Update on the Department of Health and Human Services’ adjudicatory pause on J-1 physician waivers

IDC has received anecdotal reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  (“HHS”) has resuming adjudications for J-1 physician waiver applications filed at the beginning of the federal government fiscal year in October 2025. For several months earlier this year, HHS had not been processing J-1 waiver applications for foreign national physicians seeking to transition into healthcare roles in underserved communities at the end of their medical residency or fellowship programs. The pause was imposing significant concerns for hospitals, health centers, and the medical research industry because it was becoming increasingly likely that J-1 physicians could not directly transition from their J-1 program to H-1B status and would have to return to their home countries while their cases were completed, causing work flow disruptions and subjecting the physicians to President Trump’s new $100,000 fee for H-1B workers that require consular processing. For more information on the pause, see reporting from the Kaiser Family Foundation here.

Colleagues in other offices have shared that some of the J-1 waiver applications they filed in early 2026 are now being adjudicated, which is a six-month processing timeline that used to only take 1-3 weeks. However, many of these applications are still at risk of not being completed by the end of the physicians’ J-1 programs, as the waivers must now be processed by the State Department before USCIS also processes and makes a final determination on the J-1 waiver.