Green Card Rights and Responsibilities 2026: What Laws Apply

Your Rights as a Permanent Resident

USCIS states the rights of a green card holder as three, each with a qualifier attached. Understanding the qualifier matters more than the headline, because that is where cases are won and lost.

The first right is the reason people pursue the green card at all: lawful permanent residence does not expire. It continues until you complete naturalization or until you lose or abandon it, which is exactly how USCIS frames the status on its maintaining permanent residence page. The second right is broader than it looks — a permanent resident may hold essentially any lawful job, change jobs freely, and work without a sponsoring employer, with the citizen-only exceptions applying to jobs that are limited to citizens for security reasons. The third right is the everyday one: standing in court, contracting, driving, owning property, and calling police are all governed by the same law that governs everyone else in your jurisdiction.

Your Responsibilities as a Permanent Resident

Against those three rights, USCIS lists four duties. They are not aspirations; each one is a condition of keeping the status that the rights depend on.

• Obey all laws of the United States and of localities. Criminal convictions are the most direct route from permanent residence to removal proceedings, and immigration consequences can attach to offenses that never seemed serious.
• File your income tax returns and report your income to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and to state taxing authorities. Filing as a resident rather than a nonresident is part of the duty, and getting this wrong has immigration consequences as well as tax ones.
• Support the democratic form of government. USCIS adds an important parenthetical: support “does not include voting.” Permanent residents cannot vote in federal, state, or local elections.
• Register with the Selective Service if you are a male aged 18 through 25, which you can do through the Selective Service System registration site.

A fifth practical duty sits outside that list but is enforced daily at borders and checkpoints: you must have a valid, unexpired green card or equivalent documentation with you at all times, and applying for naturalization does not suspend that requirement. Treat the card the way you treat a driver’s license — present, current, and replaced promptly when anything happens to it.

The voting point deserves one more sentence because the confusion is common and the stakes are high. “Supporting” the system of government as a permanent resident means obeying its laws, paying into it, serving when required, and participating in permitted civic life — not casting a ballot, which is why USCIS spells out that permanent residents cannot vote in federal, state, or local elections. The right to vote begins only when you take the oath of citizenship. When you do become a citizen, our citizenship interview questions guide covers what comes next.

Carrying, Replacing and Using Your Card

The Permanent Resident Card, Form I-551, is the document that proves everything above. To reenter the United States after temporary travel abroad you present a valid, unexpired green card; a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer reviews the card together with any other identity documents you present — a passport, a foreign national identity card, or a U.S. driver’s license — and decides whether you may enter.

Two travel-document questions come up constantly. First, leaving: in general you need a passport from your country of citizenship, or a refugee travel document if that applies to you, plus whatever entry requirements your destination imposes. Second, losing the card abroad: if your green card or reentry permit is lost, stolen, or destroyed while you are outside the United States, you may need to file Form I-131A, Application for Travel Document (Carrier Documentation), which lets an airline board you for the flight home without the carrier being penalized. A card that is simply damaged or expired is replaced the ordinary way, with Form I-90.

Replacing a card is a routine filing, not an emergency, but do not let routine become delay. The requirement to carry a valid unexpired card applies continuously, including during the months a replacement is pending, and having a receipt notice and an old card with you is a materially weaker position at a port of entry than a current card. Replacing the card does not change your underlying status: you remain a lawful permanent resident throughout, and the new card simply documents the same status.

Travel, Reentry Permits and Long Absences

Permanent residents are free to travel, and temporary or brief travel usually does not affect status. The risk lives in the length of the trip and the intent behind it. USCIS describes a general guide it applies: absence from the United States for more than a year is the classic warning sign, and abandonment may be found even on shorter trips where it is believed you did not intend to make the United States your permanent home.

Officers look at a cluster of factors that together show intent: whether you maintained U.S. family and community ties, maintained U.S. employment, filed U.S. income taxes as a resident, kept a U.S. mailing address and bank accounts, held a valid U.S. driver’s license, owned property or ran a business, and generally established an intention to return as your permanent home. The trip’s reason, how long you planned to be away, the circumstances, and any events that prolonged the absence are all weighed.

Planning converts a risky trip into a documented one:

• Absence longer than a year: apply for a reentry permit on Form I-131 before you leave. It lets a permanent or conditional resident apply for admission during the permit’s validity without obtaining a returning resident visa, and it helps establish your intention to reside permanently in the United States — though it does not guarantee entry, because you must still be admissible.
• Absence beyond two years: any reentry permit granted before departure has expired. At that point it is advisable to apply for a returning resident visa (SB-1) at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate, where you must establish eligibility for an immigrant visa and complete a medical exam. An exception exists for the spouse or child of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces or a civilian U.S. Government employee stationed abroad on official orders.
• Absence of a year or more before naturalization: you may file Form N-470, Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes, to preserve continuous residence.

One relationship between travel and naturalization is easy to miss: absences of six months or more may disrupt the continuous residency required for naturalization, well before the one-year mark at which abandonment risk becomes serious. The same trip can therefore be fine for your green card and damaging to your naturalization timeline — a reason to check both before booking, using our N-400 guide as the naturalization reference.

How Permanent Residence Is Lost

USCIS frames the life cycle simply: you maintain permanent resident status until you apply for and complete naturalization, or you lose or abandon your status. Between those two endpoints sit four mechanisms, and knowing which one applies tells you what to do next.

• Conditional permanent residence. Section 216 of the Act allows conditional status based on marriage, and section 216A based on a qualifying investment. Conditional status can be terminated as the law provides, including in cases of fraud, which is why the removal of conditions process examines the underlying relationship or investment so closely.
• Removal proceedings. You lose status if an immigration judge issues a final removal order. Sections 212 and 237 of the Act describe the grounds on which you may be ordered removed.
• Rescission. USCIS may place you into rescission proceedings at any time during the first five years after you became a resident if it determines you were not eligible for the green card when your application was approved and you would not have been eligible under any other provision of law. If residence is rescinded, you are no longer a green card holder and may be put into removal proceedings.
• Abandonment. Intentional abandonment includes moving to another country intending to live there permanently, declaring yourself a “nonimmigrant” on your U.S. tax returns, and remaining outside the United States for an extended period unless the absence is temporary. Obtaining a reentry permit before leaving, or an SB-1 visa while abroad, may help show the absence was meant to be temporary.

There is also a quiet administrative consequence that surprises people. Under section 6039G(d)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, the Department of Homeland Security is required to inform the IRS if you lose permanent resident status because you were ordered removed or because you chose to abandon your status and surrender the green card. Losing the status therefore reaches your tax file automatically, which is one more reason the “nonimmigrant” declaration on a tax return is so damaging: it is a written statement of intent that both agencies can see.

None of these outcomes is automatic except by your own conduct or a judge’s order, and all of them respond to evidence. Records of U.S. ties, consistent tax filing, timely reentry permits, and short, explained absences are what a file should look like — the same evidence discipline our visa document checklist applies to every category.

Taxes, Selective Service and Naturalization

The tax duty is annual and non-negotiable: file income tax returns and report income to the IRS and to state taxing authorities. As a resident for tax purposes you report worldwide income, and you file as a resident rather than a nonresident alien. Doing this consistently is affirmative evidence of the intent that the abandonment analysis asks about — officers specifically look at whether you filed U.S. income taxes as a resident.

Selective Service registration is a one-time obligation for males aged 18 through 25 and takes minutes online; keep the registration number with your permanent residence documents, because the naturalization process asks about it. The duty to support the democratic form of government sits alongside it: participation stops short of voting until naturalization, and resumes at that point as a full electorate member.

Naturalization is the event that ends permanent residence — not by loss, but by conversion. The moment you take the oath, status as a green card holder stops and citizenship begins, which is why absences, tax filing, and criminal history are examined for the five-year period behind the N-400 rather than for your entire residence. Prepare the eligibility side with our N-400 naturalization guide and the interview side with our citizenship interview questions page, and keep card replacement and travel documents current in the meantime with our passport renewal guide for the travel half of the file.

Frequently Asked Questions