The H-1B 60-day grace period: a money plan, week by week.

It is a period of up to 60 consecutive days after H-1B employment ends during which you are not considered out of status simply because the job ended. The rule is in federal regulations at 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2), and it covers H-1B, H-1B1, E-1, E-2, E-3, L-1, O-1 and TN workers.

Before 2017 there was no general grace period at all: a worker whose job ended was technically out of status the next day, and the only safe moves were a new petition filed at once or a flight. The rule that created the 60 days was written to give people a realistic chance to land on their feet, and USCIS describes it on its page of options for workers whose employment has ended, which is listed under sources below.

The grace period is a tolerance, not a status of its own. You remain in H-1B status for the purpose of not being out of status, but you have no employer and no permission to work. What it buys you is time to do one of four things the regulations and USCIS recognise: have a new employer file for you, change to another status, apply for a work permit on compelling circumstances, or leave the United States.

This page summarises the rule so you can plan around it. It is general information, not immigration advice, and the facts of your own case, especially the exact date your employment ended, are worth confirming with an immigration attorney in the first few days.

Generally on the day after your last day of employment, which is not always the day you were told you were laid off. Notice periods, garden leave and the date your employer treats as your end date can all move it. Ask your employer, in writing, for the exact last day of employment on its records.

If your employer withdraws your H-1B petition, that withdrawal is a separate step from ending your employment, usually taken in the weeks after it. How it bears on your own dates is a question for an immigration attorney, and the date is worth knowing in any case, because a new employer's attorney will ask for it.

Many layoffs come with a notice period: you are told today, but stay on the payroll for weeks. If you are still employed and paid during that time, the grace period has not started. If you are told to stop working but kept on payroll, whether that counts as continued employment depends on the facts, and it is exactly the kind of question an attorney should answer for you rather than a blog.

Severance is a separate matter. A lump sum paid after your last day usually does not move your last day of employment, though how a particular severance arrangement is treated depends on its terms. Get the separation letter, read the date on it, and keep a copy with your pay stubs.

Once you know the date, write down day 60 and work backwards from it. Every money step in this plan is timed against that one date.

Your I-94. The grace period lasts up to 60 days or until the end of your authorised stay, whichever comes first. If the I-94 record from your last entry, or your last approved petition, expires 30 days after your job ends, you have 30 days, not 60. Check the date before planning anything else.

The I-94 is the record of your admission, and its end date is what the government treats as your authorised stay. It usually matches the end date of your approved H-1B petition, but not always: a passport that expired sooner, or an entry processed with a shorter date, can leave you with less time than you assumed. You can look up your most recent I-94 on the US Customs and Border Protection website.

The rule also allows the grace period only once per authorised validity period. Someone who used a grace period after an earlier job ended, and is still on the same I-94, may not get a second full 60 days.

Leaving the United States ends it too. A trip to India to look at flats or attend a wedding during the window is a departure, and coming back requires a valid visa and a basis for admission.

USCIS lists four: a new employer files an H-1B petition for you, you apply to change to another status such as H-4, F-1 or B-2, you apply for a work permit based on compelling circumstances if you qualify, or you leave the United States. Each has its own timing and documents, set out on the USCIS page.

A new H-1B petition is the outcome most people want. Under H-1B portability you can generally start working for the new employer once a non-frivolous petition is filed, without waiting for approval, as long as you are still in a period of authorised stay. That is why the job search and the grace period run against the same clock.

A change of status, for example to H-4 as a spouse or to F-1 as a student, has to be filed before the window closes. If a timely, non-frivolous application is filed within the grace period, you can generally remain in the US while it is pending, but you cannot work unless the new status allows it.

Leaving is an option too, and planning for it does not rule out the others. The money steps below are the same whichever way it goes.

No. The grace period keeps you from falling out of status, but it does not authorise any work, paid or unpaid, for any employer, including freelancing, consulting or contract work. Working without authorisation can harm future applications. Income in the window comes from final pay, severance, unused leave and your savings, not from new work.

That shapes the budget. For up to 60 days, money only goes out, apart from what your former employer still owes you. Rent, insurance, car payments and the job search itself all draw on savings, so it is worth working out early how many weeks of costs your US accounts cover, and how much of the rest you might move to India if you leave.

Unemployment insurance is another common question. Eligibility is decided by each state and usually depends on being able and available to work, which a worker without work authorisation may not meet. Ask your state's unemployment office directly rather than assuming either way, and keep a copy of whatever you submit.

Many people ask whether they can keep earning from investments. Interest, dividends and selling shares you already own are not employment. Starting a business or taking a contract is. If you are unsure whether something counts, ask an attorney before you do it.

Do the slow, reversible things. Open and verify a transfer account, add your Social Security number to raise its limit, link the US checking account you will keep, and send a small test to your own account in India. Download your final pay stub and recent statements while your employer portal still works.

None of this commits you to leaving. Verification and a test transfer take days to settle, and doing them in week one means that, if you do go, the large transfers are not waiting on paperwork in week eight. If a new sponsor files for you in week three, you have lost an evening and gained an account you can use to send money home anyway.

Employer systems are the other reason to move fast. Access to payroll, benefits and equity portals is often switched off shortly after your last day. Save the final pay stub, your last W-2, any equity statements and the separation letter somewhere you control.

Our post on what to do with your money after an H-1B layoff walks through the same first week in more detail; this page is about fitting it to the 60 days.

Decide what each US account becomes if you leave. Keep one checking account open. Look at your 401(k), HSA and brokerage accounts, which usually stay where they are. Plan the end of your lease, the car and any loans. Then raise your transfer limit if you expect to move a large sum.

Retirement accounts are rarely something to cash out in a hurry. Withdrawing a 401(k) early can mean income tax plus a penalty, and the account can usually stay in the US after you move. Our post on what happens to your 401(k) when you move to India covers the choices; take tax advice before acting on any of them.

The car and the lease are where time runs out. Selling a car takes a week or two, and breaking a lease can mean a fee or a forfeited deposit. Whatever you sell turns into dollars in your US checking account, which is exactly where a transfer to India is funded from.

If you may move more than your standard limit, ask for an enhanced review in this stretch, while your final pay stub is still recent.

Send the large transfers early in this stretch, not in the final days. Each one takes a few business days from your bank debit to the money arriving in India. Keep enough in the US account for the last bills, the flight and anything still due to come out, then tell your bank you are moving.

Start transfers on a Monday or Tuesday. A US bank debit settles on business days only, so a transfer started late on a Friday waits out the weekend before anything moves, and a public holiday adds a day.

Think about where your money will land as well as when it leaves. If your Indian account is new, check with the bank that incoming foreign transfers are enabled and that the account details you added to the transfer account match its records exactly. A mismatch caught before the large transfer is a five-minute fix; afterwards it is a returned payment.

Leave a buffer in the US account. Final utility bills, a last credit card statement and automatic payments often arrive after you go. An account overdrawn from India is harder to sort out than one left with a few hundred dollars in it.

Change your contact details with every US institution before you leave: your bank, brokerage, 401(k) provider and the IRS will all want an address they can reach.

Plan on a few business days per transfer. Collecting from your US bank account takes one to three business days, and funds are typically delivered in India within 48 hours of that debit clearing. ComplyRemit customers may become eligible for instant transfers, under ten minutes, once they have enough transaction history.

That timeline is why the test transfer belongs in week one. It starts your history, proves your Indian account accepts the credit, and shows you the real timing on your own bank before a large amount depends on it.

Count backwards from day 60 with that in mind. A transfer started with a week to go leaves room for a bank that queries a large debit or a holiday that delays settlement; one started with two days to go does not. If you are flying out, aim to have every large transfer delivered before you board, so you are not checking a transfer from an airport lounge.

You can follow each transfer in the activity screen, and each one is confirmed with a code emailed to you before it goes. If a transfer cannot be completed, the full amount debited from your bank is returned.

As much as your transfer limit allows; neither country caps sending your own money. Your limit is shown under the amount field before you send. Adding your Social Security number raises it in about two minutes, and an enhanced review can raise it further, up to $50,000 per transfer, usually decided within about two business days.

The enhanced review asks for a recent pay stub and a bank statement from the last ten days. Both are easiest to produce right after a layoff, which is another reason not to leave it to the last fortnight. Approval is not guaranteed, larger requests can also ask where your wealth comes from, and if a review is not approved your account keeps working at the limit it already has.

Daily and weekly limits apply as well, and the amount screen shows them before anything is collected. Do not split one amount into many small transfers to get under a limit: providers are required to look for exactly that. Ask for the limit to be raised instead.

If your employer ends your H-1B employment before the end of the approved period, federal regulations require it to offer the reasonable cost of return transportation to your last place of foreign residence. That obligation is in 8 CFR 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(E). Ask for it in writing, even if you hope to stay.

The rule covers the worker's own return transportation; it is not a general relocation package, and it does not cover shipping a household. Some employers offer it in the separation letter, some only when asked. If you find a new sponsor, you will not need it, but asking costs nothing.

Your final paycheck is a separate entitlement. An employer generally has to pay the wages you earned up to your last day, and many states add rules on when that final pay must arrive and whether unused vacation is paid out. If a payment is missing, raise it with the employer's payroll team while you are still in the country.

Keep a record of what was offered and when. It is part of the paper trail that shows your employment ended properly, and it is one less cost to fund from savings in a window with no income.

Not if you send at the mid-market rate. ComplyRemit converts at the mid-market exchange rate, the one Google shows, with any fee shown on the review screen before you confirm. The rupee amount on that screen is what arrives, so a transfer made in week seven costs the same as one planned for months.

Hurry costs money when there is no time to compare. With a hypothetical provider quoting one rupee per dollar below the mid-market rate, $30,000 arrives 30,000 rupees short, and no fee line on the receipt shows it.

Waiting for a better rate is a gamble with a deadline attached. Nobody knows where USD to INR will be in three weeks, and the grace period does not stretch to wait for it. Spreading large transfers across the window averages out the rate without betting on any one day.

While you are still a non-resident, an NRE account in your own name is the usual choice for savings you earned abroad, because its balance and interest are freely repatriable. Once you return to live in India, Reserve Bank rules require your NRE and NRO accounts to be redesignated as resident accounts.

Opening an NRE account takes time, so if you do not already have one, start the bank's process in week one alongside the transfer account. Some banks let you open one online from the US with video verification.

An existing FCNR deposit can generally run to maturity after you return, and returning residents can also hold foreign currency in a Resident Foreign Currency account. Our NRE vs NRO guide explains the two everyday accounts; ask your bank which applies to you before you land.

No. Keep at least one US checking account open after you leave. Final pay, severance, tax refunds and security deposits often arrive after your last day, and every ComplyRemit transfer is funded from a US checking account in your own name. Closing it strands money that is still on its way to you.

Tell the bank you are moving abroad and ask what it needs to keep the account open with a foreign address. Some banks restrict accounts held by non-residents, so it is better to find out while you are still in the country and can visit a branch.

Foreign accounts also bring a filing: if your accounts outside the US total more than $10,000 at any point in a year, an FBAR is due for as long as you are a US filer. This is general information, not tax advice.

Then nothing you did is wasted. A verified transfer account with a raised limit is the same account you would use to support your parents, pay a bill in India or invest there. The money you did not move is still in your US bank, and the test transfer is sitting in your Indian account.

The plan in this post is built to be reversible until the last fortnight. Verifying an account, raising a limit and sending a test are things you would want done anyway; the large transfers come only once leaving is the decision.

It is also worth keeping the habit you built. Sending a small amount to India every so often keeps your transfer history current, which is what instant eligibility is based on, and keeps the account ready if you ever face the same 60 days again.

If you do stay, note the date your grace period started and the date the new petition was filed. If your status is ever questioned, those two dates are what an attorney will ask for first.