The number: NIW approvals fell from 95% to 43%
For years the EB-2 national interest waiver was one of the most forgiving petitions in employment-based immigration. Through FY2022, USCIS approved about 95% of the NIW petitions it decided. In the first quarter of FY2026, October to December 2025, it approved 43%. That is the lowest rate in the agency’s published I-140 data, and it did not arrive in one drop. It fell in steps across three fiscal years, and a single quarter along the way, Q4 of FY2025, came in at 36%.
The figures below count decided cases only, approvals divided by approvals plus denials, so they leave out everything still pending. Set against EB-1A over the same years, the NIW line is the one that fell furthest and fastest.
| Fiscal year | EB-2 NIW approval rate | EB-1A approval rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | 95% | 74% |
| FY2023 | 83% | 78% |
| FY2024 | 71% | 72% |
| FY2025 | 55% | 67% |
| FY2026 (Q1) | 43% | 47% |
Read the NIW column as your own odds if you file a petition of average strength. A category that cleared better than nine in ten a few years ago now denies more than it approves. The approval-rate tracker keeps these numbers current as USCIS publishes each quarter.
“A NIW filing that would have sailed through in FY2021 is now a coin flip at best. The standard moved, and a petition that has not moved with it is exposed.”
Why the rate collapsed
Two things happened at once, and they compounded. The standard got harder to meet, and far more people started filing.
Prong two got harder
The national interest waiver is governed by Matter of Dhanasar, which sets three requirements: the endeavor has substantial merit and national importance, the applicant is well positioned to advance it, and it would benefit the US to waive the job offer and labor certification. Starting in FY2024, USCIS sharpened its focus on the second of those, whether the applicant is well positioned. Adjudicators stopped treating a strong CV and a credible plan as enough, and began asking for evidence that the person’s work has already been adopted, cited, funded, or relied on by others in the field. The agency’s policy manual guidance on the national interest waiver frames the same factors, but the practical bar for satisfying them rose well beyond what the text alone signals.
Filings roughly tripled
At the same time, NIW volume exploded. USCIS went from about 22,000 NIW filings in FY2022 to about 66,000 in FY2025. A good part of that surge came from applicants who were sold the NIW as an easy self-petition and filed thin cases built on credentials rather than demonstrated impact. Those petitions fail the tightened prong-two review in large numbers, which drags the overall approval rate down further than the standard alone would. The average fell partly because the standard rose and partly because the pool of filers got weaker at the same moment.
What a NIW that still gets approved looks like now
The rate is an average, and averages hide the cases that still clear cleanly. A well-built petition that squarely meets the current prong-two bar is still approvable, and the gap between those and the denied pile comes down to evidence of impact rather than evidence of qualification. The distinction is concrete: qualification evidence says you are capable of the work, while impact evidence shows that work already mattering to people other than you.
In practice that means documenting where your prior work has been adopted or built upon, securing independent recommendation letters that speak to specific contributions instead of offering general praise, and drawing a clear line from the proposed endeavor to a national-level benefit rather than a purely personal or employer-specific one. Our guide on documenting national interest for an NIW works through what each of the three prongs now expects. The petitions that survive the current review are the ones that treat prong two as the whole game, because that is where the denials are concentrated.
NIW or EB-1A: the honest comparison
The obvious reaction to a falling NIW rate is to reach for EB-1A instead, and the table shows why that instinct is only half right. EB-1A held up better through FY2024, but it is now declining on the same curve, sitting at 47% in Q1 FY2026, only a few points above NIW, which makes it no safe harbor. For the right record it is simply a different test, one built on sustained acclaim measured against ten regulatory criteria rather than on the national importance of a specific endeavor. Some records fit that frame far better than the waiver frame, and for those applicants EB-1A was always the stronger filing regardless of the rates.
The move is to choose the category your evidence actually supports, then build it to the current standard, rather than picking whichever one used to be easy. Our EB-1 pillar lays out how the first-preference paths differ, and our decision framework for researchers walks through which of NIW, EB-1A, and EB-1B fits a given profile. Whichever you file, the era where a category forgave a thin record is over on both.