The Trump administration is scrapping a decades-old policy that allows international students and exchange visitors to remain in the US for as long as their studies last, replacing it with a four-year limit that will require many of them to seek federal permission to stay.
According to the new rule being published Friday, students and scholars coming to the US on F and J visas after the rule takes effect will be required to reapply to stay after that period, regardless of whether they’ve finished their degree, plan to enroll in graduate school or seek work experience related to their studies.
The change could throw the visa approval process into chaos at its busiest time of year, threatening to dampen fall enrollment and discouraging many international students from applying in the future.
Under the rule, students already in the US and holding F or J visas – a population that totaled about 1.5 million in 2025 – will have four years from the effective date of the rule to reapply, regardless of when they arrived or the duration of their program.
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Anyone needing more time – including most doctoral candidates and physicians in lengthy residencies – will have to file a formal extension request with US Citizenship and Immigration Services, provide biometrics and pay a fee, instead of relying on their schools to manage their status.
Visa holders who overstay the four-year restriction could be exposed to three- and 10-year bans on returning to the US.
Students from India, China and South Korea are expected to be hardest hit by the rule change. It comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly targeted international students in its pressure campaign to reshape higher education, seeking to narrow a pipeline that funnels global talent – and billions of dollars in tuition revenue – to US universities.
Currently, student visas, unlike most other nonimmigrant visas, are valid for the entire duration that a student maintains their status by enrolling in a minimum number of course credits and avoiding legal trouble.
The rule change will also limit students’ ability to transfer between institutions and halves the grace period for visa holders to prepare to leave the country. Beyond the impact on students, it limits foreign journalists in the US on I visas to staying for about eight months, unless they receive an extension.
Trump administration officials say a fixed deadline will curb visa fraud and overstays, and eliminate the blurred boundaries between nonimmigrant student visas and legal immigration pathways that they see as a national security risk.
Last fall, the overall number of foreign students in the US sank by 1.4%, driven by a 17% drop in new international students that helped reverse a decade of largely steady growth. A recent survey showed even steeper declines in new foreign enrollment this spring, foreshadowing a potential nosedive in the fall.
The new DHS rule could exacerbate the decline since it comes around the peak period for visa processing, as students prepare to arrive on campuses in the fall. In the early months of the Trump administration, the State Department paused all student visa interviews, creating a hefty backlog that many blame for a 36% drop in student visa issuances last summer.
The new rule also complicates students’ ability to stay and work after graduating on a temporary work authorization like Optional Practical Training, which the Trump administration has sought to curtail or eliminate.- – –
‘Magnet for fraud’
In May, then-acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons announced a broad fraud investigation involving F-1 students employed under the OPT program, which lets foreigners on a student visa work in the US for as long as three years after graduation if they have a degree in an approved science, technology, engineering or mathematics field.
Lyons, who resigned in May, said OPT has “become a magnet for fraud,” adding that authorities have identified 10,000 foreign students employed at businesses suspected for fraud.
Fanta Aw, president of the US international education group NAFSA, called the rule change a “a misguided and unnecessary policy shift that injects uncertainty, bureaucracy, and fear into a system that has long worked effectively.”
“International students and exchange visitors are already the most monitored nonimmigrant populations in the United States,” she wrote in a statement, adding that the group planned to “vigorously explore every available avenue to challenge this harmful and shortsighted rule.”
Selling point
Between the new visa duration limits and threats to OPT, the Trump administration is going after what for many international students is a major selling point of a US degree: a pathway to further research, and the possibility of a job that leads to more permanent residency.
Rajika Bhandari, an international education consultant, said that’s especially true for students from Asia and those in graduate STEM programs.
“They’re not just thinking, can I get a visa to come? It will be more about playing the long game,” she said. “The duration of stay change has probably not fully sunk in yet among the common Indian consumer, because it’s so nuanced. But it will, and it has a profound impact.”