What Is the USCIS API? The Official API vs. Your myUSCIS Data

1. The official USCIS Case Status API (for developers)

USCIS offers APIs through its Torch API program on the USCIS Developer Portal. The Case Status API lets an approved app look up a case by its receipt number and returns:

• the current public status, in English and Spanish;
• the form type, the submitted date and the date the record last changed;
• a history of the public statuses the case has had, with dates.

Access is for software development organizations: you register an app, test in a sandbox with sample receipt numbers, authenticate with OAuth 2.0, and USCIS grants production access after reviewing your app, its accessibility (Section 508) and its privacy policy. It is the right choice if you are building a tool for a law firm or an organization that tracks many cases.

2. The data behind your myUSCIS account (for applicants)

When you sign in at my.uscis.gov, the page loads your case from USCIS's own data services as raw JSON. That is the data people usually mean when they talk about "checking the USCIS API" for their case, and it holds more than the public status page:

• Event history with USCIS codes such as IAF (case received), FTA0 (background checks) or H008, each with a date.
• The office handling your case, including transfers between service centers and field offices.
• Your documents and notices, sometimes visible before the paper copy arrives.
• An "updated" time that can change while the public status stays the same, which is what people call a silent update.

Only someone signed in to your account can load it, and it covers only the cases in that account.

IOE receipts, silent updates and a status that won't change

This data is richest for receipt numbers that start with IOE: cases handled in USCIS's electronic system (ELIS). Paper-era receipts (EAC, WAC, LIN, SRC and others) usually don't show it. See what an IOE receipt number means.

It also explains a common worry: a public status that hasn't changed in months. The public page shows one line, such as "Case Was Received", while your account data can keep recording steps underneath: background checks, a transfer to another office, or a new "updated" time with no new status. Those are the silent updates people look for when their USCIS case status is not updating.

Side by side

Which one do you need?

• You are building software for an organization that manages cases: start at the USCIS Developer Portal.
• You want to understand your own case: use your myUSCIS data. The step-by-step guide shows how to open it, and our USCIS API case status tracker turns it into a plain-English timeline for free.

How CaseStatusAPI reads your data

CaseStatusAPI is independent and not affiliated with USCIS. It never asks for your USCIS password. You bring the data from your own signed-in account in one of three ways, and we explain it: what each event code means, where your case is, whether a silent update happened and what usually comes next.

• Copy and paste from the links we generate for your receipt number (any browser, including phones).
• The free Chrome extension, which fetches your data while you are signed in to myUSCIS.
• The iPhone Shortcut, which does the same from Safari.

How we handle your receipt number and case data is in our privacy policy.

Frequently asked questions