Indian on F1 in the US, traveling to Sweden, question about passport validity

Question

I am a graduate student in the US on an F1 visa (2017-2022). My Indian passport expires on 20th January 2019.

I need to travel to a conference held at Sweden on a Schegen visa. The dates are likely to be July 11th, 12th and 13th of 2018. Their rules require only 3 months of passport validity beyond the intended duration of stay. My intended duration is likely to be 2 or 3 days. So I am doing fine there.

However, I am not sure if it's okay to enter the United States again from Sweden in terms of passport validity. I am confused about the six-month rule. Subtracting six months from the expiry leads to 20th July 2018 as the last date of legal travel sort of. So, I am a bit worried if it would be fine to enter the United States on say 13th or 14th of July 2018 (roughly a week away from the six-month validity).

Looking for suggestions/help ASAP. Thanks!

Answer 1

Citizens of India (and, in fact, most countries) are exempt from the U.S. rule that they must have a passport valid for 6 months after their intended stay. So you should not need to worry.

(The current list of exempted countries seems to be this one. The linked document is an update dated December 2016; apparently there is no official way to verify it is the most recent update, but it is the one everyone seems to link to).