SEVIS Help Hub illustration

SEVIS Help Hub

Email Standards

Email Standards

Last updated: June 17, 2020

Principal Designated School Officials (PDSOs) and Designated School Officials (DSOs) receive their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) User ID and password instructions by email when first registering in SEVIS. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to use PDSO and DSO SEVIS email addresses to send important SEVIS updates.

P/DSOs also use SEVIS to store students’ and dependents’ email addresses. To make sure email addresses in SEVIS are correct, please follow these standards.

  • SEVIS email addresses must be in the following format: Username@domainname.com, .edu, .net, etc.
  • PDSOs and DSOs may not enter email addresses used by more than one person, for example, info@AVCcollege.edu
  • SEVIS will auto-correct emails with certain common email address errors: “@@”; “‘space’”; “.@”; “@.”; “‘comma’”; etc.
Email Component System Limitations
Username
  • Cannot exceed 64 characters.
  • Characters allowed for the username portion:
    • Uppercase and lowercase English letters (a-z, A-Z)
    • Digits 0 to 9
    • Special characters: ! # $ % & ‘ * + - = ? ^ _ ` { | } ~
    • Dot .

Note: The dot cannot be the first or last character and cannot appear two or more times in sequence.
Domain Name
  • May have a maximum of 240 characters.
  • Characters allowed in the domain name portion:
    • Uppercase and lowercase English letters (a-z, A-Z)
    • Digits 0 to 9
    • Hyphen –
    • Dot .

Note: The dot cannot be the first or last character and cannot appear two or more times in sequence.
Entire Email Address
  • Cannot exceed 255 characters.
  • Only one email address will be accepted in each email field; that is, between email address separators; such as, semi-colons or commas.

Related Tags: SEVIS

What's New

Chatbot

Try the Facebook Chatbot

Visit the tool on the Study in the States Facebook page to learn how to become an F or M international student in the United States.

Read more on the blog
Summer Employment

Learn About Summer Employment

While employed this summer, make sure you have all the relevant information on maintaining your student status, and the steps you must take before returning to school. 

Read more on the blog

Icon Guide

See the SEVIS Help Icons on the SEVIS Help Hub for a quick-reference of the icons used in this user guide.

I'm Looking For

Contact Us

Phone

SEVP Response Center

703-603-3400

Office

Monday - Friday 
8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET,
except holidays

Email

SEVP@ice.dhs.gov

Tipline

HSI Tipline

Was This Helpful?
Please provide feedback on this page.