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Resource guide

Green card wait times —
by country of birth.

Employment-based green cards are capped per country, so how long you wait after your petition is approved depends heavily on where you were born. India and China face the longest queues; most other countries are current.

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Data source
travel.state.gov
DOS updates
Monthly
Per-country cap
~7% / year
Longest EB queue
EB-2 India
Last reviewed
July 2026
Understanding the numbers

The priority-date wait.

ℹ

This is the priority-date wait — not petition or interview time. After your I-140 is approved, you still need an available visa number before the green card can be issued. That availability is governed by the monthly Visa Bulletin and your country of birth. See USCIS processing times for the petition wait and visa wait times by country for consular interviews.

Congress caps employment-based green cards at about 140,000 per year, and no single country of birth may take more than roughly 7% of them. Countries that generate more demand than that share — overwhelmingly India and China — develop multi-year backlogs, while applicants from most other countries move through with little or no wait. Your position in the queue is fixed by your priority date: generally the day your PERM labor certification or I-140 petition was filed. When the Visa Bulletin's cut-off date for your category and country passes your priority date, a visa number becomes available. India-born applicants weighing EB-2 NIW against the backlog can read our EB-2 NIW priority-date strategy for Indian nationals.

By country of birth

Priority dates by category.

Final Action Dates from the July 2026 Visa Bulletin. "Current" means no wait — a visa number is immediately available. Mexico follows the "All other countries" column for employment-based categories. Dates move every month and can retrogress without warning.

Current No wait
Recent 2022 or later
Backlog Before 2022
CategoryAll other countriesChina (mainland)India
EB-1 — Extraordinary ability / multinationalCurrentJun 2023Oct 2022
EB-2 — Advanced degree / NIWCurrentSep 2021Unavailable
EB-3 — Professionals & skilled workersAug 2024Dec 2021Jan 2014
EB-3 — PhilippinesAug 2023—
EB-5 — Investor (unreserved)CurrentDec 2016Unavailable
EB-5 — Investor (rural / HUA / infrastructure set-asides)CurrentCurrentCurrent

These dates change monthly — and move backward as often as forward. In July 2026, EB-2 India and EB-5 unreserved India became unavailable for the remainder of FY2026 (through September 30). EB-1 India retrogressed again, to October 2022. The State Department has flagged possible further EB-1 India retrogression before fiscal year end. Confirm the current month's cut-offs, and whether the Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing chart applies, on the official Department of State Visa Bulletin.

What it means for you

Planning around the backlog.

For applicants born in a current country, the priority-date wait is a non-issue — petition approval is most of the battle. For Indian and Chinese nationals, it is often the single biggest factor in the strategy, and there are levers worth evaluating early.

01

Choose the category carefully

EB-1A (extraordinary ability) sits ahead of EB-2 and EB-3 in the queue for backlogged countries and allows self-petition. For a strong profile, building toward EB-1A can save years over EB-2 NIW. Compare petition times.

02

Lock in an early priority date

Your priority date is your place in line — and it can be retained and ported across petitions. Filing sooner, even in a backlogged category, preserves your position while you pursue a faster path in parallel.

03

Use cross-chargeability

A spouse born in a current country can change the country your case is charged to — potentially skipping the India or China queue entirely. We screen for this at intake.

FAQ

Common questions.

U.S. law caps the number of employment-based green cards any single country of birth can receive each year at roughly 7% of the total. Because India and China generate far more demand than that share, their applicants form multi-year queues while "all other countries" remain current or close to it. Your place in line is set by your priority date — generally the date your PERM labor certification or I-140 petition was filed.
No. The NIW waives the job-offer and labor-certification requirements, which can speed up the petition stage, but it is still an EB-2 immigrant category and is subject to the same per-country priority-date queue. For India-born applicants in particular, an approved NIW can still face a long wait for a visa number. This is why category choice — for example EB-1A versus EB-2 NIW — matters so much for backlogged countries.
Cross-chargeability lets a married couple use the more favorable country of birth between the two spouses for visa-number purposes. If you were born in India but your spouse was born in a country that is current, you may be able to "charge" the case to your spouse's country and skip the India backlog. It depends on the facts and the timing, and it is one of the first things we evaluate for backlogged-country clients.
The Visa Bulletin publishes two charts. The Final Action Dates chart (Chart A) controls when a green card can actually be approved. The Dates for Filing chart (Chart B) can sometimes let applicants submit an adjustment-of-status application earlier — but only when USCIS announces it will accept Chart B for that month and category. The figures on this page reflect Final Action Dates. Always confirm which chart applies for your category in the current month.
The dates here reflect the July 2026 Visa Bulletin and are provided for general guidance. The Department of State issues a new Visa Bulletin every month, and dates can advance, stall, or retrogress (move backward) with little notice — India EB-2 became unavailable and EB-1 India retrogressed again in July 2026. Always confirm the current month's figures on the official Visa Bulletin at travel.state.gov before relying on them.