The United States has ended the rule that automatically extended work permits by up to 540 days while renewal applications were pending, reversing a cushion that Indian workers and OPT students have relied on since it took effect. The change removes the longest automatic buffer the system has offered, and it arrives without a replacement of equal length in the announcement reviewed by Passport File.

The 540-day figure matters because of what it measured: the extra time a non-citizen could keep working after filing a renewal of an Employment Authorization Document, or EAD, before USCIS adjudicated the case. Congress set the statutory default much lower, and the temporary rule had lifted it to clear a backlog of pending renewal applications.

What does the reversal change?

Until now, an applicant whose EAD was about to expire could file a timely renewal and keep working under the automatic extension. The reversal means that protection no longer applies at the 540-day scale that the temporary rule granted.

Who is affected:

• Indian nationals working in the US on employment-based non-immigrant status who hold EADs tied to pending applications, such as H-4 and L-2 spouses.
• Students on Optional Practical Training, or OPT, who renew or transition their work authorisation.
• Any applicant who planned renewal timing around the assumption that the 540-day buffer would continue.

The announcement does not state, at least in the material reviewed, a new automatic-extension length that replaces the 540-day rule. Applicants should verify the current figure on the official USCIS EAD page before filing anything. That gap is the story's sharpest edge.

What should applicants do now?

File renewals as early as the rules allow. The temporary measure existed because processing times outran the shorter statutory extension window; if processing delays persist, a shorter buffer recreates the very gap-employment the 540-day rule closed.

Check the receipt date. Any automatic extension an applicant already holds depends on when the renewal was filed and which rule governed that filing. The announcement does not specify how pending cases filed under the old rule will be treated; USCIS guidance, not secondary reporting, settles that question.

OPT students should confirm with their designated school official that their employment records reflect the new rules, because gaps in authorisation can end employment lawfully even when a renewal application sits in a queue.

What is not yet said?

The rollback leaves three questions open. First, whether USCIS will publish a shorter automatic-extension figure, such as the statutory baseline of up to 180 days. Second, whether applicants currently inside a 540-day extension keep it for its full run. Third, whether processing times, which the rule was designed to absorb, have improved enough to justify the shorter window. None of the material reviewed answers these questions directly.

Passport File cannot advise on individual cases. Every applicant should read the current USCIS policy on automatic EAD extensions, as published on uscis.gov, and treat secondary summaries, including this one, as a prompt to check the primary source rather than a substitute for it.

The 540-day rule served a backlog. Its removal shifts the risk of slow adjudication back onto the applicant, and that shift lands hardest on those whose employers require uninterrupted work authorisation.