Form I-864P Poverty Guidelines 2026: the income you need to sponsor an immigrant

What the I-864 actually is

Form I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA, is a contract. Not a formality, not a declaration of good intentions — an enforceable contract between the sponsor and the United States government, with the immigrant as a third party who can sue on it. By signing it you promise to maintain the immigrant at 125% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, and you agree that any federal, state or local agency that gives them a means-tested public benefit can come to you to get the money back.

Nearly every family-based immigrant needs one, and so does a small number of employment-based immigrants — specifically where a relative filed the petition or owns 5% or more of the petitioning business. If you are here for the employment green card path, the affidavit is probably not your problem; the employment-based green card guide is the right starting point.

Two things end the obligation, and neither is the one people assume. Divorce does not end it. Being estranged does not end it. It ends when the immigrant becomes a US citizen, is credited with 40 qualifying quarters of work (roughly ten years, and a spouse's quarters during the marriage can count), permanently leaves the United States, or dies. That is the whole list.

I-864 vs I-864EZ vs I-864A vs I-134

Four forms with confusingly similar numbers, and picking the wrong one costs months.

If someone has asked you for an I-134 to support a visitor coming from India, that is a different exercise — the visitor invitation letter guide covers what a B-2 case actually needs.

How the decision actually runs

Household size: the step that fails most affidavits

The income threshold is not a single number, it is a number per household size, and the household is defined more broadly than most people expect. You count yourself, your spouse, your unmarried children under 21, everyone else you claimed as a dependent on your last federal return, everyone you are sponsoring on this affidavit, and everyone still covered by an affidavit you signed in the past.

Two of those catch people out repeatedly. The first is that the intending immigrants count now, before they arrive — a couple sponsoring two parents is a household of four before anyone has boarded a plane. The second is the old affidavit: if you sponsored a sibling six years ago and they are not yet a citizen and have not worked forty qualifying quarters, that person is still in your household size today.

Getting this wrong in the optimistic direction is expensive. You do not find out at filing; you find out months later when the National Visa Center or the consular officer asks for a joint sponsor, and the case stops until you produce one.

Which income counts

The figure the form asks for is your total income from your most recent federal income tax return — the total income line, not adjusted gross income, not taxable income, and not what lands in your bank account. If you are self-employed it is the figure after business deductions, which is why a contractor with a healthy gross can still fail: aggressive deductions lower exactly the number the affidavit is measured on.

You must submit a copy or an IRS transcript of that return with the schedules and the W-2s or 1099s. You may submit the three most recent tax years if it helps — worth doing when last year was an outlier and the two before it were strong. Current income matters too: if you changed jobs and now earn substantially more than the return shows, recent pay stubs and an employment letter are how you show it.

Three ways to fix a shortfall

They are not ranked by preference, they are ranked by how often they actually work.

Household member income — Form I-864A

Someone already inside your household size signs Form I-864A and their income joins yours. An earning spouse is the common case. The useful property here is that adding them does not increase the household size, because they were already counted — so every dollar they bring closes the gap one for one.

Assets, at a multiple of the gap

Assets are allowed, but at a punitive multiple set by 8 CFR 213a.2:

• 3× the shortfall — spouse or child of a us citizen. Where the intending immigrant is the spouse, or a child aged 18 or over, of a US citizen, the net value of the assets only has to be three times the shortfall.
• 1× the shortfall — orphan adopted abroad who acquires citizenship on entry. For an orphan adopted abroad who will acquire US citizenship on entry, the assets only have to equal the shortfall itself.
• 5× the shortfall — every other case. In every other case — a parent, a sibling, an adult married child, or any case where the sponsor is a permanent resident rather than a citizen — the net value of the assets must be five times the shortfall.

It has to be net value — the equity, after any loan against it — and it has to be convertible to cash within about a year without hardship to the owner or their family. A house you live in counts only to the extent of its equity, and the practical problem is that selling it to support the immigrant is the very hardship the rule excludes. Retirement accounts, property in India, and listed shares are all capable of counting, but property abroad needs an appraisal and evidence it can actually be sold and the money moved, which for Indian property is a real question, not a formality.

A joint sponsor

The route that reliably works. A joint sponsor files their own complete I-864 and must meet the requirement for their own household on their own income — the whole requirement, not your gap. They must be a US citizen or permanent resident, at least 18, and domiciled in the US, but they do not have to be related to anyone. There can be at most two joint sponsors on a case, and each must fully qualify for the immigrants they take on.

For Indian families specifically

Sponsoring parents

Only US citizens can petition for parents, and the parents are immediate relatives, so there is no visa queue — the case moves at the speed of the paperwork. That makes the affidavit the binding constraint rather than an afterthought. Two parents immigrating means your household jumps by two at once, and because parents fall outside the spouse-and-child concession, assets have to cover the shortfall five times over. An adult sibling as joint sponsor is the usual answer. The document set on the Indian side — birth certificates, non-availability certificates, police clearances — is a separate battle worth starting early.

If you are living in India right now

Domicile is about intent plus evidence, not about where you slept last night. A US citizen on an assignment in India who kept a US home, files US returns as a resident, holds US accounts and a valid licence, and can show the posting is temporary, generally still has US domicile. Someone who sold the US house, closed the accounts and moved the family permanently does not — and will need to re-establish domicile before the immigrant enters, or bring in a joint sponsor who clearly has it. The consulate looks at the whole picture, so assemble it deliberately rather than asserting it.

Indian income and Indian assets

Foreign income generally counts only if it will continue from the same source once you are in the United States, which a salaried job in India will not. Rental income from Indian property, or dividends that keep arriving, are a better argument — and if you already report them on your US return, they are simply part of the total income figure the form asks for. Indian assets can be used, but expect to prove the valuation, the clear title and the ability to actually repatriate the proceeds. If you are weighing whether to keep that property at all, the NRI investments analysis covers the wider trade-off.

What actually goes in the package

The affidavit is refused far more often for a missing document than for an income figure. Note the who column: a joint sponsor files a complete I-864 of their own with their own supporting documents, not a signature on yours.

Alaska and Hawaii are not a footnote

Form I-864P prints three tables, and almost every summary of it reproduces one. The gap is not small: at a household of four the Alaska requirement is thousands of dollars above the contiguous figure, and a sponsor who reads the wrong column files short and finds out months later.

Mistakes that cost months

• Leaving the immigrants out of the household count. The single most common failure, and it is always discovered downstream.
• Using the wrong I-864P edition. A figure from a January news story is the next table, not the one in force until the March effective date.
• Submitting adjusted gross income. The form asks for total income. They are different lines and the difference can be thousands.
• Assuming a joint sponsor only needs to cover the gap. They must qualify in full, on their own household size.
• Forgetting an old affidavit. A sibling you sponsored years ago may still be in your household size.
• Filing without the tax return or transcript. This produces a request for evidence or an NVC checklist letter, and the clock restarts.
• Not filing Form I-865 after a move. A sponsor must report a change of address within 30 days for as long as the obligation lasts.

Where the affidavit sits in the process

For a consular case, the sequence is: Form I-130 approved → the case moves to the National Visa Center → fees paid → DS-260 filed → civil documents and the I-864 uploaded → documentarily qualified → interview. The affidavit is a gating item at the NVC stage, so an income problem discovered there is a problem that stops the case. The NVC timeline page has the current published timeframes and an estimator for the stages either side of this one.

For an adjustment of status case, the I-864 goes in with the I-485 package instead, and a shortfall surfaces as an RFE rather than an NVC checklist letter. Same fix, different letter.