How long does receiving a work permit take from the point when you get your biometrics notice in the United States? This is a question that has to do with people who are applying for adjustment of status. When you get your biometrics notice and give your fingerprints, how much longer after that would you typically get a work permit?

A lot of people are led to believe that you’ll get your work authorization after you submit your biometrics. People think there’s some kind of connection with a time frame. But we actually count from the date that you filed your adjustment of status.

When you’re trying to predict how long is it going to take for you to get your work permit, the best thing to pay attention to is the date your application arrived at the office where you filed it. You file those applications by mail.

You should have hopefully mailed it with tracking and if you’re working with immigration attorneys, it’s been mailed with tracking so we know the exact date it arrived.

Under the law, it says that you’re supposed to get that work authorization in 90 days or under 90 days. Lately, it’s been delayed. There’s a lot going on in immigration so the work permits have been delayed for longer than 90 days. In a lot of cases, we’ve seen people waiting four to six months to get those work permits.

There’s a way to check the current processing time through uscis.gov to see based on the local office what the time frame is.

See: Check Case Processing Times

Once you filed your application and it was at least 90 days ago, as long as they’re not waiting on you to respond to any requests for evidence or anything like that, then that means you’re in that zone where you could expect that card to arrive anytime.

It’s a matter of waiting. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the timing of your fingerprinting. That’s going to vary by office. It does tend to go in that order though. First, you’ll get that notice, and then they’re going to need your biometrics to print your card. But there’s not a time correlation specifically with that step.