SEVIS and the SEVP Portal

The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) Portal is an important tool that lets students on post-completion optional practical training (OPT) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) OPT meet their legal reporting requirements. Students are responsible for reporting:

Changes to their address and phone number.
Changes to their employment.

Students can use the SEVP Portal to report these changes, or they can ask a designated school official (DSO) report it for them. DSOs cannot limit a student’s access to the portal. You can require students to use the portal.

Students can change their contact and employment information up to 15 days after the end date of their optional practical training (OPT).

While DSOs cannot access the portal, they are still very important to the students. They can:

Request that the Initial portal Account Creation email be re-sent.
Unlock a student’s portal account.
Change the student’s email which the portal uses for account management.
Update a student’s address, phone number, and employer information.
Access a downloadable report to see what data was changed by students using the portal.
Identify students with portal accounts.
Reset their own password, if they have:
- Forgotten their password.
- Been locked out of their portal account because they mistyped their password or SEVIS ID.

Data Flow between SEVIS and the SEVP Portal

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and the SEVP Portal regularly share data:

Student-changed data is passed from the SEVP Portal to SEVIS immediately.
DSO-changed data is passed from SEVIS to the portal once an hour.

Any updates of the student’s information in SEVIS will appear in the SEVP Portal after the next data transfer, which should not be later than the next hour. If the SEVIS data transfer triggers a Portal email to the student, it may take a little longer for the student to receive the email.
When a student’s OPT Start Date is reached, it might take a day for the account creation email to reach the student, depending on what time of day the OPT approval comes into SEVIS from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Normally though, the approval for those students who filed as early as the regulations permit would have that approval sitting in the SEVIS record waiting for midnight on the student’s approved OPT Start Date.

Available Student Actions in the Portal

Students can take limited actions in the portal. They can:

Update their physical home addresses.
Update their mailing addresses.
Update their telephone numbers.
Update employers’ information.
Monitor their employment authorization.
Reset their own password, if they have:
- Forgotten their password.
- Been locked out of their portal account because they mistyped their password or SEVIS ID.

Notes about student’s actions:

Students cannot access SEVIS.
Students can change their contact and employment information up to 15 days after the end date of their optional practical training (OPT).
Students can enter up to 1000 characters in SEVP Portal text fields. The portal text fields include a Characters Remaining countdown indicator, starting at 1000 characters.

The SEVP Portal emails a student when:

They are eligible to create SEVP Portal accounts.
Their email address is changed in SEVIS.
They are given a temporary password to reset their accounts.
Their STEM OPT employer end date changed. The portal notifies the students of their changed reporting deadlines.
Their STEM OPT 6-month validation report is due.
Their STEM OPT self-evaluation is due.

For more information, see the SEVP Portal Email Notices to Students article on the SEVIS Help Hub.

There are four basic steps for creating an account in the SEVP Portal:

Step	Player	Action
Step 1	SEVIS	When the status of an OPT request in SEVIS changes to “Approved” and on or after the Actual OPT Start Date, SEVIS sends the following OPT-related student data to the SEVP Portal: SEVIS ID Email address Biographic Information Contact Information Information on the OPT Authorization Employer information
Step 2	Portal	The portal emails the student with instructions for creating their portal account: Email contains a link the student must use to create the account. Link is unique to the student.
Step 3	Student	Clicks the link. Enters the SEVIS ID and creates a password. Note: The student’s email address will be the student’s user name. Therefore it must be unique in the portal.
Step 4	Portal	Establishes the account.

Students who do not receive the email with their unique link should:

Check their spam or junk mail folders.
Contact their DSO. DSOs can request the portal re-send the email.

Best Practice: DSOs should check the accuracy of the email address before submitting the request.

To request the SEVP Portal resend the Initial Account Creation email:

Go to the Student Information page.

2. Click Reset Portal Account link under the Actions menu on the left side of the page. The Reset Portal Account modal opens.

3. Click either Cancel or Submit:

Cancel: Closes the modal without requesting the portal resend the account creation email.
Submit: Sends the request to the SEVP Portal. A Confirm Request Successfully Submitted message displays.

The Confirm Request Successfully Submitted message displaysed

The student must click the link in the email and finish the steps for creating the account.

The SEVP Portal will lock a student’s account, if the student fails to enter the proper password three times. Access to the portal can be reset by:

The student using the Reset Password function on the SEVP Portal Login page.

For more information on students unlocking their portal password, see the Reset Password section in the SEVP Portal User Guide.

The DSO using the Reset Portal Account function in SEVIS.

To unlock a student's portal account:

Go to the Student Information page.

2. Click Reset Portal Account link under the Actions menu on the left side of the page. The Reset Portal Account modal opens.

3. Click either Cancel or Submit:

Cancel closes the modal without requesting the portal unlock the account.
Submit sends the request to the portal. A Confirm Request Successfully Submitted message displays.

The Confirm Request Successfully Submitted message displayed

The student must click the link in the email and change the password for the account.

Students cannot change the email address associated with their portal account. DSOs must update the student’s email address in SEVIS. When the SEVP Portal gets the updated email address, the portal:

Locks the student’s account.
Sends the student two emails:
- A temporary password is sent to the new email address. The student must:
  - Use the new email address and the temporary password to log in to the portal.
  - Change the password.
- A notice of the change is sent to the old email address. If the change is a mistake, the student is told to contact a DSO to correct it in SEVIS.

DSOs can update the student’s information using the following processes in SEVIS:

SEVIS sends changed data to the portal once a day. The student will be able to see the updated data the next day.

The following SEVP Portal status changes are recorded in your student's SEVIS record event history:

Portal Status: Student Notified To Create Account
Portal Status: Account Locked
Portal Status: Student Has Account
Portal Status: Portal Email Account Changed
Portal Status: Account Unlocked
Portal Status: Account Closed

To see a student’s Event History page, go to the SEVIS Help Hub Student Event History page.

DSOs can download a report in SEVIS to monitor what data- students have changed via the portal. To access the downloadable report:

Go to the Downloads page.

2. Locate the SEVIS Updates Submitted by Students report.

3. Click either CSV or Excel to start the download process. The Download Report Dates modal opens.

4. Enter the date range for the period of time you want the report to cover.

5. Click either Cancel or Submit:

Cancel: Closes the modal without requesting the report.
Submit: Sends the request to the portal.

6. SEVIS opens the report, which contains the following data fields:

Surname/Primary Name
Given Name
SEVIS ID
U.S. Mailing Address 1
U.S. Mailing Address 2
U.S. Mailing City
U.S. Mailing State
U.S. Mailing Postal Code
U.S. Mailing Routing Code
U.S. Physical Address 1
U.S. Physical Address 2
U.S. Physical City
U.S. Physical State
U.S. Physical Postal Code
U.S. Physical Routing Code
Foreign Address 1 (Not editable in the portal)
Foreign Address 2 (Not editable in the portal)
Foreign City (Not editable in the portal)
Foreign State Province (Not editable in the portal)
Foreign Country (Not editable in the portal)
Foreign Postal Code (Not editable in the portal)
U.S. Telephone
Foreign Telephone Country Code
Foreign Telephone
No Telephone Declaration (Not editable in the portal)
Email (Not editable in the portal)
SEVIS Employer ID (This is a number assigned by SEVIS. It does not have any meaning outside of SEVIS and the portal. This field is not editable in the portal.)
EIN (Employer Identification Number)

The Employer Identification Number is a unique number the Internal Revenue Service assigns to an employer.

Employer Name
Employer Address 1
Employer Address 2
Employer City
Employer State Code
Employer Postal Code
FT/PT [Full-Time/Part-Time]
Employment Start Date
Employment End Date
Supervisor Last Name
Supervisor First Name
Job Title
Supervisor Email
Supervisor Telephone
Supervisor Telephone Extension
Date of Update from portal

Refer to the SEVIS Downloads article for detailed instructions on how to use the download function in SEVIS.

SEVIS offers DSOs the following tools to identify which students have SEVP Portal accounts:

Student List: Students with Post-completion or STEM OPT Who Have a Portal Account
SEVIS Indicator: Portal Account indicator on the Student Information page.

Student List: Students with Post-completion or STEM OPT Who Have a SEVP Portal Account

SEVIS provides a student list to help DSOs monitor students with portal accounts.

A list of students with SEVP Portal accounts and displayed in a list on SEVIS

The list contains the following columns:

Surname/Primary Name
Given Name
SEVIS ID
Portal Account Status
OPT Type
Actual OPT Start Date
Actual OPT End Date
Recommended OPT Start Date
Recommended OPT End Date
Portal Account Created Date
Portal Account Last Update Date

Refer to the Alerts and Lists article for detailed instructions on sorting and exporting this alert.

SEVIS Indicator: Portal Account

SEVIS displays the Portal Account indicator Student Information page when a student has an active portal account.

the Student Information page displaying an indicator that shows when a student has an active Portal account.

SEVIS Help Hub