From your country
Your USCIS forms, from China
Chinese documents, USCIS boxes. In Chinese your surname comes first; here is which box it lands in.
Available now in New Jersey.
Your name on the form
In China the surname comes first. In 王小明, Wang is the family name and Xiaoming the given name.
Your passport already separates the two parts. Copy “Surname” into “Family Name” and “Given names” into “Given Name”.
Reversing the order swaps two boxes on a federal form. That is why it gets copied from the passport, not from memory.
The same syllable is written Zhou or Chou, Xie or Hsieh. Your passport’s spelling is what governs.
A two-character given name, or a generation character, is one single given name. It is not a middle name.
Write your name the same way on every form. A surname that changes from page to page raises questions.
The “State or Province” box
USCIS asks for a “state or province”. In your country that level is called a province.
In China, “State or Province” means your province: Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan.
Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing are direct-administered municipalities and sit in no province. The city name goes there.
Autonomous regions, such as Guangxi or Xinjiang, sit at that same level. Their name goes in that same box.
The district and the neighbourhood belong on the address line. They are not the province.
USCIS mails you at the address you write down. Check it before you sign.
The ñ, the accents and your passport
Your passport writes your name in Latin letters, without tone marks. Copy it that way, adding no hyphen and no space.
We print on your form exactly what you type. Accents do not disappear on their own.
Your national ID is not your A-Number
The 居民身份证, your resident identity card, is Chinese. It is not your A-Number nor a USCIS number.
The A-Number comes from USCIS, not from your country. It appears on the papers USCIS has sent you.
Where do I find my A-Number →If you are outside the United States
We prepare your form, you print it, sign it by hand and mail it. Being abroad does not change that.
We publish no consulate address, phone number, hours or appointment rule. The State Department handles those.
If your question needs a lawyer
We do not give legal advice and we do not decide your case. We tell you where to look for a licensed attorney or an accredited representative.
Start whenever you want
You fill in the interview in Spanish for free. You pay only when your form is ready, and USCIS fees are paid separately.
See the forms