How to Surrender Your Green Card: Steps, Exit Tax, and Re-Entry

To surrender your Green Card, file Form I-407, “Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status,” with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, either by mail to the Missouri lockbox or in person at a U.S. embassy, consulate, or port of entry. There is no filing fee. The paperwork is short; the consequences are not. Once USCIS records the abandonment, your status ends permanently, and depending on how long you held the card and what you own, the IRS may treat the day before you leave as if you sold everything you have.

What to File

Form I-407 is available at uscis.gov/i-407. Type or print in black ink. You’ll need your full name as it appears on your Permanent Resident Card (even if it is misspelled or has since changed), your current legal name, date of birth, Alien Registration Number, and USCIS Online Account Number if you have one. The form also asks why you are abandoning status and the date you last left the United States.¹

Send the signed form together with your physical Green Card (Form I-551) and any other USCIS-issued travel documents you hold, such as a reentry permit or refugee travel document. Do not include non-USCIS documents like your Social Security card or a state ID.¹

Your signature does more than authorize the filing. By signing, you waive your right to a hearing before an immigration judge on whether you abandoned your status.¹ There is no administrative proceeding afterward where the decision can be contested.

Where to Send It

By mail, the current USCIS address is:

USCIS
Attn: I-407
7 Product Way
Lee’s Summit, MO 64002²

Use a trackable service and keep your receipt. USCIS has changed the mailing address more than once in recent years, so confirm it at uscis.gov/i-407 before sending anything.

If you are already outside the country and need immediate proof that you have abandoned your status (for instance, because you are applying for a nonimmigrant visa), a U.S. embassy or consulate may accept Form I-407 during an in-person interview. You can also hand it to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at a port of entry.¹

USCIS sends a confirmation letter once the abandonment is processed. Keep it. You may need it later for visa applications or to resolve tax matters.

Children in Your Custody

This part is easy to miss. If you are a parent surrendering your own Green Card, minor children in your custody generally lose their permanent resident status too, even without a separate filing.¹ If you want your child to keep their card, address the custody and status question before you file.

A separate Form I-407 can also be filed on a child’s behalf by a parent, custodial parent, or legal guardian. For children 14 and younger, the parent or guardian signs and consents. The filing must include evidence of the parental relationship or guardianship, such as a birth certificate, custody agreement, or court-issued letters of guardianship. The same guardian-signature rules apply for incapacitated adults.¹

The Tax Bill You May Not Expect

The IRS side is where most people underestimate what they owe. Three issues matter: the exit tax, Form 8854, and your dual-status return for the year you leave.

The Exit Tax for Long-Term Residents

If you held your Green Card for at least 8 of the last 15 tax years, the IRS treats you as a “long-term resident.”³ Long-term residents who meet any one of three tests become “covered expatriates” and owe a mark-to-market exit tax:

Net worth of $2 million or more on the date you surrender.⁴
Average annual net income tax for the five years before surrender above an inflation-adjusted threshold, which is $206,000 for 2025.⁴
Inability to certify that you have complied with all federal tax obligations for the five preceding years.

If you are a covered expatriate, the IRS treats all your property as if you sold it the day before your expatriation date at fair market value.⁵ You owe tax on the net unrealized gain, with the first $890,000 excluded for 2025.³ Both figures adjust with inflation. Even with the exclusion, appreciated real estate, retirement accounts, or investments can produce a large bill.

Form 8854

Every long-term resident who surrenders must file Form 8854 with the income tax return for the year that includes the expatriation date. Failing to file, filing with missing information, or filing incorrect information triggers a $10,000 penalty per year absent reasonable cause. If you defer tax on certain property or hold interests in deferred compensation or nongrantor trusts, Form 8854 filings can continue in later years.³

Your Dual-Status Year

In the year you surrender, you are typically a “dual-status” taxpayer: resident for part of the year and nonresident for the rest.⁶ If you are a nonresident on the last day of the tax year, you file Form 1040-NR with “Dual-Status Return” written across the top and attach a statement (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) showing your income for the resident portion, marked “Dual-Status Statement.”⁷ For the nonresident portion, you are taxed only on U.S.-source income.

A tax professional who handles expatriation cases is worth the fee. The exit tax, dual-status filing, and Form 8854 interact in ways that produce steep penalties for small mistakes.

What Else You Lose

Work Authorization

Surrendering your Green Card ends your work authorization immediately. Your employer must reverify eligibility on Form I-9 once your authorization expires, and without a valid visa or other employment-based status, you cannot legally continue working.⁸ If you plan to keep working in the U.S., arrange the separate work visa before filing Form I-407.

Social Security

You do not automatically lose Social Security benefits you already qualify for. As a noncitizen living outside the United States, though, payments stop after you have been abroad for six consecutive calendar months, with that clock starting only after 30 straight days outside the country. Payments do not restart until you return and remain physically present for an entire calendar month.⁹ Some countries have bilateral agreements with the U.S. that keep payments flowing regardless of how long you stay abroad; the SSA’s Payments Abroad Screening Tool at ssa.gov shows whether an exception applies.

Medicare

Medicare eligibility generally requires U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residence with at least five continuous years in the country.¹⁰ Surrendering the card ends the residency basis for eligibility. Medicare also does not cover care received outside the United States in most cases, so the practical value ends when you leave.

Visiting the U.S. Afterward

Once you surrender, any future entry requires a visa or travel authorization. If your passport is from a Visa Waiver Program country, you can apply through ESTA for visits of up to 90 days.¹¹ Otherwise, you apply for a nonimmigrant visa such as a B-1/B-2 at a U.S. embassy or consulate, and the consular officer will evaluate whether you have strong enough ties to your home country to show you intend to return after your visit.¹²

Consular officers know you previously lived in the United States long-term, which can make proving you’ll leave after a short visit harder. An established residence, job, and family ties abroad help.

Can You Reverse It?

Practically, no. Surrendering is treated as final and voluntary. There is no administrative appeal. If you later want to live in the U.S. permanently, you start from scratch: employer sponsorship, a family-based petition, or another qualifying category, with the same waits and requirements as any other foreign national.

The Returning Resident (SB-1) visa does not fill this gap. It is for permanent residents who intended to return but were delayed abroad by circumstances beyond their control, and it requires proof that you never intended to abandon your status.¹² Filing Form I-407 declares the opposite intent, which closes that route.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-407 Instructions for Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-407 Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status
3
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8854 (2025)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Expatriation Tax
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 877A – Tax Responsibilities of Expatriation
6
Internal Revenue Service. Taxation of Dual-Status Individuals
7
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 1040-NR
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Reverifying Employment Authorization for Current Employees
9
Social Security Administration. SSA Payments Outside US
10
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Original Medicare (Part A and B) Eligibility and Enrollment
11
Department of Homeland Security. Visa Waiver Program
12
Travel.State.Gov. Returning Resident Visas