Form I-290B after a denial: motion to reopen, motion to reconsider, or appeal

You have 30 days from the date on your denial notice to respond, or 33 if USCIS mailed it to you. That is the clock, and it starts whether or not you have decided what to do yet. This post covers USCIS decisions, and a USCIS appeal is decided inside the agency rather than by a court. If your case is in immigration court, a different form, office and deadline apply, and none of this covers that.

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The Form I-290B deadline, first

For an appeal, 8 CFR 103.3(a)(2)(i) gives you 30 days after service of the decision. For either motion, 8 CFR 103.5(a)(1)(i) gives the same 30 days. When USCIS mails the decision, 8 CFR 103.8(b) adds three days, and says that "service by mail is complete upon mailing." The form instructions put it plainly: file within 30 calendar days, "or within 33 calendar days if we mailed the decision to you." One case type runs shorter. Where USCIS revokes an immigrant petition it approved, 8 CFR 205.2(d) allows 15 days, or 18 if the notice was mailed. Check which notice you are holding before you count.

Fee and form edition current as of October 2026. Missing the date does not cost the same on each route. A late appeal is rejected, and the regulation gives no discretion to excuse it. The issuing office may choose to treat the late filing as a motion instead. A late request to reopen can be excused "where it is demonstrated that the delay was reasonable and was beyond the control of the applicant or petitioner." A late reconsideration request has no such provision.

What Form I-290B is

Form I-290B is the Notice of Appeal or Motion: one form carrying three different requests, with a box on the first page deciding which one you are making. You may only make one of them per filing. The instructions are explicit: "you may only file one or the other using a single Form I-290B," and selecting both boxes risks dismissal or rejection. The fee is $800 under the current USCIS fee schedule. Several categories pay nothing, including Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions, T and U nonimmigrant filings, and some VAWA and Cuban Adjustment Act filings. A fee waiver on Form I-912 has a condition attached. It reaches this form only where the underlying application was fee exempt, waived, or eligible for a waiver. Form I-290B responds to a decision. An open request for evidence is answered inside the window USCIS gave you, and how long USCIS takes to respond to an RFE covers that timeline.

Motion to reopen vs motion to reconsider vs appeal

The three routes are not ranked: you do not pick the strongest one, you pick the one that matches why the case was refused. Refiling is a fourth option that is not on the form at all, and for some denials it is the one that gets you there soonest.

Read the denial notice for which of those it describes. A notice that lists missing evidence is a different problem from one that reasons its way to a conclusion you think is wrong. The notice usually says which it is doing.

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Motion to reopen: new facts the officer never saw

Under 8 CFR 103.5(a)(2), this motion "must state the new facts to be provided in the reopened proceeding and be supported by affidavits or other documentary evidence." The evidence goes in with the form, because a promise to send it later is not a motion. New facts are facts not previously submitted, and they have to show you were already eligible when you filed. USCIS asks for evidence "demonstrating your eligibility at the time you filed the underlying application or petition." What counts is when the fact existed, not when the document reached you. Two situations fit:

1. Evidence that never reached the officer. A letter filed but never associated with the file. An exhibit missing from a request for evidence response, or from a Notice of Intent to Deny.
2. Proof you obtained after the decision of something already true at filing. A publication record, a contract signed before you filed, a letter that came too late. Two things fall outside. The same evidence argued better is the next route rather than this one. And a change since you filed is new eligibility rather than a new fact. A new role, a new award, a new degree conferral: each one points to a new petition rather than a motion.

Motion to reconsider: an error of law or policy

A motion to reconsider is argued on the record exactly as it stood. What you are alleging is an error of law, or an error of policy, as of the date the decision was made. 8 CFR 103.5(a)(3) requires a showing that the decision was "incorrect based on the evidence of record at the time of the initial decision." That showing has to rest on "any pertinent precedent decisions" establishing an incorrect application of law or policy. So the filing is a legal argument with citations rather than a new exhibit list. Cases where it is the right call:

• A criterion read against the wording of the regulation.
• A standard of proof applied above preponderance of the evidence.
• A Policy Manual provision that governs the question and went unaddressed in the notice. O-1A RFE reasons and the final merits determination show what a misapplied standard looks like.

The AAO appeal

An appeal goes to the Administrative Appeals Office, but it does not go there first. Under 8 CFR 103.3(a)(2), the officer who made the decision reviews it again. Within 45 days of receiving the appeal, that reviewing official may take favorable action and reverse. Without favorable reconsideration, the adjudicating office forwards the case to the AAO. That first step is worth filing for. The instructions note that an appeal arriving with no supporting evidence goes straight to the AAO. Evidence filed with it buys a second look from the office that already knows the file. The brief can follow the form. Item 1.b lets you send it directly to the AAO within 30 calendar days of filing the appeal, with extensions available for good cause. The AAO "strives to complete its appellate review within 180 days from the time it receives a complete case record." In the quarter ending September 2026 it hit that window in 80.6% of its 780 completions. AAO rulings are published, and each one is a non-precedent decision. It binds the parties to that case and, in USCIS's words, "does not create or modify agency guidance or practice." They are still the best read on how officers weigh evidence, which is why we read them in our guide to O-1 profile building red flags.

When refiling is the right call

Refiling is not on Form I-290B. You pay the underlying petition fee again and start a fresh adjudication, with a new officer and no obligation to work around the first notice. It is the right call when the record was genuinely thin and you can build it. Say the denial named four gaps and you can close three. A new filing with a complete record often reaches a decision sooner than a motion plus an appeal. It also fits where the facts have changed enough that the old petition no longer describes what you do. What refiling does not preserve is your original filing date. For a category with a visa queue, that matters, and the priority date is usually the reason to appeal instead. Our Form I-140 guide covers how that date works, and EB-2 NIW denied: next steps works the call through for that category.

What a Form I-290B does not do

Four plain things, because this is where people are caught out. It does not pause the denial. Under 8 CFR 103.5(a)(1)(iv), filing a motion to reopen or reconsider "does not stay the execution of any decision in a case or extend a previously set departure date." It does not restore status. The decision takes effect while the filing sits there, so an authorized stay the denial ended stays gone. See how long you can stay after an I-485 denial. It does not stop the clock on your I-94. Time runs from the date your authorized stay ended, not from the date you filed. It does not give a beneficiary standing to file. The instructions are direct: if you are the beneficiary of a petition or application, you may not file an appeal or motion "unless specifically permitted by law." On most employment petitions the filing party is the employer, and the Form G-28 on file decides who gets notices.

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Which denials have no AAO appeal

Three common ones, so you do not spend your 30 days on the wrong office.

• Form I-130. A denied family petition is appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals on Form EOIR-29, not to the AAO. The widow or widower classification on Form I-360 goes the same way.
• Form I-485.8 CFR 245.2(a)(5)(ii) says "no appeal lies from the denial of an application by the director," though an applicant who is not an arriving alien keeps the right to renew the application in removal proceedings. A motion or a new filing is what is available for most applicants, though the AAO does take I-485 denials in a few categories, T and U nonimmigrants among them. What Form I-485 is covers the application.
• A consular refusal. A visa refused at a United States consulate is not a USCIS decision, so there is no Form I-290B for it. What to do after a visa denial covers that route. For an F-1 student whose work authorization was refused, STEM OPT denied covers the emergency path.

What goes in a Form I-290B filing

1. A copy of the decision notice you are responding to.
2. The box checked for one request only, appeal or motion, never both.
3. A statement of what you are asking for and why, written to the route you picked.
4. The evidence, if it is a reopen request, filed with the form rather than promised.
5. The legal argument with citations, if you are arguing the law or the policy was applied wrong.
6. The brief, if one is coming later, sent to the AAO inside its own window.
7. The $800 fee, or a Form I-912 fee waiver request, or nothing if your category is fee-exempt.
8. The signature of the affected party, which on an employer petition is the employer.

The sequence, and what each leg takes

Count from the date printed on the decision, and treat each leg as its own number rather than adding them into a single promise.

Those 180 days do not start on the day you file. They start when the AAO has the whole record, which is after your filing window and after the issuing office has finished its own look. An AAO appeal has a published goal. A motion stays with the office that made the decision and does not.

How Tukki reads a denial notice

Our attorneys read the decision against the record that was filed, before recommending anything. The notice decides the route because it tells you what the officer did and did not have, which is the only thing separating one option from the next. Price is on the pricing tool, which gives the end figure for your case type rather than a range, and our process sets out what happens after you start. Responding to a request for evidence is part of a Tukki case, covered in our RFE guarantee. If your case was filed elsewhere, start with switching immigration lawyers and whether you need an immigration lawyer, and immigration services cost covers what the market charges. A denial notice tells you more than the result. Read it for which of the four routes it describes, then file that one.

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