Fill Out Form I-130 Online

What Form I-130 is

Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, is the USCIS form you file to prove a qualifying family relationship between yourself (the petitioner) and a relative abroad or in the US (the beneficiary) who wants to become a permanent resident. You can file it if you are a US citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or a US national.

The I-130 is the first step, not the green card itself. In USCIS's own words, filing or approving the petition “does not give your relative any immigration status or benefit.” It establishes the relationship. Your relative applies for the green card afterwards — either with Form I-485 inside the US, or through a US embassy or consulate abroad.

AnyPDFfiller helps with the filling and signing step — you still file the finished petition with USCIS yourself.

Who you can petition for

Which relatives you may petition for depends on your own status, and the difference decides how long your relative waits:

• Immediate relatives of a US citizen — spouse, unmarried child under 21, and parent (if you are 21 or older). For this group an immigrant visa is always available, so there is no queue for a visa number.
• Other family members — such as married children, adult children, and siblings of a US citizen, or the spouse and unmarried children of a lawful permanent resident. These fall into capped preference categories, and your relative must wait until an immigrant visa number becomes available before filing Form I-485 or requesting a visa at a consulate.

File a separate Form I-130 for each eligible relative, unless a relative qualifies as a derivative beneficiary — the form instructions explain which ones do.

Petitioning for a spouse? You also need Form I-130A

If you file for your husband or wife, USCIS also requires Form I-130A, Supplemental Information for Spouse Beneficiary, alongside the I-130. It is a separate PDF collecting the spouse's address and employment history. Missing it is one of the simplest ways to slow a spousal petition down — download both from uscis.gov, then upload each one here to fill and sign it.

The Part 4 question that trips people up

USCIS calls this out specifically. In Part 4, Question 61 or 62, you say whether your relative will apply inside the United States (adjustment of status) or abroad at a consulate (consular processing). Select one and only one. Do not answer both, and do not leave the section blank.

If the petition is approved but that section is blank or inconsistent, USCIS decides for you based on the evidence it has — mainly the physical address you listed for your relative. If that address is outside the US, the approved petition generally goes to the Department of State's National Visa Center for consular processing. If it is inside the US and your relative looks eligible to adjust status, USCIS generally keeps the petition instead.

If your relative's plans change while the petition is pending, you can contact the USCIS office on your receipt notice or the USCIS Contact Center, or submit a statement of the change with the updated address through your myUSCIS online account. If the petition is already approved and you want to switch to consular processing, you may need to file Form I-824, Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition — a separate form and a separate wait.

The evidence checklist

USCIS publishes a checklist of required initial evidence. Do not send the checklist itself with your petition, and do not send original documents unless the instructions specifically ask for them. In short, you attach:

1. Proof of your own status

Any one of these works:

• a copy of your US birth certificate from a civil registrar or vital statistics office;
• a copy of your naturalization or citizenship certificate;
• a copy of Form FS-240, Consular Report of Birth Abroad;
• a copy of your unexpired US passport;
• an original statement from a US consular officer confirming you are a citizen with a valid passport; or
• a copy of the front and back of your permanent resident card.

2. Proof of the relationship

• Spouse — your marriage certificate, plus evidence that any earlier marriages of either partner legally ended.
• Child — your child's birth certificate.
• Parent — your own birth certificate.
• Brother or sister — birth certificates for both of you.

3. For a spouse, proof the marriage is real

This is where spousal petitions are won or lost. USCIS looks for evidence that you actually share a life, such as:

• documents showing joint ownership of property;
• a lease showing you both live at the same address;
• documents showing you have combined your finances;
• birth certificates of children you have together;
• sworn affidavits from people with personal knowledge of the marriage — each one must include the full name and address of the person making it.

Anything in another language needs a full English translation, with a certification from the translator confirming the translation is complete and accurate and that they are competent to translate it. This is a common reason paperwork comes back.

What actually gets an I-130 rejected

Rejection is different from denial — a rejected form never gets decided at all, it just comes back to you and you start the clock again. USCIS lists the fields that will cause a rejection if they are missing:

• Part 1 — the relationship.
• Part 2 — your full name, date of birth, mailing address, and marital information.
• Part 4 — the beneficiary's full name, date of birth, physical address, and marital information.
• Your signature. An unsigned form is rejected, every time.

Two more mechanical traps if you print and mail the petition. First, the form edition date — the current I-130 edition is 04/01/24, printed at the bottom of each page. Make sure the edition date and page numbers are visible on every page and that all pages come from the same edition; a form assembled from two different editions can be rejected. Second, do not put anything non-paper in the envelope — no CD-ROMs, DVDs, thumb drives, toys, or anything containing chips or batteries. USCIS will not accept them.

Filling the PDF on screen removes the most avoidable version of this problem: blank required boxes and handwriting that does not fit. You can see every field before you download the finished file.

Fee, processing time, and where to file

There are two ways to file: online through a USCIS account, or by mail on paper. The correct mailing address depends on where you live and on whether the I-130 is being filed at the same time as your relative's Form I-485 — filing them together is called concurrent filing, and it is generally an option only when an immigrant visa is immediately available, which for immediate relatives it always is.

The filing fee is published on the USCIS Fee Schedule page, and USCIS changes it from time to time — check it there before you send anything, because an incorrect fee is another way a petition comes straight back.

Processing time is the question everyone asks, and it has no single answer. USCIS publishes current estimates in its Check Case Processing Times tool, and the number depends on your relative's category and on which office is handling the petition. Two things are worth separating in your head:

• How long USCIS takes to decide the petition — that is the processing-time estimate.
• How long until a visa number is available — that is the Department of State's monthly Visa Bulletin, and it applies to the capped preference categories, not to immediate relatives.

A preference-category relative can have an approved I-130 and still wait years for the second clock. Any specific number of months you read elsewhere is a snapshot that may already be stale — go to the USCIS tool and the current Visa Bulletin for the real figures.

If you file on paper and want confirmation that USCIS received it, attach Form G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance, to the front of your packet and you will get an email or text when it reaches the lockbox.

How to fill the I-130 with AnyPDFfiller

Download the current Form I-130 — and Form I-130A if you are petitioning for a spouse — from the USCIS website, then upload the PDF here. AnyPDFfiller detects the fields, so you can type your details and your relative's, answer Part 4 cleanly, and add your signature. When it is complete, download the finished PDF and file it with USCIS along with your evidence. If you are filing several USCIS forms, reusable fields save re-typing the same names and addresses on each one.

I-130 questions people ask

Other USCIS forms you can fill here

• Form I-765 — application for employment authorization (EAD).
• Form I-131 — travel document, including advance parole.
• Form I-751 — remove the conditions on a marriage-based green card.
• Form I-134 — declaration of financial support.
• Form G-28 — notice of attorney or accredited representative.
• Form N-400 — application for naturalization.