OPT Reporting and Validation

The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) Portal is a tool that allows F-1 students on post-completion Optional Practical Training and STEM OPT to report changes to their home address, telephone number and employer information directly to SEVP. The SEVP Portal will allow you to:

• View details about your post-completion OPT or STEM OPT.
• Report changes to your address, telephone and employer information.
• View and update data on all your employers in one place, except for STEM OPT.

From March 23, 2018, all students currently on post-completion OPT or STEM OPT will receive a message from SEVP instructing them how to set up their account in the portal. This email will be sent to the student's email on his/her F-1 record profile. ISS uses the student's UH email for the F-1 record profile. Students who apply for and are approved for OPT will receive the SEVP Portal email on the date that the OPT authorization starts. They cannot set up the account any earlier.

Yes. The SEVP Portal allows you to report OPT information directly to your F-1 record without having to go through the ISS Office. Update any of the following in the SEVIS Portal:

• Profile Information, including
  • Mailing Address;
  • Physical Address;
  • Phone Number
• Employer Information, including
  • Adding or deleting employers;
  • Employer Name;
  • Employer Address;
  • Job Title;
  • Full or Part-Time;
  • Start and End Dates;
  • Relation of Employment to Field of Study

Reminder: If you finish at one employer, enter the end date of employment. Do not delete employer.

Yes, with exceptions. STEM OPT updates through the SEVP Portal are still limited. ISS recommends that you only use the SEVP Portal to update:

•  Profile Information, including:
  • Mailing Address;
  • Physical Address;
  • Phone Number

For any updates to employer, ISS still requires you to use ISS OPT Report and Validation form. You must still report or submit directly to ISS:

• Validation of information every 6 months:
  • Legal name
  • Residential or mailing address
  • Employer name and address
  • Status of current employment
• Annual Self-Evaluation
• Adding, changing employers
• Termination of employment
• Employer non-compliance with form I-983
• Any material changes or deviations in employment require you to submit to ISS an updated form I-983. Material changes or deviations may include, but are not limited to:
  • Any change of the employer’s Employer Identification Number, (i.e., the company’s Federal Tax ID number) resulting from a change in the employer’s ownership or structure;
  • Any reduction in student compensation that is not tied to a reduction in hours worked;
  • Any significant decrease in hours per week that a student engages in a STEM training opportunity;
  • Changes to the employer’s commitments or student’s learning objectives as documented on the Form I-983.

If you are currently on post-completion OPT or STEM OPT, SEVP will send a message to your UH email address.

• The email will be sent from: Do-No-Reply.SEVP@dhs.ice.gov
• The email subject line will have: Optional Practical Training Approval – the next step. Create an SEVP Portal account

The email will have:

• A unique link to access the account set-up.
• Instructions to set up your account.

Remember:

• You will need your SEVIS ID number in order to set up the account.
• This link can only be used once and is unique to your email.
• The link cannot be shared.
• You must set up your portal account within 14 days of receiving the email or the link will expire.
• If you fail to set up your portal account within 14 days, you must contact ISS for help to have a new email sent to you.

You must contact ISS to have SEVP send an email. You must also check that your UH email account is active.

ISS requires you to keep your UH email account active if you are going to be on OPT. You may do this by enrolling in the UH 'Ohana Online Services. If you have not graduated yet, you may pre-enroll. If you graduated but forgot to enroll, you have a 180 day grace period in which you may enroll. Read the 'Ohana Online Services policies. Once you sign up, your UH email will remain active up to one year. You will need to renew annually, and will receive alerts to do so. If you fail to sign up or renew your UH email account in time, your account will be closed and all associated emails and stored content will be wiped.

Yes. If your account expired for whatever reason, you may still request to re-activate it. Follow these instructions to re-activate UH email account. You may lose data related to that account depending on how long the account was inactive.

If you have been locked out because you forgot your password, or your account was automatically de-activated, you may contact ISS to help re-activate your account. If you need to submit a report immediately and cannot wait for the account reset, you may report directly to ISS.

Yes. If you created an SEVP account on one OPT, you may use it on successive OPT at higher levels of study as long as your SEVIS ID number is the same. This includes STEM OPT. Your portal account will de-activate if you start a new program after your first OPT. Please contact ISS to help re-activate your existing SEVP Portal account if you plan to apply for another OPT.