If you plan to apply for a green card and you receive, or are thinking of applying for, some public benefit in the United States, 18 September 2026 changes your calculation. Until the 17th, only four benefits can be used against you. From the 18th, almost anything that depends on your income to be granted starts to count.
The change comes from a Department of Homeland Security rule published on 20 July 2026, under number 91 FR 45324, and spelled out by USCIS in Policy Alert PA-2026-09 of 18 August. This text explains what applies today, what changes, which date catches your case, and what you can do before then.
What public charge means
Since 1882, U.S. law has allowed the refusal of entry to anyone likely to become a public charge. The rule now sits in section 212(a)(4) of the immigration statute and reaches those applying for a visa, those arriving at the border, and those applying for a green card from within the United States.
It is not a judgment about your past but a bet on your future: the officer assesses whether you are likely, at some point, to depend on the government to live. The law requires looking at five things, always together: age, health, family situation, assets and income, and education and skills. None of them decides on its own, with one exception: the absence of the sponsor's support commitment, Form I-864, where it is required.
What applies today, until 17 September
Anyone who files by 17 September is judged under the 2022 rule, which is far narrower than most people imagine. Under it, only the likelihood of becoming primarily dependent on the government counts against you, and that is shown in two ways: receiving cash from the government to support yourself, or being institutionalized for a long period at public expense. Nothing beyond that counts.
The list of what is excluded today is long, and worth knowing, because many people give up benefits they are entitled to out of unfounded fear: food assistance (SNAP), housing, the program for pregnant women and children (WIC), school meals, energy assistance, early childhood education, public scholarships, Marketplace health insurance, tax credits and the children's health program (CHIP). Within Medicaid, only long-term institutionalization counts; home and community care never does.
What changes on 18 September
The biggest change is the universe of benefits that enter the calculation. The Government revoked the entire 2022 regulation and put nothing in its place, which also removes the requirement that the dependence be the primary one. Instead of a closed list, a formula now applies: any benefit whose grant depends on your income or assets being below a certain threshold counts, whether in cash or in services, federal or local.
| Until 17 September | From 18 September | |
|---|---|---|
| Count | SSI; TANF; state, tribal, territorial or local cash for support; long-term institutionalization at public expense | Any benefit that depends on your income or assets, including Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, WIC, subsidized housing and public financial aid for college |
| Do not count | Everything else, including SNAP, housing, WIC, CHIP and Marketplace | Benefits that do not look at your income: Title II Social Security, Medicare, public pensions, unemployment insurance and veterans' benefits |
A protection that helps many people today also disappears. Under the 2022 rule, applying for a benefit was not the same as receiving it, and being approved to receive it in the future did not count either. That is over. From 18 September, USCIS considers all three: that you applied, that you were approved, and that you received. Someone who signed up and never drew anything is now within the examination.
Which of the two rules catches your case
For those arriving from abroad, the new rule applies to entry requests made on or after 18 September. And there is good news about the past: benefits you received before 18 September continue to be assessed under the old, narrower criterion, even if you file your application after that date.
Who remains protected
Receiving a benefit is never on its own a sufficient reason to deny the application, and the Government stated that it will not deny solely because of a disability. Benefits received by your child or your spouse are not attributed to you, except in two situations: when that benefit is what supports you, or when the family member only became eligible because your income was below the threshold, in which case what weighs is your financial situation, not their benefit.
In addition, entire categories are exempt from the public charge test by statute, not by regulation, which means the 18 September change does not reach them.
- Refugees and asylees.
- Trafficking victims with a T visa and crime victims with a U visa.
- Those who self-petition under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
- TPS holders and special immigrant juveniles.
- Beneficiaries of the Cuban Adjustment Act and of the 1998 statute on Haitian refugees.
On the domestic violence exemption, a precision that avoids disappointment: it depends on the category under which you apply, not on what you went through. It protects those who self-petition under VAWA. It does not protect someone who suffered violence but applies for the green card through another route.
What to do before 18 September
There is one step with a deadline, and it cuts against the usual advice to leave everything alone. A benefit approved for a period that runs past 18 September will be counted, unless you withdraw the application or tell the agency you no longer wish to receive it. Here, doing nothing has a cost.
That does not mean giving it up is always the right call. Some benefits carry their own consequences when lost, health above all, and the calculation is individual. It means only that there is an act with legal effect and a deadline, and that the decision must be made before it, with professional guidance.
- If you are already able to file, consider mailing it by 17 September: the calendar has become a strategic element.
- List every benefit you and your family receive today, including those merely approved and not yet used.
- For each one, check whether the grant depended on your income. If it did, it starts to count from the 18th.
- If any of them will run past that date, decide with professional guidance between keeping it and notifying the agency, and decide before the 18th.
- Keep proof of what you received and when, because anything before 18 September continues to be judged under the old criterion.
Care yes, panic no
It is worth calibrating the worry with numbers. Public charge denials have historically run at about 65 a year, which is 0.0087% of those applying for a green card inside the country. And the overwhelming majority of them had nothing to do with benefits received: they had to do with the sponsor's support commitment being missing or insufficient.
Even under the 2019 rule, the harshest ever issued, out of 47,555 applications reviewed only three denials and two notices of intent to deny rested on the assessment of the circumstances as a whole, and all of them were later reopened or vacated and ultimately granted.
The real risk lies in misinformation, and it shows up at both extremes: using benefits without thinking and compromising a future application, or giving up a right out of a fear that does not materialize. Between the self-sufficiency the law requires and the alarm the new rule provokes, the person who comes through the transition most safely is the one who is well informed.
If your application is at the consulate
There is a new route for those whose immigrant visa is refused at the consulate on public charge grounds. On a page updated on 5 August 2026, the State Department began a pilot in which the officer may refer the person to apply to USCIS for a kind of surety, using Form I-945; once the surety is approved, the visa previously refused may be issued.
Two points matter. You cannot put yourself forward: it is the consular officer who chooses. And amounts and the countries where the pilot begins circulated in the press but are not in the official source, so we do not repeat them here.
We tell that story in full, with the four rulings and what each does, in the analysis The rule blocking green cards from 75 countries has been struck down. So why might your case still be frozen?
Sources
- DHS, Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility, Final Rule, 91 FR 45324, 20 July 2026, from 45324 to 45477 in the GPO edition, including preamble, responses to comments and regulatory text.
- USCIS, Policy Alert PA-2026-09, Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility, 18 August 2026.
- USCIS Policy Manual, volume 8, part G, chapters 1, 3, 4 and 7 with their footnotes.
- The 2019 rule was removed from the Code of Federal Regulations by publication 86 FR 14221 of 15 March 2021.
- State Department, Public Charge Bonds for Immigrant Visa Applicants, page updated 5 August 2026.
- Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio (S.D.N.Y., 21 August 2026), read at source.
Updated 29 August 2026. The rule takes effect on 18 September 2026 and may be changed or suspended by a court. Confirm the situation before making any decision about benefits.