How to count immigration court filing deadlines

Immigration court deadlines are strict, and the way they are counted is not always obvious. Most of them count backward from a hearing date, not forward from a notice. A filing that arrives one day late can be refused, and evidence that never makes it into the record cannot help you later.

This post explains the counting rules in EOIR's Immigration Court Practice Manual, with a worked example at the end.

Calendar days, counted backward from the hearing

The Practice Manual counts deadlines in calendar days, not business days (Chapter 2.1(c)). Weekends and holidays count like any other day.

For a deadline set "before" a hearing, the day of the hearing is day 0. The day before the hearing is day 1, two days before is day 2, and so on. A filing due "at least 30 days before" the hearing is due on day 30.

The main default deadlines, for people who are not detained, are in Chapter 2.1(b):

• Master calendar hearing, no lawyer: at least 15 days before the hearing.
• Individual hearing: at least 30 days before the hearing, with responses to the other side's filings within 10 days.
• Detained cases: as the judge specifies. There is no fixed default.

People with a lawyer follow a different schedule at the master calendar stage. Our post on the master calendar hearing sets it out. A judge can also order different deadlines in your case, and the judge's order controls.

Weekends and legal holidays

If a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, it moves forward to the next day that is not a weekend or legal holiday (Chapter 2.1(c)(2)).

For a backward-counted deadline, moving forward means moving closer to the hearing. That can feel like extra time. Treat it as a last resort, not a plan.

Filed means received

This is the rule that catches people most often. The Practice Manual says: "An application or document is not deemed 'filed' until it is received by the immigration court."

The date you mailed something does not matter. The date on your cover letter does not matter. What matters is when the court has it.

The same rule affects the one-year asylum deadline. For an asylum application filed in court, the filing date is the date the court receives it (8 C.F.R. 1208.4(a)(2)(ii)). If the one-year deadline is close, our post on exceptions to the one-year deadline explains the limited ways around it.

E-filing through ECAS

EOIR's electronic filing system is called ECAS. Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.31, e-filing is mandatory for attorneys and accredited representatives of record, and for DHS, in every eligible case. The rule took effect February 11, 2022 (86 FR 70708). Judges keep discretion to accept paper filings.

If ECAS has an unplanned outage on the last day of a filing period, the deadline is extended to the first business day the system is accessible again (Chapter 2.1(a)(7)).

A worked example

Here is a sample case, not a real one. Suppose a person who is not detained has an individual hearing on Monday, May 10, 2027.

If the same person instead had a master calendar hearing on May 10, 2027 and no lawyer, the 15-day deadline would fall on Sunday, April 25, 2027, and would move forward to Monday, April 26, 2027.

Deadlines after the judge decides

Once the judge decides, a different set of clocks starts, and they count forward from the decision.

Appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals: 30 calendar days, in every case (8 C.F.R. 1003.38(b)). The clock runs from an oral decision, or from the mailing or electronic notice of a written one. The appeal must be received by the Board within that time (8 C.F.R. 1003.38(c)).

Be careful where you read that rule. A 2026 rule would have set a general 10-day appeal deadline, but a federal court vacated it on March 8, 2026, the day before it was to take effect, in Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. EOIR. The government dropped its appeal on August 17, 2026. The online Code of Federal Regulations, the eCFR, still prints the vacated 10-day text, because no correction has been published. EOIR's own Policy Manual and its memo PM 26-02 give the correct 30 days. Our post on the 30-day BIA appeal deadline explains the history.

Other post-decision deadlines:

• Motion to reconsider: 30 days, one motion (INA 240(c)(6)).
• Motion to reopen: 90 days, one motion, with exceptions such as changed country conditions (INA 240(c)(7)). Our post on the one-motion rule explains how the Board counts.
• Petition for review in a federal court of appeals: 30 days from the final order of removal (INA 242(b)(1)).

Deadlines depend on the type of hearing, whether you are detained, whether you have a lawyer, and what the judge orders. If you have a hearing or a decision in your case, talk to an immigration lawyer about your own dates as soon as you can.