CSPA Age Freeze Calculator

Why CSPA age matters

The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) is a lifeline for families and derivative beneficiaries who risk aging out of immigrant visa eligibility when USCIS or the Department of State take years to process a petition. Normally, “child” means under 21 years old. If a son or daughter’s 21st birthday arrives while the case is still pending, the beneficiary could lose the right to immigrate with their parents or secure a green card in their own derivative category. CSPA counteracts that risk by freezing or adjusting the child’s age so that processing delays do not penalize them. Understanding the formula is critical because a miscalculation can result in a missed immigrant visa or denial after years of waiting.

To avoid duplicating the more general CSPA age-protection calculator already on this site, this version focuses on side-by-side scenario testing. When you enter retrogression start and resume dates, the tool builds two timelines—one for the initial visa-current date and one for the resumed date—so you can see how the seek-to-acquire clock shifts and whether the child remains protected in both cases. This niche comparison, rarely offered elsewhere, helps families and attorneys plan around volatility in the Visa Bulletin without juggling spreadsheets.

This calculator automates the main CSPA steps for most family-based and employment-based petitions. Enter the priority date, approval date, visa availability date (when the priority date becomes current in the Visa Bulletin), and the date you filed either an adjustment of status (AOS) or immigrant visa application after the case became current. The tool computes the time the petition spent pending, subtracts that from the child’s biological age on the visa availability date, and checks whether the CSPA age is under 21 when you sought to acquire the visa. It also highlights any grace days before reaching 21, as well as risk factors if you waited too long to file.

Core formula

CSPA age is calculated by subtracting the petition’s pending time from the child’s actual age on the date a visa first became available. Mathematically, if A is the child’s chronological age in days on the visa availability date, and P is the number of days the petition was pending, then:

Two additional pieces matter: (1) you must “seek to acquire” the benefit within one year of visa availability, typically by filing Form I-485, paying the IV fee, or submitting DS-260; (2) some time can be added for days where the case was held in abeyance by the government, such as a court-ordered pause or a formal request for evidence period. The calculator includes an optional input for those days.

Worked example

Suppose a derivative child was born on 2005-02-10. The underlying I-130 priority date is 2017-08-01, and USCIS approves it on 2021-10-15. The Visa Bulletin becomes current on 2024-03-01, and the family files AOS on 2024-05-20. The petition was pending from 2017-08-01 through 2021-10-15—a span of 1,537 days. The child’s biological age on 2024-03-01 is 6,959 days, or 19.06 years. Subtracting 1,537 yields 5,422 days, or a CSPA age of 14.85 years. Because the AOS was filed within one year of 2024-03-01, the child safely locks the CSPA age and remains eligible.

Comparison scenarios

The table below compares three common situations: a clean approval, a long post-approval wait, and an abeyance extension.

Limitations and assumptions

This calculator covers principal CSPA logic for family and employment categories but cannot replace legal advice. It assumes the petition category allows CSPA relief and that you have accurate official dates. It does not apply to K visas, diversity visas, or special immigrant juvenile cases. The one-year seek-to-acquire rule has nuanced exceptions for extraordinary circumstances; entering abeyance time here is a simplified approximation. Always confirm dates from USCIS receipts, approval notices, and the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin. Because leap years and day-counting conventions vary, the script uses 365.25 days per year as a neutral divisor; attorneys may compute differently in edge cases.