This article first reported the Q1 FY2026 figure of 43%. USCIS has since published Q2 and Q3 data showing the NIW rate recovering to 55.3% while EB-1A fell to 32.2%, and the analysis below has been revised to reflect both.
The number: from 95% down to 36%, and back to 55%
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. The rate then fell in steps across three fiscal years and bottomed at 36% in the last quarter of FY2025, when a NIW filing was worse than a coin flip. FY2026 has reversed part of that slide. According to the agency’s published I-140 data, USCIS approved 42.5% of decided NIW petitions in Q1, 48.1% in Q2, and 55.3% in Q3, when it approved 3,835 and denied 3,103. That makes Q3 the first quarter since Q3 of FY2025 in which approvals outnumbered denials.
The figures below count decided cases only, approvals divided by approvals plus denials. Set against EB-1A over the same period, the two lines have crossed. NIW was the one collapsing a year ago, and EB-1A is the one collapsing now.
| Period | EB-2 NIW approval rate | EB-1A approval rate |
|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | 95% | 74% |
| FY2023 | 83% | 78% |
| FY2024 | 71% | 72% |
| FY2025 (full year) | 55% | 67% |
| FY2025 Q4 | 36% | 53% |
| FY2026 Q1 | 42.5% | 47.5% |
| FY2026 Q2 | 48.1% | 41.8% |
| FY2026 Q3 | 55.3% | 32.2% |
FY2026 quarters are calculated from USCIS’s Q3 report, published September 8, 2026; earlier years come from the agency’s annual figures. The approval-rate tracker charts the full series and updates as each quarter is released.
“At the bottom, a NIW filing was worse than a coin flip. Three quarters later it is modestly better than one, and EB-1A has taken its place as the hardest self-petition to get approved.”
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. Adjudicators stopped treating a strong CV and a credible plan as enough, and began asking for evidence that the person’s work had 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, from about 22,000 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 failed the tightened prong-two review in large numbers, which dragged the overall rate down further than the standard alone would have.
Why it is recovering, and why that is only part of the story
USCIS has not explained the FY2026 rebound, and the data alone cannot say why it is happening. A reasonable reading is that the filing pool is adjusting: fewer applicants are filing thin, credential-only petitions, and more cases arrive built around documented impact. That is an inference rather than anything the agency has stated, and it should be read that way.
Two cautions keep the recovery in proportion. The first is that 55% is still far below the roughly 95% of FY2022, so a NIW remains a real denial risk for an under-documented record. The second is the queue. About 96,300 NIW petitions were pending at the end of Q3 FY2026, up from about 82,900 at the end of Q1, with nearly 14,000 new filings arriving in Q3 alone. Approval odds have improved while waits have grown, which makes premium processing, available for NIW, worth weighing when timing matters.
What a NIW that still gets approved looks like now
The rate is an average, and averages hide the cases that clear cleanly. A well-built petition that squarely meets the current prong-two bar is approvable, and the difference between those and the denied pile comes down to evidence of impact rather than evidence of qualification. 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. The guide on documenting national interest for an NIW works through what each of the three prongs expects, and the researcher evidence checklist turns it into a document-by-document list.
NIW or EB-1A: the comparison has flipped
A year ago the instinct was to treat EB-1A as the safer self-petition, and the table shows why that no longer holds. In Q3 FY2026 USCIS approved 32.2% of the EB-1A petitions it decided, 1,348 approvals against 2,832 denials, about 23 points below NIW. The two still test different things. EB-1A asks for sustained acclaim measured against ten regulatory criteria, while NIW asks whether a specific endeavor has national importance and whether you are positioned to advance it. Some records fit the acclaim frame far better, and for those applicants EB-1A can still be the right filing. The companion analysis of the EB-1A decline covers what that category now demands.
For a record that could credibly go either way, though, the current numbers favor the waiver, and the choice deserves a fresh look rather than a default carried over from a year ago. The decision framework for researchers walks through which of NIW, EB-1A, and EB-1B fits a given profile, and EB-1B, at 93% in Q3, remains the strongest route for anyone holding a permanent research job offer.