November 2026 Visa Bulletin: EB-2 Approvals Move Forward Three Months, and the Filing Window Stays Open

What moved in November

The State Department’s November 2026 Visa Bulletin, the second of fiscal year 2027, moved several employment-based final action dates forward after October’s reset. The largest move was EB-2 for applicants from most of the world, which includes the national interest waiver: three months, from January 1, 2025 to April 1, 2025.

Mexico and the Philippines follow the rest-of-world dates for EB-1 and EB-2. EB-3 Philippines stayed at August 15, 2023, and EB-3 Other Workers for most of the world moved five months, to June 1, 2022. All EB-5 set-aside categories remain current.

The filing window stays open

The Dates for Filing chart, which governs when an application can be submitted rather than approved, did not move for EB-1, EB-2, or EB-3.

Which chart applies to green card applicants inside the US is USCIS’s call, made each month on its adjustment of status filing charts page. For November, USCIS designated the Dates for Filing chart for both employment-based and family-based filings, the same choice it made in October. The bulletin’s default would have been the Final Action Dates chart.

What the designation means

Nothing changes for filing from October. An EB-2 applicant from most of the world with a priority date before March 15, 2026 can file an I-485 in November, and EB-1 applicants born in China or India can file with a priority date before July 1, 2024. Those who filed in October simply wait for the final action date to reach them.

Why it could still change

USCIS decides the chart month by month. Had it chosen Final Action Dates, an EB-2 applicant from most of the world would have needed a priority date before April 1, 2025 to file, almost a year earlier than the March 15, 2026 filing cutoff. A future month could bring that switch, so applicants who are eligible now and have a package ready are better off filing while the window is open.

What it means by applicant

EB-2 NIW, most of the world

The three-month advance means applicants with priority dates from January through March 2025 can now be approved, where in October they could only file. The final action date is still almost a year behind the March 15, 2026 filing cutoff, so many recent NIW filers who are able to file will still wait for approval. The priority date estimator uses the full history of these dates to project when a given priority date might come up.

EB-1A, EB-1B, and EB-1C

EB-1 stays current for everyone except applicants born in China or India, so most EB-1 applicants can file and be approved without a visa-number wait. EB-2’s final action date, by contrast, now sits about a year and a half behind the calendar. That is a real advantage for EB-1, though it has to be weighed against approval odds: USCIS approved 32.2% of EB-1A petitions in the third quarter of FY2026 against 55.3% for the NIW, according to its published I-140 data.

India and China

India saw almost no movement: EB-1 stayed at February 1, 2023, EB-2 at November 1, 2013, and EB-3 moved three weeks. EB-1 China advanced a month. EB-1 India is more than nine years ahead of EB-2 India, and EB-1 China about two years ahead of EB-2 China, which is why an EB-1A or EB-1B petition, where the record supports it, can shorten the wait by years. An applicant married to someone born elsewhere may be able to use the spouse’s country instead, as the guide to cross-chargeability explains.