EB-2 Priority Date Tracker 2026

Your priority date is your place in the green card line. For most employment-based applicants, it is the date your PERM labor certification application was filed with the Department of Labor. If your category does not require PERM (such as EB-1A or EB-2 NIW), it is the date USCIS received your I-140 petition.

Every month, the U.S. Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin, which sets cutoff dates by category and country. When the cutoff reaches your priority date, a visa number becomes available and your case can move forward. Until then, you wait — and for some countries, that wait is measured in years or decades.

The bulletin has two charts, and the difference matters:

• Final Action Dates — when your green card can actually be approved. This is the date the checker above uses.
• Dates for Filing — when you may be allowed to submit your I-485 adjustment application early (only when USCIS announces it will honor filing dates that month). Filing dates are usually more favorable — e.g., EB-2 India's filing date is January 15, 2015, while its final action date is November 1, 2013.

Filing early lets you get work and travel authorization while you wait for final action — a big deal for people stuck in the backlog.

Two hard legal caps create the backlog. First, only about 140,000 employment-based green cards are available per year across all countries and categories. Second, no single country may take more than 7% of the total — roughly 9,800 EB visas per country per year.

Demand from India vastly exceeds its 7% share. The result, in the November 2026 bulletin: EB-2 India's cutoff sits at November 1, 2013 — meaning applicants who filed over a decade ago are only now becoming eligible. EB-3 India is even further back at January 1, 2014. China faces shorter but still multi-year waits (EB-2: October 1, 2021), while most other countries are current or nearly so.

The summer of 2026 showed how volatile this gets: EB-2 India retrogressed, then went completely “Unavailable” from July through September 2026 when the annual numbers ran out — before jumping forward with the new fiscal year in October.

• “C” (Current) — no backlog; visa numbers are immediately available for everyone in that category/country.
• “U” (Unavailable) — no numbers left for the fiscal year. Common in August–September as annual limits run out.
• Dates like 01NOV13 — day-month-year format. Only priority dates on or before the cutoff are eligible.
• Bulletins come out monthly around the middle of the month, and apply to the following month. A new fiscal year starts every October, which is when the biggest movements usually happen.

Always verify against the official source: the November 2026 Visa Bulletin on travel.state.gov →

• Extend H-1B beyond 6 years. Under AC21, you can extend H-1B in 1-year or 3-year increments once your PERM has been pending 365+ days or your I-140 is approved — even while your priority date is years away.
• Keep your underlying status valid. A current priority date means nothing if you have fallen out of status.
• Watch the Dates for Filing chart. When USCIS honors it, you can file I-485 early and get an EAD/AP combo card while waiting for final action.
• Talk to an immigration attorney before making life decisions (job changes, travel, marriage timing) around your priority date. This tool is for information only — not legal advice.