The U.S. Department of State is expanding its online-presence review of visa applicants again. Beginning October 1, 2026, applicants for I, TN, and TD nonimmigrant visas will be included in the department’s expanded screening process and instructed to set their social media profiles to “public” or “open.”
For international students and professionals, however, the most important point is that this is not a new social media screening rule for F-1 students. F-1 and M-1 students, their F-2 and M-2 dependents, J-1 and J-2 exchange visitors, and H-1B and H-4 applicants were already subject to online-presence review. These visa categories are particularly relevant to Day1CPT.org’s international student and professional audience.
The September 18 State Department announcement adds three visa classifications to the existing online-presence review system:
Applicants in these categories are instructed to change the privacy settings on all social media profiles to public or open to facilitate the review.
The State Department says it uses available information during visa screening to determine whether applicants qualify for the visa requested and whether any grounds of inadmissibility apply. The agency describes online information as one part of its broader security and eligibility screening process.
The September announcement may sound like a completely new visa-screening policy, but the expansion has occurred in stages.
By December 2025, the State Department had explicitly instructed F, M, J, H-1B, and H-4 visa applicants to make their social media profiles public for online-presence review.
In March 2026, the government expanded the process further to several additional categories, including A-3, certain C-3 applicants, G-5, H-3, certain H-4 dependents, K, Q, R, S, T, and U visa applicants. The September 2026 announcement now adds I, TN, and TD visas to that list.
Social media information itself has also been part of U.S. visa applications for years. Since May 31, 2019, the State Department has requested social media identifiers from most immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants worldwide.
The more recent policy goes further by requiring online-presence review for specified visa categories and instructing covered applicants to make their profiles accessible to consular screening.
For F-1 students, the September 18 announcement does not announce a new CPT, Day 1 CPT, OPT, STEM OPT, or F-1 status rule. Its scope is visa screening and adjudication.
That distinction matters. An F-1 student applying for a visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate is already within the online-presence review framework. The new October 1 expansion does not newly add F-1 applicants; instead, it extends an existing process to TN, TD, and I visa applicants.
Students applying for an F-1 visa should continue to follow the State Department’s existing instructions, including completing the DS-160 accurately. The DS-160 also requires student and exchange visitor applicants to provide information such as their SEVIS ID and U.S. school or program address.
Applicants should also remember that eligibility for an F-1 visa extends beyond social media screening. State Department guidance says an F-1 applicant generally must show acceptance at an eligible school, intent to pursue a full course of study, sufficient financial resources, preparation for the proposed course of study, and present intent to leave the United States after completing the authorized activities.
The October expansion shows that online-presence review is becoming applicable to a broader range of nonimmigrant visa categories rather than remaining limited to students and certain workers.
For F-1 students and H-1B professionals, the practical takeaway is therefore continuity rather than a new rule: social media and other publicly available online information can already be part of visa screening.
Applicants preparing for a visa interview should rely on the instructions of the State Department and the U.S. embassy or consulate handling their case and make sure the information provided in their visa application is complete and accurate.