WASHINGTON — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will change how weekend and federal-holiday filing deadlines work from October 23, 2026, ending the automatic next-business-day extension for eligibility cutoffs tied to a specific date, including age-based deadlines.

Under Policy Alert PA-2026-15, issued September 23, a person who must file before turning 21 can no longer assume that a 21st birthday falling on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday creates an extra business day to file. The guidance applies to paper-based filings received on or after October 23.

Source: USCIS Policy Alert PA-2026-15 via TR Immigration

What stays the same is the rule for deadlines expressly measured as a number of days. For those paper filings, USCIS still counts calendar days, and if the final day falls on a weekend or holiday when USCIS does not accept paper filings, the deadline generally moves to the end of the next business day.

Immigration lawyers summarised the change the same way: day-count deadlines may still roll forward, but substantive eligibility requirements tied to a birthday or another specific date do not move. The change reverses guidance USCIS adopted in 2023 and restores its earlier approach for age-sensitive cases such as Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions.

Source: Reddy Neumann Brown PC

For Punjabi and other diaspora families in the United States, the practical warning is simple: do not wait until the last weekend. A filing received on the Monday after a Saturday age cutoff may now be treated as late, even if it would have been accepted under the 2023 guidance. This report is information only, not legal advice. Sources: USCIS Policy Alert PA-2026-15 as reported by TR Immigration and VisaVerge; Reddy Neumann Brown PC analysis.