to bring, the right to counsel, the right to a copy of the record, a bar on sexually intimate questions, a bar on denying the petition solely because a petitioner invoked the Fifth Amendment, and a chance to explain inconsistencies in a joint session before a decision. The examination itself is a comparison exercise. Each spouse is asked the same questions about the household, the morning routine, the last argument, the color of the bathroom tiles, and the answers are laid side by side. A referral to a Stokes interview means the officer already doubts the marriage.
What fraud costs
Two statutes attach to a marriage found to have been entered to evade immigration law. Under INA 204(c), no petition of any kind may ever be approved for a person who previously obtained or sought spousal status through such a marriage, or who "attempted or conspired" to enter one. The bar is permanent and reaches later, genuine marriages and employment petitions alike. Under INA 275(c), knowingly entering a marriage to evade the immigration laws carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, and the citizen spouse is exposed to the same charge.
The August 2025 family guidance adds the modern consequence for the unsuccessful applicant: a petition confers no status, and USCIS may issue a Notice to Appear to a beneficiary who is otherwise removable. And the May 2026 adjustment memo, covered in the site's account of adjustment as discretion, makes an overstay or a status violation an adverse factor to be weighed against the availability of a consulate abroad, which describes the largest group of marriage-based applicants.
The two-year card
A spouse whose marriage is less than two years old on the day residence is granted receives conditional residence and a card that expires in two years. Under 8 CFR 216.4 the couple must file the joint I-751 within the 90 days immediately before the second anniversary. Missing the window terminates residence automatically and starts removal proceedings. A properly filed petition extends the card's validity by 48 months on the strength of the receipt notice, which matters because the FY2026 median for an I-751 is 22.8 months. The service center may waive the interview if satisfied the marriage was genuine; otherwise the case goes to a field office and the couple is interviewed again.
Where the marriage has ended, or the citizen will not sign, 8 CFR 216.5 allows the resident to file alone on one of three waivers: the marriage was entered in good faith and has been terminated other than by the citizen's death; the resident or a child was battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by the citizen spouse, a filing that is fee-exempt; or removal would cause extreme hardship arising since the grant of residence. A waiver may be filed before or after the 90-day window, at any time until a final order of removal. Good faith is judged by the commitment both parties showed to the marriage, which is to say by the same joint leases and accounts that supported the original petition.
What to do
- File the I-130 and I-485 together if the foreign spouse is inside the country after a lawful entry, and check the September 18 edition change before mailing.
- Budget $2,635 at filing, $3,265 with the travel document, and the I-751 fee two years on.
- Build the bona fides file before filing, not before the interview. Joint lease, joint accounts, joint tax return, insurance naming each other, photographs across time, and affidavits in the prescribed form.
- Prepare for a separate interview from the start. Both spouses should be able to describe the same household without rehearsal.
- Calendar the I-751 window on the day the card arrives: the 90 days before its expiry, and not a day later.
- Take advice before filing where the foreign spouse overstayed or worked without authorization. The 2026 adjustment memo treats those facts as reasons to send the case abroad.
A marriage-based case is decided on paper twice and in person at least once. The paper is the part the couple controls.