EB-2 vs EB-3: What’s the Difference, and Which Is Faster?

An EB-2 job needs a higher level of education or ability, while EB-3 covers more kinds of jobs. The steps, the government fees and the rules for your family are the same in both.

EB-2 needs a job at the master’s level or a worker of exceptional ability. EB-3 needs a job at the bachelor’s level, or one that takes a set amount of training or experience. In both, the job has to require the degree or experience, and you have to hold it yourself.

Your category comes from the minimum requirements your employer writes for the job in the PERM application. The degrees you hold count only once the job asks for them.

Those requirements sit in the job section of Form ETA-9089, the PERM application: the minimum education, the years of experience and any alternative combination the employer accepts. After the Department of Labor certifies the PERM, your employer files Form I-140 in the category those requirements support. You can ask your employer, or its attorney, for the certified ETA-9089 and for the category marked on the I-140.

Two software engineers can hold the same master’s degree and end up in different categories. One employer’s PERM requires a master’s degree in computer science, so that engineer files in EB-2. The other employer’s PERM requires a bachelor’s degree and two years of experience, so that engineer files in EB-3.

The requirements also have to fit the job. The Department of Labor expects them to be normal for the occupation, and anything above that needs a business reason the employer can document. A higher requirement also raises the prevailing wage, the minimum pay the Department of Labor sets for the job. In the department’s guidance, a master’s degree in an occupation that usually needs a bachelor’s adds one wage level.

The PERM, the I-140 and the green card application follow the same steps in EB-2 and EB-3. The same agencies run them, so they take about the same time.

Most of the time goes into the PERM process, from the prevailing wage request to the Department of Labor’s review. USCIS then decides the I-140, and your employer can pay for premium processing to get that decision within 15 business days in either category.

The two categories split after the I-140 is approved. You then wait for a visa number, and that wait can differ by months or years between EB-2 and EB-3.

In practice, EB-2 has the shorter wait for most countries of birth, because its Visa Bulletin dates usually sit further ahead than the EB-3 dates. The exception is a country with heavy EB-2 demand, such as India or China, where EB-3 has at times moved ahead.

Each category gets 28.6% of the employment-based green cards issued in a year, under section 203(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The law also passes unused numbers down: green cards EB-1 does not use go to EB-2, and green cards EB-1 and EB-2 do not use go to EB-3. A third rule keeps any one country to 7% of the total.

When more people born in one country want EB-2 green cards than that limit allows, they wait longer in EB-2 than workers born elsewhere. If fewer of them are waiting in EB-3, the EB-3 dates for that country can move ahead of the EB-2 dates.

In the October 2023 Visa Bulletin, for example, the EB-3 dates for India and for China were both ahead of the EB-2 dates. EB-3 workers born there could reach approval first. For workers born in other countries, the same bulletin had EB-2 ahead.

The day the Department of Labor received your employer’s PERM application, at the start of the case, is your priority date. Your green card can be approved only once the cutoff date for your category and country, which the State Department’s Visa Bulletin publishes every month, reaches that date. In some months USCIS also lets you file the green card application a little earlier, from a second chart in the same bulletin.

An approved I-140 gives its priority date to any later I-140 you qualify for in EB-1, EB-2 or EB-3. So you can move to the other category when its dates reach yours first. You keep that date unless USCIS revokes the approval for fraud or a serious error, or the labor certification behind it is cancelled.

The government filing fees are the same in both categories: one I-140 filing fee, one Asylum Program Fee and the same green card application fees. By law, your employer pays every cost of the PERM, the attorney’s PERM work and the job ads included.

In practice, recruitment for an EB-2 job usually costs more. An EB-2 job normally counts as a professional job. On top of the state job order and two Sunday newspaper ads, the employer then runs three more recruitment steps from a list the Department of Labor sets. An EB-3 job for a skilled or other worker usually needs only the basic steps.

Moving between the categories adds a second I-140, with its own filing fee and the attorney’s fee for preparing it, to the EB-2 or EB-3 green card cost.

The family rules are the same in both categories. Your spouse and your unmarried children under 21 get green cards as your derivatives, in your category and on your priority date.

For a child close to 21, a switch between categories can change the outcome. A law called the Child Status Protection Act keeps some children under 21 for green card purposes after their birthday. USCIS works that protection out on the petition your case uses, so moving to the other category means a new calculation, which can help or hurt.

Your employer starts from what the job requires. If the job needs an advanced degree, your employer can file in EB-2. If the EB-3 dates for your country later move faster, a second petition in EB-3 on the same PERM keeps both options open. If the job needs only a bachelor’s degree or two years of experience, the case belongs in EB-3.

After the job, weigh these: