The appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals
You have 30 calendar days from the immigration judge's decision to get a Notice of Appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Board counts the day it receives the form, not the day you sent it. A timely appeal generally stops your removal while the Board decides. The regulation you may find online says 10 days. That text was struck down before it ever took effect, and this page explains why it is still there.
Current as of September 2026. We re-check this page every quarter and after any rule change.
The Board of Immigration Appeals is the administrative appeals body inside the Department of Justice that reviews immigration judges' decisions. An appeal to the Board is the ordinary route from a removal order, a denied application, or any other decision the judge makes at the end of the case. It is filed on a government form, it carries a government fee, and it runs on a clock that is short, fixed and counted in calendar days. This page covers the whole procedure, and it sits under after a removal order, which compares the appeal with the other vehicles.
30 calendar days, and the Board counts receipt
Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.38(b) and (c), the Notice of Appeal must be received by the Board within 30 calendar days. The clock runs from the day the judge announces an oral decision, or from the mailing or electronic notification of a written one. Weekends and holidays inside the 30 days count. The day the Board receives the form is the day that matters, not the day it was mailed or handed to a courier. An appeal that arrives on day 31 is late, and the judge's order is final.
Why the regulation still prints 10 days
In early 2026, EOIR published an interim final rule that would have cut the general appeal deadline from 30 days to 10 and made other changes to the Board's rules. Before it took effect, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights sued in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On March 8, 2026, the day before the rule's effective date, the court vacated the 10-day provision in Amica Ctr. for Immigrant Rights v. EOIR, No. 1:26-cv-00696 (D.D.C. Mar. 8, 2026). The government appealed, and on August 17, 2026 it dismissed its own appeal. The 10-day deadline never applied to anyone.
EOIR responded with Office of the Director Policy Memorandum 26-02, effective March 13, 2026, and its Policy Manual at Part III, Chapter 3.5(a) states the 30-day deadline. The electronic Code of Federal Regulations, however, still displays the vacated text at 8 C.F.R. 1003.38(b)(1). A reader who looks up the regulation without knowing the history will see "10 days" and may act on it. We publish the deadline as 30 days, we cite the court order and the policy memorandum for it, and we check the EOIR memoranda index before we rely on any EOIR deadline.
The same order vacated two other pieces of the interim rule: the presumptive summary-dismissal mechanism that had been added at 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(2)(ii), and a sentence deeming any issue not raised in the Notice of Appeal waived. Three pieces of the rule survived and are in force: merits briefing is simultaneous, generally 20 days; there is no reply brief unless the Board invites one; and briefing extensions are granted only in exceptional circumstances. Those are at 8 C.F.R. 1003.3(c).
Form EOIR-26 and the fee
The appeal is filed on Form EOIR-26, the Notice of Appeal from a Decision of an Immigration Judge. Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.38(d), the form must be accompanied by the government filing fee or by a fee waiver request on Form EOIR-26A, or it "will not be deemed properly filed." An appeal that reaches the Board on time without the fee or the waiver request has a problem that the deadline may not leave time to fix.
The government filing fee for the appeal is $1,030 under 8 C.F.R. 1103.7(b). It is paid to the Department of Justice through the EOIR Payment Portal; since February 23, 2026 EOIR does not accept checks or money orders. That fee is not our legal fee, which we quote separately and confirm in writing. There is no government fee for an appeal from a bond decision. The current schedule is on the EOIR fee page.
The automatic stay
Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.6(a), a timely appeal from an immigration judge's decision generally stays execution of that decision while the appeal is pending. You do not file a separate motion for it. This is one of only two automatic stays in the post-order landscape; the other is the motion to rescind an in absentia order. Every other vehicle, including the petition for review that follows a Board dismissal, requires a stay to be asked for. The map is at stays of removal.
The stay lasts as long as the appeal does. If the Board dismisses the appeal, the judge's order is final that day, and the next 30-day clock, for the petition for review, starts running at the same time.
What the Board reviews, and how
The Board does not hold a new hearing and does not take new evidence. It reviews the record made in front of the immigration judge: the transcript, the exhibits and the decision. Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(3), the standard of review depends on what is being challenged.
| What the judge decided | Standard | What it means | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Findings of fact, including credibility | Clear error | The Board defers to the judge's findings and reverses only if they are clearly wrong on the record | 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(3)(i) |
| Questions of law, discretion and judgment | De novo | The Board decides them fresh, with no deference to the judge | 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(3)(ii) |
The practical consequence is that an appeal built around "the judge should have believed me" is fighting the deferential standard, while an appeal built around "the judge applied the wrong legal test to the facts as found" gets fresh review. Framing the issues correctly on the Notice of Appeal, before the brief is written, is much of the work.
The record is the appeal
Nothing can be added at the Board. Evidence that was not offered to the immigration judge, testimony that was not given, and objections that were not made are not part of the record and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. And after Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, No. 24-777 (Mar. 4, 2026), the federal courts of appeals review the agency's factual findings deferentially, reversing only where the record compels it. The record built at the individual hearing is close to the last word on the facts.
What a good Notice of Appeal says
The Notice of Appeal is not a formality. The Board can summarily dismiss an appeal, without reaching the merits, on the grounds that survived Amica Ctr. and remain at 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(2)(i)(A) through (H). Two of them account for most dismissals: the appeal fails to specify the reasons for it, and the party indicated that a brief would be filed and then did not file one. A good Notice of Appeal therefore does three things.
- It states the specific reasons for the appeal. Not "the judge erred," but which findings of fact are challenged and why, which legal conclusions are wrong and under what authority, and which discretionary determination was mistaken. Each reason should be one the record supports. Because the sentence deeming unlisted issues waived was vacated, a reason not stated on the form is not automatically lost, but the safe practice is to list every issue that will be briefed.
- It says whether a brief will be filed, and then a brief is filed. Promising a brief and not filing it is a summary-dismissal ground on its own. If the box is checked, the 20-day simultaneous briefing schedule has to be met, and extensions are granted only in exceptional circumstances.
- It arrives complete. With the fee or the EOIR-26A, signed, and received by the Board within the 30 days.
The brief is where the argument is made. It ties each error to the standard of review, cites the pages of the transcript and the exhibits, and asks for a specific result: reversal, remand for a new hearing, or remand for the judge to consider an application the judge did not reach.
After the Board decides
The Board can dismiss the appeal, sustain it, or remand the case to the judge. If it dismisses, the removal order is final and the automatic stay ends. You then have 30 days from the Board's decision to file a petition for review in the United States court of appeals for the circuit in which the immigration judge completed the case, under INA 242(b)(1) and (b)(2). That deadline is not extended by filing a motion to reopen, under Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386 (1995), and the petition does not stay removal under INA 242(b)(3)(B). A stay must be requested from the court by motion.
A motion to reconsider the Board's decision is due within 30 days, and a motion to reopen within 90, each with its own government fee and neither with a stay. Under Santos-Zacaria v. Garland, 598 U.S. 411 (2023), you do not have to file a motion to reconsider before going to court in order to preserve an error the Board itself made. Which vehicle to use, and whether to file more than one, is decided on the Board's decision and the calendar, not by default.
One thing the Board cannot hear: there is no direct appeal from an in absentia removal order. The route from a missed hearing is a motion to rescind filed with the immigration judge, which has its own deadlines and its own automatic stay. See in absentia orders.
Read next: every vehicle after a removal order, the petition for review, stays of removal, or motions to reopen.
Common questions
Is the BIA appeal deadline 10 days or 30 days?
Thirty calendar days, in every case. An interim rule published in early 2026 would have cut the general deadline to 10 days, but the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated that provision on March 8, 2026, the day before it would have taken effect, in Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. EOIR. The government appealed and then dismissed its own appeal on August 17, 2026. EOIR's policy memorandum PM 26-02 tells its judges the deadline is 30 days. The eCFR has not been corrected and still prints the vacated 10-day text.
Does the appeal stop my deportation?
Generally, yes. Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.6(a), a timely appeal from an immigration judge's decision stays execution of that decision while the appeal is pending. The stay ends when the Board decides. A petition for review in the court of appeals after that does not carry a stay, and one has to be requested by motion.
What does the appeal cost?
The government filing fee for a Notice of Appeal on Form EOIR-26 is $1,030, paid to the Department of Justice through the EOIR Payment Portal, which no longer accepts checks or money orders. It is not our legal fee. If you cannot pay, Form EOIR-26A asks the Board to waive the fee. The Notice of Appeal must be accompanied by the fee or the waiver request, or it is not treated as properly filed. Bond appeals carry no fee.
What happens if the Board dismisses my appeal?
The immigration judge's order becomes final and the stay ends. You have 30 days from the Board's decision to file a petition for review in the federal court of appeals for the circuit where the judge completed the case, under INA 242(b)(1), and that petition does not stay removal on its own. A motion to reconsider is due within 30 days and a motion to reopen within 90, and neither stays removal either.
Tell us where your case is. We will tell you what is still possible.
You get a free case review with an attorney, in your language. We speak English, Russian, Spanish and Uzbek in-house, and we bring in a live interpreter for anything else. We will tell you what stage you are at, which forms of relief are open to you, what your deadlines are, and whether we can help. If we cannot, we will say so.