Visa Revocation Statistics in US 2026 | Key Facts

Visa Revocation in the US 2026

The United States has entered a dramatically new era of visa enforcement in 2026, and the numbers are nothing short of historic. Since January 20, 2025, through January 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of State confirmed the revocation of more than 100,000 non-immigrant visas — a figure that easily surpasses any 12-month total on record in modern U.S. immigration history. What makes this wave especially significant is its scope: it does not only target individuals with serious criminal convictions or national security threats. Minor infractions, old traffic violations, social media activity, and even routine compliance gaps in work visa petitions have all served as triggers. The Continuous Vetting Center, a newly established unit in Virginia, now feeds real-time arrest and law enforcement data directly into the Consular Consolidated Database, enabling consular officers to electronically cancel a visa before the holder even learns it has happened.

For employers, universities, and the nearly 55 million people worldwide holding valid U.S. visas, this operational reality has fundamentally changed what it means to hold a U.S. work or study visa. The shift is not merely administrative — it carries deep professional, legal, and personal consequences. H-1B workers, L-1 transferees, F-1 students, and O-1 professionals have all found themselves caught in a system that now treats a visa not as a granted right but as a “continuously reviewable privilege,” subject to cancellation at any point after issuance. The data for 2025–2026 reveals a trend that immigration lawyers, corporate HR departments, and consular posts worldwide are scrambling to understand. This article breaks down every key statistic, category, and driving factor behind working visa revocation in the US in 2026.

Key Interesting Facts About Visa Revocation in the US 2026

Before diving into section-by-section breakdowns, here is a quick-reference table of the most striking facts and data points confirmed by official U.S. government sources and major news reporting citing State Department officials.

Sources: U.S. Department of State (travel.state.gov), Reuters (November 6, 2025), CNBC (January 15, 2026), White House Presidential Proclamations 10949 and 10998, USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub FY2025.

These numbers paint a picture that goes far beyond routine immigration enforcement. The 100,000+ revocation milestone achieved in a single calendar year is without modern precedent. To put it in context, the previous administration’s entire four-year term saw a fraction of that volume in deliberate post-issuance cancellations. The fact that more than half of the first 80,000 revocations were not tied to security or criminal grounds signals a structural philosophical shift: the State Department is now using revocation proactively, not just reactively. For working visa holders specifically, the 2,500 work-related specialized worker visas revoked for criminal offenses represent just the visible tip of a much larger iceberg — tens of thousands more were cancelled through continuous vetting and compliance checks without any criminal trigger at all.

Overall Working Visa Revocation Volume in the US 2026

The sheer scale of revocations in 2025–2026 distinguishes this period from every prior enforcement era. The timeline below captures the escalation month by month.

Source: U.S. Department of State spokesperson statement (January 2026); Reuters (November 6, 2025); CNBC (January 15, 2026).

The progression from 80,000 in November 2025 to more than 100,000 by January 10, 2026 shows the pace did not slow heading into the new year — if anything, it accelerated. The documented overnight bulk cancellation of approximately 85,000 visas in a single operational window represents something immigration practitioners had never seen before: simultaneous, automated, cross-category revocations where airlines received notification before the visa holders themselves did. The Consular Consolidated Database and AI-based risk-scoring systems now allow the State Department to execute population-level cancellations within hours — a technical capability that simply did not exist at this scale in any previous administration. For businesses relying on foreign talent pipelines, the takeaway from this timeline is unambiguous: the period between visa approval and actual work commencement now carries far more risk than it ever has historically.

Working Visa Revocation by Category in the US 2026

Not all visa categories have been hit equally. The following breakdown separates the revocation data by visa type, drawing from State Department disclosures and official reporting.

Source: U.S. Department of State spokesperson (January 2026) via CNBC; USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub FY2025; Reddy Neumann Brown PC legal analysis (December 2025); travel.state.gov Presidential Proclamation 10998 updates.

Breaking this data down by category reveals a critical nuance for employers and HR compliance teams. The approximately 2,500 specialized working visa holders (H-1B, L-1, O-1) who lost their visas due to criminal offenses are the most visible group — but they represent a small fraction of the total working visa risk landscape. H-1B holders face a uniquely layered threat: beyond criminal triggers, they are vulnerable to USCIS Notices of Intent to Revoke for worksite location changes, remote work without amended petitions, and employer terminations. The H-4 spillover effect is equally damaging — when a primary H-1B holder’s visa is revoked, the dependent spouse’s Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and H-4 status are directly jeopardized. The F-1 and J-1 student categories bore a disproportionate share of the early 2025 enforcement wave, with nearly 4,700 SEVIS terminations in a single sweep during the spring.

Reasons for Working Visa Revocation in the US 2026

Understanding why visas are being revoked is as important as understanding how many. The following table categorizes the grounds cited by the State Department and USCIS in revocation actions.

Source: U.S. State Department Foreign Affairs Manual; Reuters (November 2025); Reddy Neumann Brown PC (December 2025); White House Presidential Proclamation 10998 (December 16, 2025); USCIS NOIR regulations.

The breakdown of revocation grounds reveals something that many visa holders and employers have found alarming: a criminal case in which charges were dropped still serves as a trigger for the State Department to cancel a visa. According to DOS policy, the department does not evaluate whether the incident is sufficient to establish a visa denial under standard law — it simply revokes first and allows the holder to “make their case” at a subsequent interview. This means DUIs, disorderly conduct arrests, and even dismissed misdemeanors can result in an electronically cancelled visa within days of a law enforcement report reaching the Continuous Vetting Center. For H-1B workers specifically, worksite compliance failures — moving to a different city for remote work without filing an amended I-129 petition — have been treated as grounds for retroactive status voidance, potentially triggering unlawful presence findings, a 3-year reentry bar for 180+ days, and a 10-year bar for more than 1 year of unlawful presence.

Visa Revocation by Country / Travel Restrictions in the US 2026

Geography has played a major role in the 2025–2026 revocation and restriction landscape, with the State Department using nationality-based actions at unprecedented scale.

Source: U.S. Department of State, travel.state.gov, “Suspension of Visa Issuance” (January 1, 2026); Presidential Proclamation 10998 (December 16, 2025); Presidential Proclamation 10949 (June 4, 2025); DOS statement on immigrant visa pause (January 15, 2026).

The escalation from 19 countries under PP 10949 in June 2025 to 39 countries under PP 10998 by January 2026 to a 75-country immigrant visa freeze by January 21, 2026 demonstrates a compounding enforcement posture. One critical legal distinction that affects working visa holders significantly: Presidential Proclamation 10998 explicitly states that no visas issued before January 1, 2026, were revoked under that proclamation. This means the 100,000+ revocations documented throughout 2025 were driven by separate, parallel enforcement mechanisms — primarily the Continuous Vetting Center and post-issuance vetting protocols — rather than the nationality-based bans. For nationals of countries on the 75-country immigrant visa pause list who are currently holding valid H-1B or L-1 nonimmigrant status and hoping to adjust to permanent residence, the pathway is now effectively blocked indefinitely, with no projected end date provided by the State Department.

H-1B Visa Revocation Specific Data in the US 2026

Given that the H-1B is the dominant working visa category in the United States, it deserves a dedicated data breakdown. The following table reflects USCIS and DOS data for FY2025 and the current policy environment.

Source: USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub (FY2025); USCIS H-1B Registration Statistics (FY2021–FY2025) via davidsonmorris.com; White House Presidential Proclamation on H-1B Restriction (September 19, 2025); Federal Reserve Bank of New York study (cited in White House proclamation).

The H-1B data for 2025–2026 presents a paradox: petition approval rates have never been higher at above 94%, yet the post-approval enforcement environment has never been more aggressive. An H-1B worker can receive an approved petition, maintain employment, and still face revocation if a site visit reveals they are working remotely from a city not covered in their approved Labor Condition Application. USCIS regulations require that the LCA and H-1B petition match the actual job location — a requirement that became explosively consequential when remote work became widespread after 2020 but many employers failed to file amended petitions. The $100,000 H-1B petition fee introduced by presidential proclamation in September 2025 adds another layer of compliance cost and selectivity, effectively pricing out smaller employers from the program entirely. The 30-day NOIR response window demands immediate legal action — employers who miss this deadline face automatic revocation and a worker who may retroactively be considered to have accrued unlawful presence.

Continuous Vetting and Post-Issuance Revocation Mechanisms in the US 2026

The technology and policy infrastructure enabling the surge in revocations deserves its own analysis, as it represents a permanent structural change in how the U.S. government monitors visa holders.

Source: Washington Post (August 21, 2025); Reuters (November 6, 2025); Reddy Neumann Brown PC legal analysis (December 2025); visarefusal.com; DOS travel.state.gov public comment announcement (2026).

The Continuous Vetting Center’s reach across 55 million visa holders represents the largest post-issuance surveillance operation in U.S. immigration history. Before 2025, visa revocation was largely a reactive process: a person would commit an act, it would be reported, and then — often months later — a consular officer might take action. The new architecture is fundamentally different. Real-time data feeds from law enforcement databases trigger automated alerts the moment an arrest record is created, often resulting in a visa annotation within days of an incident. Airlines receive notification of revoked visas through the Secure Flight system before the traveler is even aware their visa has been cancelled, which explains why immigration attorneys began reporting clients being denied boarding on international flights with no advance warning in 2025. The proposed expansion of social media screening to Visa Waiver Program travelers — currently open for public comment — would extend this surveillance net to tens of millions of additional visitors who currently do not require a visa stamp at all.

Impact on Employers and Visa Holders: Working Visa Revocation in the US 2026

The operational impact of the 2025–2026 revocation wave extends far beyond individual visa holders, touching corporate mobility programs, university enrollment, and consular appointment systems globally.

Source: Reddy Neumann Brown PC (December 2025, rnlawgroup.com); CNBC (January 15, 2026); VisaHQ immigration analysis (January 13, 2026); USCIS and DOS policy updates September 2025.

The elimination of the Dropbox interview waiver program as of September 2, 2025 is one of the most far-reaching logistical changes of the year, and its interaction with the revocation surge is compounding. Previously, hundreds of thousands of H-1B workers, H-4 dependents, and L-1 professionals could renew their visa stamps by mail without an in-person interview — a system that allowed quick, low-disruption international travel and return. Now, every single renewal requires an in-person interview at a U.S. consulate, and consulates are already overwhelmed by the backlog created by workers who had their visas prudentially revoked and must re-apply. Posts in Mumbai, São Paulo, and Beijing — three of the highest-volume consular locations for H-1B and L-1 workers — are reported to have appointment wait times that make routine business travel effectively impractical. For the corporate mobility industry, the most cautious legal advice heading into 2026 is clear: if your visa is expired and travel is not absolutely essential, remain in the United States until the stamping environment stabilizes.

Legal Consequences of Working Visa Revocation in the US 2026

Understanding what a revocation actually means legally — and what it does not mean — is critical for anyone navigating this environment.

Source: INA §§ 221(i), 222(g), 212(a)(9)(B); Reddy Neumann Brown PC prudential revocation analysis (December 2025); ICE/DHS statements in 2025 F-1 student visa litigation; USCIS H-1B unlawful presence guidance.

Perhaps the most important legal clarification that emerged from the mass revocation litigation of 2025 is the distinction between visa revocation and immigration status. A senior Homeland Security Investigations official confirmed in federal court that prudential visa revocation, absent other factors, does not by itself make someone removable. This means that an H-1B engineer or F-1 student who receives a revocation notice while physically inside the United States, and who continues to comply with all the conditions of their authorized stay, is not legally required to leave the country and is not automatically subject to deportation. However, the moment they depart the United States — for any reason, including a family emergency — they cannot return without first obtaining a new visa, which now requires an in-person interview at a potentially backlogged consulate. The practical effect, even for individuals not legally required to leave, is a form of de facto travel prohibition that can last months or years depending on appointment availability and the resolution of the underlying revocation grounds.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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