Form I-751: Removing Conditions on a Marriage Green Card and Translating Your Evidence

What the form is for

USCIS describes Form I-751 this way: use it if you are a conditional permanent resident who obtained status through marriage and want to apply to remove the conditions on your permanent resident status. The USCIS page was last reviewed on June 16, 2026, and lists the form edition date as 04/01/24.

When to file

You must file during the 90-day period immediately before your conditional residence expires. USCIS notes that a petition filed before the first day of that window may be rejected. A person who files with a waiver request, without the spouse, may file at any time before the conditional status expires.

Joint filing and waivers

Most couples file together. USCIS lists the situations in which you may ask for a waiver of the joint filing requirement:

• Termination of your status and removal from the United States would result in extreme hardship.
• You entered the marriage in good faith, but your spouse subsequently died.
• You entered the marriage in good faith, but it ended by annulment or divorce.
• You entered the marriage in good faith, but during the marriage you or your child were battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by your U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse.

The form page lists parallel grounds for a conditional resident child whose parent entered the marriage.

What USCIS asks you to submit

The instruction on the page is broad: submit copies of documents indicating that the marriage was entered in good faith and was not for the purpose of circumventing immigration laws, and submit copies of as many documents as you can, to demonstrate the circumstances of the relationship from the date of the marriage to the present date.

• Copies of the front and back of the cards of any conditional resident children you include in the petition.
• Copies, not originals. USCIS says not to send original documents unless they are specifically requested.

Evidence that is often in Russian or Ukrainian

For couples with ties to Russia or Ukraine, part of the story of the marriage is on paper in another language. These are the kinds of documents that need translation when they are part of an I-751 file:

• Birth certificates of children born abroad.
• A marriage certificate, if the wedding took place outside the United States.
• A divorce certificate or court decision, when the petition is filed with a waiver after divorce.
• A death certificate of the spouse.
• Property, lease, or bank documents from the home country that show both names.
• Letters and written statements from relatives who know the couple.

USCIS states the rule on the same page: if you submit any documents in a foreign language, you must include a full English translation along with a certification from the translator verifying that the translation is complete and accurate.

Names after marriage

Many spouses change their surname after the wedding, and the change travels through several documents at different speeds. The green card may show the married name while the foreign passport still shows the earlier one. Translations should give each name exactly as it stands in the original and use one Latin spelling for each, the one in your passport or on your card.