Immigration Law
Short Answer: Yes. For family-preference and derivative beneficiaries, filing Form I-485 under the Dates for Filing chart or beginning National Visa Center processing does not lock a child's CSPA age. Under USCIS policy effective August 15, 2025, and under longstanding Department of State practice, CSPA age is calculated when the priority date becomes current under the Final Action Dates chart (Chart A) or when the petition is approved, whichever is later. A child can begin the green card process and still age out before Chart A becomes current.
This is the most counterintuitive rule in the Child Status Protection Act, and it costs families real cases. USCIS can accept a child's adjustment application. The National Visa Center can accept the fees and open processing. And the child can still age out months later.
The reason is that two different things are being measured. Eligibility to begin the process is one question. Visa availability for calculating CSPA age is another. They run on different charts, and the space between them is where the damage happens.
The Department of State Visa Bulletin has published two charts for each family-sponsored preference category since October 2015.
Each month, USCIS designates one of the two charts that adjustment applicants may use to determine whether they can file Form I-485. That designation appears on the USCIS adjustment of status filing charts page, not in the Visa Bulletin itself. Chart A always governs when a visa is authorized for issuance.
The CSPA question is a separate one: which chart determines when the child's age is calculated?
USCIS calculates CSPA age using the Final Action Dates chart. Under Policy Alert PA-2025-15, effective August 15, 2025, a visa "becomes available" for purposes of the INA §203(h) calculation when the priority date is current under Chart A and the petition has been approved.
Filing eligibility did not change. USCIS still designates Chart B for family-based filings in many months, and applicants may still file Form I-485 on that basis. What changed is that the earlier filing no longer determines the child's age.
That creates a window — sometimes a long one — in which a child has a pending adjustment application and is still accumulating age for CSPA purposes.
Consider a U.S. citizen who files Form I-130 for her brother in the F-4 category for siblings. The brother's daughter is a derivative beneficiary. USCIS takes 11 months to approve the petition.
Years later, the priority date becomes current under Chart B. The daughter is biologically 21 years and 6 months old at that point. Subtracting the 11 months the petition was pending gives a CSPA age of 20 years and 7 months. She is under 21, the family is permitted to file, and adjustment applications go in for everyone.
Chart A does not become current for another nine months. By then she is biologically 22 years and 3 months old. Subtract the same 11 months and her CSPA age is 21 years and 4 months. She has aged out — after the government accepted her application and her fee.
The subtraction never grows. The pending time is fixed at 11 months, so her adjusted age climbs at exactly the same rate as her biological age. Waiting for Chart A does not help her; it only costs her months.
A derivative child who ages out in the F-1, F-3, or F-4 categories generally loses both derivative eligibility and the filing fee already paid. There is no category to convert into, because the child never had a qualifying relationship with the original petitioner. The same exposure exists for immigrant visa applicants who begin National Visa Center processing before Chart A becomes current.
That is the harshest version of this problem, and it is worth knowing before a family spends money on a filing that may not survive.
A child of a lawful permanent resident who ages out of the F-2A category generally converts to F-2B for unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residents, keeping the original priority date. If an F-2A adjustment applicant ages out after filing, USCIS can hold the application and adjudicate it when a visa becomes available in the converted category. The National Visa Center can likewise retain an immigrant visa case while the beneficiary waits for F-2B.
The wait may become much longer. But the child is not left without a category, and the fee is not lost. That is a materially different outcome from an F-1, F-3, or F-4 derivative, and the reason for the difference is explained in my article What Happens When a Derivative Child Ages Out?
Paying a National Visa Center fee does not lock a child's CSPA age. It can be extremely important for a different reason: it may satisfy the separate requirement to seek to acquire permanent residence within one year of visa availability.
Those are two independent requirements. Being under 21 for CSPA purposes is one. Taking timely qualifying action is the other. Paying a fee cannot turn a CSPA age of 21 into a CSPA age of 20. A child who satisfies the one-year rule perfectly and is over 21 when Chart A becomes current has still aged out.
The National Visa Center uses Chart B to decide when to invite applicants to begin immigrant visa processing. That gives families time to pay fees, submit Form DS-260, and upload civil documents before a visa is available for final action, so the case is ready when the priority date arrives.
The invitation is a scheduling decision, not a determination that the child qualifies. This has always been true on the consular side — the Department of State never adopted the Chart B approach that USCIS used between 2023 and 2025. Families who read an NVC fee bill as confirmation that a child is protected are reading it wrong.
The current USCIS interpretation applies to adjustment of status applications and CSPA age calculation requests filed on or after August 15, 2025. Two groups fall outside it.
For any family whose case spans August 15, 2025, the date the I-485 was filed is a controlling fact. Consular processing cases were never affected, because Final Action Dates always governed there.
If a child's adjusted age is comfortably below 21, the gap between the two charts may not change anything. The cases that concern me are the close ones, where a few months of Chart A movement decides whether a child remains part of the family's case or loses the path entirely.
For those families, the useful exercise is projecting the child's CSPA age forward to a realistic Chart A date rather than treating an accepted filing as the finish line. That means knowing the date of birth, the exact petition pending time, the priority date, and how the category has been moving.
If your family has filed under Chart B and a derivative child is approaching 21, contact SG Legal Group and we can calculate the child's projected CSPA age before Chart A becomes current, while there may still be options.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Immigration laws and policies are subject to change, and individual circumstances vary. For advice specific to your situation, please consult with a qualified immigration attorney.
Oleg Gherasimov, Esq.
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