I-864 Affidavit of Support and Financial Sponsor for Green Card

The process of establishing someone as your financial sponsor begins with completing and filing a form I-864 Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the Act. This form is submitted with most family-based green card applications. This document is basically showing that there is sufficient financial support for the immigrant and that there will not be a need for financial assistance from the United States government.

What You Need to Know About a Sponsor

If you want to get a green card in the US, you are going to need a sponsor; more specifically, a financial sponsor.
The USCIS requires someone to financially sponsor anyone who gets a green card through a family member.  So if you are applying for a green card and your connection to the US is your brother, sister, mother, father, child or spouse, you will need a financial sponsor.

Why do you need a financial sponsor?

If you ever require public support or benefits while you have your green card the financial sponsor takes on the responsibility to repay those benefits.  This responsibility ends for your sponsor when you gain citizenship, work in the US for 10 years or leave the US permanently.

You may wonder what is needed for someone to be a sponsor?

There are four requirements:

1. You must be a US citizen
2. You must be at least 18 years old
3. You must be living in the US
4. You must have annual income over the federal poverty level of about $20,000.

If the person who wants to sponsor you makes less than $20,000 each year you can use additional joint sponsors to meet this requirement.

Next Step

If you have a sponsor in mind, use the SimpleCitizen green card Engine to send them a private link that will retrieve all of the information needed and complete the required documents for your sponsor.

If you have any other questions about a sponsor use our portal to live chat with an immigration attorney now.

Additional Resources

• Click here for information about sponsors from the USCIS website.