USA
The PERM process in short.
If a US employer has offered you a permanent job and agreed to sponsor you, the PERM process is how that offer becomes an EB-2 or EB-3 green card. The Department of Labor certifies the job, USCIS approves your employer’s petition, and you finish with USCIS in the US or with a US consulate abroad.
Your employer files the PERM labor certification and the I-140 petition. You send your degrees and experience letters at the start and check your section of the PERM form before it’s filed. Later you sign the certified form and, at the end, file your own green card application.
Up to an approved I-140, the steps take about 19 to 24 months in 2026 if your employer pays for premium processing, a faster USCIS review of the I-140. After that, your category and country of birth decide how long you wait for a green card number. PERM itself gives you no visa status, so if you’re in the US, you stay and work on your current visa meanwhile.
PERM timeline at a glance: each step and its typical time.
Seven steps lead from the job offer to the green card, and five of them have a published time. The Department of Labor posts times for the wage request and the PERM review, and USCIS posts its own for the I-140 and the green card. The Visa Bulletin sets the wait for a visa number, and the other two steps move at your employer’s pace.
| Step | What happens | Typical time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Job definition | The employer sets the job’s duties and minimum requirements, and you send documents | No set time |
| 2. Prevailing wage | The Department of Labor sets the minimum pay for the job | About 3 to 7 months |
| 3. Recruitment | Your employer advertises the job and posts the notice of filing | About 2 to 3 months |
| 4. PERM review | The Department of Labor reviews the application, and you all sign it once it’s certified | About 13 months |
| 5. I-140 | USCIS decides your employer’s petition | About 2 to 3 months, or 15 business days with premium |
| 6. Priority date | You wait until the Visa Bulletin reaches your date | Depends on your category and country of birth |
| 7. Green card | USCIS or a US consulate approves your green card | Set by USCIS or the consulate |
Wage requests were being worked about three to four months after filing on September 30, 2026, and some take longer. The PERM review average ran from about 11 to 16 months in 2026, so plan on about 13. Only the I-140 can be sped up for a fee, with premium processing, and the green card wait stays the same.
Step 1: defining the PERM job and its minimum requirements.
Your employer and its lawyer start by writing down the job’s duties and its minimum requirements: the degree, the years of experience and any special skills. Those minimums decide whether the case is an EB-2 or an EB-3, and they set the wage level the Department of Labor will apply.
The requirements have to be what the job really needs at minimum, even if you have more. An EB-2 case needs a job that asks for a master’s degree or its equivalent: a bachelor’s followed by five years of progressive experience. A job with lower minimums, such as a bachelor’s degree, two years of experience or no experience at all, fits an EB-3.
You’ll gather your diplomas and experience letters from past employers, plus a credential evaluation if your degree is from abroad. That’s a report from a private agency comparing your degree with a US one. The lawyer checks all of it against the requirements before anything is filed.
Step 2: requesting the PERM prevailing wage from the Department of Labor.
The employer asks the Department of Labor for a prevailing wage determination on Form ETA-9141. The prevailing wage is the usual pay for that occupation in that area, and the employer has to offer at least that much. The same form now carries the job’s minimum requirements, so the wage and the requirements are fixed together.
The offered wage is for the permanent job, so it’s owed once you start that job as a permanent resident. Until then, the wage rules of your current visa apply.
The Department of Labor works these requests in the order it receives them, and a request takes about three to seven months. In late 2026 the Department of Labor was working requests filed three to four months earlier. If the employer disagrees with the wage it receives, it can ask for a redetermination, which waits in a separate queue and adds more months.
Step 3: running PERM recruitment, then the 30-day wait.
Recruitment is the PERM’s test of the US job market: your employer advertises the job in set places and checks whether a qualified US worker wants it.
Your employer keeps proof of each step, such as the newspaper pages and a printout of the job order, because an audit can ask for all of it. In practice the stage takes about two to three months.
Every PERM starts with a state job order and two Sunday newspaper ads.
The state job order is a listing with the state workforce agency, the state office that runs public job listings, for the area where you’ll work. It stays open for 30 days. The two ads run on two different Sundays, in the general newspaper most likely to reach people who do this kind of work.
Both steps are required for every PERM, whatever your job. Where the area has no Sunday paper, the ads run in the edition with the widest circulation. One Sunday ad can move to a professional journal, but only when the job needs an advanced degree plus experience and a journal is where such jobs are advertised.
A professional job adds three more steps from a list of ten.
A job counts as professional when the occupation usually needs at least a bachelor’s degree. A software engineer’s job is professional, while a cook’s job that asks for two years of experience isn’t. The occupation’s usual education decides it, whatever degree you hold yourself.
Your employer has to run all three extra steps from the list in 20 CFR 656.17; it only gets to choose which ones. Only one of them can take place entirely in the last 30 days before filing.
- Job fairs.
- The employer’s own website.
- A job search website other than the employer’s.
- On-campus recruiting.
- Trade or professional organizations.
- Private employment firms.
- A program that rewards employees for recommending candidates.
- Campus placement offices.
- Local and ethnic newspapers.
- Radio and TV ads.
The ads have to match the PERM form and offer no worse terms than yours.
Each newspaper ad names the employer, tells applicants where to send a resume and says where the job is. It describes the job well enough for a US worker to judge it. The ad doesn’t have to show the pay, but any pay it shows can’t be below the prevailing wage.
An ad also can’t list requirements or duties beyond those on the PERM form, or terms worse than the ones offered to you. That’s why an ad can read shorter and plainer than your own job description.
The notice of filing tells your coworkers about the job and its pay.
The notice of filing is a posting at your workplace saying that your employer is applying for labor certification for this job. It stays up for at least 10 consecutive business days where employees pass on their way in and out, such as next to the wage-and-hour and safety posters. The employer also runs it in any in-house channel it normally uses for hiring, such as an intranet job board.
The notice carries the same job details as the ads, plus the pay rate, which must be at least the prevailing wage. It also says that anyone may send evidence about the application to the Certifying Officer, the Department of Labor official who decides PERM cases, and gives the officer’s address. Nothing in the rules asks it to name you.
If a union represents workers in your occupation, the employer gives the notice to the union instead of posting it. A private household needs a notice only if it employs US workers. The notice has to go up between 30 and 180 days before the PERM is filed.
Your employer’s usual hiring staff review the applicants, and you stay out of it.
The person who normally hires for this kind of role reviews every US applicant. You can’t take part, and neither can a lawyer who represents only you. When a qualified US applicant wants the job, this PERM can’t go ahead. Your employer can recruit again later and file a new PERM for you.
A US applicant counts as qualified even if you’re stronger, and even if they’d need a reasonable period of on-the-job training to do the work. Turning someone down as a poor fit isn’t enough; the reason has to be lawful and tied to the job, such as missing a required degree.
Your employer then signs a recruitment report that lists each step, its result, any hires and every US applicant turned down, with the reason. The report isn’t filed with the PERM; it stays in the file in case of an audit.
If the employer laid off workers in the same or a related occupation in your area in the six months before filing, it has to contact and consider them. A layoff here means letting someone go involuntarily, without cause. The layoff doesn’t stop your PERM by itself, but a qualified laid-off worker who wants the job does.
The 30-day wait and the 180-day limit set the filing date.
The job order and both Sunday ads have to take place at least 30 days before the PERM is filed. No step can be more than 180 days old on filing day, so if the filing slips past that limit, the oldest steps have to be run again.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | The state job order opens, and the notice of filing goes up |
| First two Sundays | The two newspaper ads run |
| Days 1 to 30 | The three extra steps run, for a professional job |
| Day 30 | The job order closes; the notice has been up at least 10 business days |
| Days 31 to 59 | The 30-day wait; one extra step may still take place here |
| Day 60 or later | The PERM can be filed |
Step 4: filing the PERM and waiting for certification.
Once recruitment is complete, the employer files the PERM application, Form ETA-9089, online in the Department of Labor’s FLAG system. That filing date is your priority date, which marks where you stand in the green card line. The form includes a section about you, with your education and experience. Check it before it goes in, because USCIS later compares it with your experience letters.
On the same form, the employer signs a set of statements under penalty of perjury, so a false one is a federal crime. If any of them is missing, the application is denied. These are the ones closest to your job:
- The wage offered to you is at least the prevailing wage, and it isn’t based on commissions or bonuses unless a regular wage at that level is guaranteed.
- The employer has the money to pay that wage and can put you on the payroll by the time you’d start.
- The job has been clearly open to any US worker, and US applicants were turned down only for lawful, job-related reasons.
- The job is full-time and permanent, with an employer other than you. A company you partly own isn’t ruled out, but it has to prove the job is truly open to US workers.
Once the form is signed and filed, the application waits for a Department of Labor analyst. Plan on about 13 months; in 2026 the average ran from about 11 to 16 months.
When the analyst approves the application, the Department of Labor certifies the PERM and sends it to the employer’s FLAG account. You, your employer and the lawyer each sign the certified form. The employer then has 180 days to file the I-140 with it. If it misses that window, the PERM expires and the employer has to file a new one, with fresh recruitment.
What happens if the Department of Labor audits your PERM?
When the Department of Labor audits your PERM, the case waits until the employer sends proof that recruitment happened the way the form says. Some audits are random and some follow from something in the form, such as a requirement above what the occupation usually asks.
The audit letter lists what to send and gives the employer 30 days, and the officer can grant one extension of up to 30 days. If the employer misses the deadline, the application is denied, and the appeals board won’t review that denial. The list can cover the papers kept from recruitment:
- The signed recruitment report.
- Proof of the job order, each ad and each extra step.
- The notice of filing, with the dates it was up.
- The resumes received, with the reason each US applicant was turned down.
- Proof of business necessity, a business reason that makes a requirement essential, for any requirement above the occupation’s usual level.
Once the answer is in, the officer can certify the application, deny it, ask for more documents or order supervised recruitment.
In supervised recruitment the officer approves a new ad, which runs on three days in a row with one of them a Sunday, and the resumes go to the officer. If an employer substantially fails to answer an audit, the officer can also require supervised recruitment on its future PERM filings for up to two years.
You don’t send anything in an audit, because it checks the employer’s recruitment. Your priority date stays the PERM filing date, and an audited PERM still counts as pending for the one-year H-1B extensions.
After any other denial, the employer has 30 days to ask the officer to reconsider or to ask the appeals board to review it. Reconsideration requests have recently taken about five months. The employer can also file a new PERM at any time, except while an appeal is pending.
Step 5: filing the I-140 and the three things USCIS checks.
The I-140 is the immigrant petition that asks USCIS to classify you as an EB-2 or EB-3 worker. The employer sends it with the signed PERM, your degrees and experience letters, and its proof that it can pay the wage. USCIS posts its current regular time for the I-140 on its processing-times page.
USCIS checks three things. You met the job’s requirements on the day the PERM was filed, the employer could pay the offered wage from that day on, and the petition matches the certified job.
Your priority date may already be current when the I-140 is filed, meaning a green card number is available for it. Then you can send your I-485, the green card application, in the same package. This is called concurrent filing. It’s only possible inside the US, and if USCIS denies the I-140, the I-485s that depend on it are denied too.
A PERM for an EB-2-level job can also support an EB-3 petition, so your employer can file a second I-140 later without new recruitment. Workers do this when EB-3 moves faster for their country. You keep the earliest priority date, and a pending I-485 can move to the new petition with Supplement J, the form that ties a green card application to a job.
An I-140 RFE asks for missing documents, with up to 12 weeks to answer.
An RFE on the I-140 is USCIS saying the file is incomplete and naming what it still needs. The case stays open, and USCIS decides it on the full record once the employer answers.
The notice gives the employer up to 12 weeks to answer, and USCIS grants no extra time. All the requested documents go back together in one package, because a partial answer counts as a request to decide on the record as it stands. A notice of intent to deny signals a likely denial, and the employer has 30 days at most to change the officer’s mind.
On a PERM-based I-140, a request can ask for experience letters that show the required years. It can also ask for proof that a foreign degree equals the US degree on the PERM, or more proof that the employer could pay the wage.
Step 6: waiting until your priority date is current.
After the I-140 is approved, you wait until a green card number is available for your priority date, the day the employer filed the PERM. The State Department publishes the cutoff dates each month in the Visa Bulletin.
How long that takes depends on your category and the country where you were born. Some categories are current, meaning a number is available for every date, while applicants born in India have waited many years in EB-2 and EB-3.
Step 7: getting the green card by adjustment of status or at a consulate.
If you’re in the US in valid status, you can finish with USCIS by adjusting status, which means getting the green card without leaving the country. If you live abroad, or plan to move before your date comes up, the case goes through the National Visa Center and then a US consulate. The National Visa Center is the State Department office that prepares cases for consulates.
Adjusting status inside the US starts with the I-485 package.
You file Form I-485 once USCIS accepts filings for your priority date. Each I-485 goes in with a sealed medical exam report, Form I-693, from a civil surgeon, a doctor USCIS has approved for immigration exams.
You can add a work permit request on Form I-765 and a travel document request on Form I-131, each with its own fee. If your I-485 is filed after the I-140 rather than with it, you also file Supplement J to confirm the job offer. You need an affidavit of support, Form I-864, only if a citizen or green card holder relative filed the petition or owns 5% or more of the employer. That’s the relative’s promise to support you financially.
After filing, you give biometrics and can get a work permit and a travel document.
USCIS mails you a notice for a biometrics appointment at a local Application Support Center, where it takes your fingerprints, photo and signature for background checks. Missing it without rescheduling can lead to a denial.
A work permit based on a pending I-485 is now issued for up to 18 months, and it can come on one card with the travel document. An H-1B or L-1 worker can keep working on that status instead.
If you travel abroad while the I-485 is pending, get the travel document first. Leaving without it abandons the application, unless you hold H-1B or L-1 status and return to the same employer. The same exception covers H-4 and L-2 family members of that worker.
USCIS may interview you before it decides the I-485.
USCIS decides case by case whether to interview you. If it does, you go to a local USCIS office and answer questions under oath about your application, your background and the job. Bring your passport, I-94 record, the interview notice, originals of the documents you filed and a current letter from your employer confirming the job offer.
USCIS can also send a request for evidence on the I-485 before deciding. It can approve the green card only once a visa number is available for your date, and the card then arrives by mail. A denial can’t be appealed, but you may be able to ask USCIS to reopen it or continue through a consulate.
Finishing at a consulate goes through the National Visa Center.
Abroad, the National Visa Center opens your case after the I-140 is approved. It asks for your fees and documents once your priority date gets close to current. You fill in the DS-260 online application, with your name exactly as in your passport and a work history that matches the PERM and I-140.
You then send civil documents, such as your birth certificate, passport and police certificates from the countries you’ve lived in, under the State Department’s rules for each country. Once the file is complete, the case goes to the consulate for an interview. Before it, you get a medical exam from a panel physician, a doctor the embassy has approved.
The immigrant visa is valid for up to six months. Pay the USCIS Immigrant Fee after you pick up the visa and before you travel, because USCIS sends the green card only once that fee is paid. Your permanent residence begins on the day you’re admitted to the US on that visa.
If the National Visa Center tells you a visa is available and you don’t apply within a year, the State Department can close your case. After a change of route, Form I-824 lets the employer ask USCIS to send the approved I-140 on to a consulate.
Your spouse and children in the PERM process.
Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 can get green cards with you as your dependents, without a PERM or an I-140 of their own. They share your priority date, so their place in line is yours.
Each of them files a separate I-485 inside the US, or a separate DS-260 abroad, with a separate medical exam, at the same time as you or later. A family member abroad can travel with you or follow later, but not before you.
A child who turns 21 during the wait can still count as a child under the Child Status Protection Act. USCIS takes the child’s age on the date a visa became available and subtracts the time the I-140 was pending. The child then has to apply within one year of that date.
Your work status while PERM and the I-140 are pending.
A temporary visa can run out before the PERM process ends, and for an H-1B worker 8 CFR 214.2 gives two ways past the six-year limit. After the PERM or the I-140 has been on file for 365 days, each H-1B extension can add one more year. With an approved I-140 and a category that is backlogged for your country, the extensions can run three years at a time. An approved I-140, or an H-1B extended past six years this way, also lets an H-4 spouse apply for a work permit.
An approved I-140 also keeps your place in line. Its priority date stays yours for any later EB-1, EB-2 or EB-3 petition, even if your employer withdraws it. You’d lose it only if USCIS revoked the approval for fraud, an error or a problem with the PERM. If the withdrawal or a business closure comes 180 days or more after approval, the petition itself also stays approved.
Once your I-485 has been pending for 180 days, you can move to a new job in the same or a similar occupation without starting over. You file Supplement J for the new job.
If you’re laid off before the I-140 is approved, a new employer has to start PERM again, and the new filing sets a new priority date.
Common questions
The Department of Labor works PERM applications in the order they were filed and posts the filing month it has reached each month. An application filed after that month is still waiting in line. Once an application is more than three months older than the posted month, the employer’s lawyer can contact the PERM help desk about it.
No. An audit means the officer wants to see the employer’s recruitment records before deciding. Once the employer answers within 30 days, the officer can still certify the application, deny it, or order supervised recruitment. If the employer misses that deadline, the application is denied.
No. Premium processing changes how fast USCIS acts on the I-140; the standard it applies stays the same. The officer weighs the same evidence under the same rules, so a weak petition only reaches its decision sooner. A missing document still leads to a request for evidence, on a premium case as on a regular one.
Yes, with the case number. The Department of Labor’s public Case Status Search on its FLAG site looks up a PERM by the number the employer’s lawyer receives at filing. The full case record stays in the employer’s FLAG account. The later I-140 and I-485 are checked on USCIS Case Status Online with their receipt numbers.
A certified PERM is valid only for the job it describes, in the area it names. A promotion into a substantially different role before the green card can mean a new PERM for the new job. Once the I-485 has been pending 180 days, a move to a same or similar job is protected.
An applicant with a pending I-485 needs an advance parole document before leaving the US, unless the applicant holds H-1B or L-1 status and returns to the same employer. The same exception covers H-4 and L-2 family members. Consular applicants, whose cases are decided abroad, need no travel document.
Sources
- Processing Times (PERM and prevailing wage)US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification · October 5, 2026
Show all 16 sourcesShow fewer sources
- 20 CFR Part 656: Labor certification process for permanent employment of aliensElectronic Code of Federal Regulations
- USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part E, Chapter 6: Permanent Labor CertificationUS Citizenship and Immigration Services
- How Do I Request Premium Processing?US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 7, Part A, Chapter 3: Filing Instructions (concurrent filing and visa availability)US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- 8 CFR 103.2: Submission and adjudication of benefit requests (requests for evidence and response times)Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
- 8 CFR 204.5: Petitions for employment-based immigrants (evidence of experience and ability to pay)Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
- 8 CFR 214.2: Special requirements for admission, extension, and maintenance of statusElectronic Code of Federal Regulations
- Adjustment of Status (filing, biometrics, interview and decision)US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Form I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination RecordUS Citizenship and Immigration Services
- I-485 Supplement J, Confirmation of Valid Job Offer or Request for Job PortabilityUS Citizenship and Immigration Services
- 8 CFR 245.2: Application for adjustment of status (travel and denials)Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
- Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- INA 203 (8 USC 1153): Allocation of immigrant visas, including derivatives and the one-year ruleLegal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
- 9 FAM 504.1: Immigrant visa case processing at the National Visa CenterUS Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual
- Travel Documents (advance parole while a green card application is pending)US Citizenship and Immigration Services
2–4 years
$12,000–$19,500
Guides