EB-2 Priority Date 2026: Where Your Wait Stands Now

Your EB-2 priority date is set by the first government filing in your case. Which filing that is depends on your route.

If your green card runs through the employer-sponsored EB-2, the case starts with a PERM application. Your employer files Form ETA-9089 with the Department of Labor, and the day the Department receives it becomes your priority date. That is usually a year or more before anyone files the I-140 petition.

If you file for yourself as a national interest waiver, there is no PERM step. Your case starts with the I-140 instead, and USCIS stamps your priority date on the day it receives that petition. The rule covering both routes is 8 CFR 204.5(d).

You can find your date on the Form I-797 receipt notice USCIS sends after the I-140 is filed, and again on the approval notice. On a PERM case, check it against the certified ETA Form 9089, which shows the day the Department of Labor received the application.

Processing speed does not change the date. Premium processing gets you a faster decision on the petition, and your place in line stays where it was.

Every month the State Department publishes a chart showing how far down the line it has reached for each country. Your column says one of three things: Current, a cutoff date, or Unavailable.

Current means there is no wait, and a green card is ready as soon as your petition is approved. A cutoff date means only people whose priority date falls before that date can move forward. Unavailable means the government is not issuing green cards in that column at all right now.

On the August 2026 Visa Bulletin, the EB-2 final action date is Current for every country except China and India. China sits at September 1, 2021. India is Unavailable, because it used up its share for the 2026 fiscal year. The State Department has warned that other categories may also have to slow down or stop before the year ends on September 30.

These figures change every month. Check the current bulletin before you plan around any date on this page.

The Visa Bulletin has two charts each month, and they do different jobs. Final action dates tell you when a green card can actually be approved and issued. Dates for filing sits ahead of it and tells you when you can start sending in the paperwork.

India shows why the difference matters. Its final action column reads Unavailable while its dates for filing column still shows January 15, 2015. Paperwork can keep moving on a case that cannot be approved yet.

If you are inside the US, USCIS picks one of the two charts each month and posts the choice on its adjustment of status filing charts page. For August 2026 it is using the final action chart for all employment-based cases. If you are applying from abroad, the National Visa Center collects your documents once the filing chart reaches you, and your interview waits for the final action chart.

For someone born in India, that monthly choice decides whether anything can be filed at all. USCIS is on the final action chart and that column is Unavailable, so no new EB-2 adjustment applications can go in. If USCIS switched to the filing chart, that door would open again without a single cutoff moving.

If you were born in India, waiting for a green card number is the longest part of your EB-2 case by far. Even in a normal month the cutoff sits more than ten years back. Right now the category is Unavailable, so nothing is being issued at all.

The reason is a limit written into US law. Each year the US has about 140,000 employment-based green cards to give out. EB-2 gets 28.6 percent of them, roughly 40,000, plus any that EB-1 does not use. On top of that, no single country can normally take more than 7 percent of the year's total. Far more people born in India apply than that 7 percent allows, and everyone who does not get a green card this year stays in line for next year. The line has grown that way for years.

India became Unavailable this year because it had already used its full share before the fiscal year ended. When that happens, the State Department stops issuing in that column until October 1. Petitions carry on being filed and approved during the pause. Only the last step stops.

It helps to look at the other EB rows as well. In the same month, EB-3 for India is issuing at a January 2014 cutoff while EB-2 is issuing nothing. Each category gets its own separate allocation, and the demand behind each one is different.

Some people with an approved EB-2 file a second petition in EB-3, so they can stand in whichever line is moving. They keep their original priority date when they do. It is not free. A second case means a new labor certification and a new petition, and the two lines have swapped places before.

The cutoff moves at an uneven pace. It can jump several months when unused green cards turn up, sit still for a year, then move backward when demand catches up. Plan around a range of years rather than a single date.

If you were born in China you also have a wait, but a shorter one than India's. The cutoff has been sitting in 2021, so a case filed today joins a line that is currently several years long.

China's column moves on its own. A month that pushes China forward can leave India where it is, because each country's demand is measured separately against the same 7 percent limit. China's EB-2 backlog is big enough to need a cutoff, but it has not run out of green cards mid-year the way India's has.

What you should do is the same as for India, on a shorter timescale. Check the chart every month, file as soon as either chart reaches you, and protect the date you already have.

Most EB-2 applicants are not in a backlog at all. If your column says Current, you can file your I-485 green card application in the same package as the I-140. There is no chart to wait for.

File quickly when you can. Current describes this month only, and a column with no cutoff in August can have one in October if demand rises. If your application is already filed when that happens, it sits and waits for the chart to come back to you. If it is not filed, you wait outside the process.

You can only file both together while a green card is available. Once a cutoff appears, the I-140 goes in on its own and the green card application waits.

No. The Visa Bulletin has one EB-2 row, and it covers both employer-sponsored cases and national interest waivers. If you were born in India, you meet the same cutoff either way.

The difference is which filing sets your date. An employer-sponsored case gets its date from the PERM filing, which usually happens a year or more before the I-140. A national interest waiver has no PERM step, so its date starts later, at the I-140. In return you skip the labor market test entirely.

Where you finish your green card changes which chart you watch. It does not change how long you wait. Both routes draw on the same EB-2 green cards and the same country cutoff.

Inside the US you file an I-485 adjustment of status application, and the chart USCIS names that month sets when you can file it. From abroad you go through the National Visa Center and a US consulate. The National Visa Center collects your documents once the filing chart reaches you, and your interview waits for the final action chart.

The real difference shows up in a long wait. Once your I-485 is filed you can get work and travel permits and keep renewing them, so you carry on working in the US while the line moves. There is no equivalent while you wait abroad.

Your spouse and your unmarried children under 21 do not need their own petition or their own priority date. They use yours, in the same category, and move through the line with you.

Two things follow from that. Everyone waits on the same cutoff, so if the date moves backward the whole family waits together. And when a green card does become available, each person files their own application.

Two limits are worth knowing early. A child has to still count as a child when the number arrives. Someone you marry after you already have your green card cannot be added this way either. If a wedding and a current priority date fall close together, the order matters.

Once an I-140 is approved, the priority date belongs to you rather than to that one petition. Under 8 CFR 204.5(e), an approved employment-based I-140 passes its date to any later employment-based petition you qualify for. If you end up with more than one approved petition, you keep the earliest date.

Retrogression means the cutoff moved backward, so a date that was current stops being current. It often lands on people who have already filed. Your case does not fail when it happens.

If your I-485 is already in, USCIS holds it instead of approving it. Your work and travel permits carry on renewing. When the chart reaches your date again, the case picks up where it left off, and you do not lose your place.

Unavailable is the same thing on a larger scale. With a cutoff, the oldest cases still get through. With a U, nothing gets through until the fiscal year turns over. India's EB-2 column has been in that state since it used up its share, and a new supply of green cards arrives on October 1. The bulletin usually goes back to a workable cutoff at the same time.

Your approved I-140 needs attention during a long pause. Once an I-140 has been approved for 180 days or more, it is no longer automatically revoked if your employer withdraws it or the business closes. And even if an early withdrawal does revoke the approval, you keep the priority date, because withdrawal is not one of the four reasons that take it away.

A backlog fixes when your green card arrives. It does not decide what you do in the years before that. Three things are worth your attention.

Nobody can tell you a month, and anyone who does is guessing. The State Department sets the cutoffs as it goes, based on the demand it sees against the green cards it has left. Its own bulletin only warns about changes a month or two ahead.

Three things can push an EB-2 date forward. Green cards that EB-1 does not use fall down to EB-2 by law, so a quiet year in EB-1 helps EB-2. The total employment-based supply goes up when family-based categories leave green cards unused the year before. And demand drops when fewer petitions are approved or people leave the line. None of the three can be predicted a year out, and nothing in your own petition affects any of them.

The one reliable pattern is the calendar. Green cards run low over the summer, categories slow down or stop as September approaches, and a fresh supply arrives on October 1. If a date jumps after months of standing still, that usually means green cards were found somewhere, and the line behind you is still the same length.