Wondering how long it may be until you get your Green Card? The US Department of State often shares projections for the various visa categories to give people a sense of how things are currently moving.

Here is information on expected priority dates retrogressions in specific categories, so you can plan ahead!

EB-1 and EB-2 – Worldwide

The demand for EB-1 and EB-2 status has increased significantly as employers and foreign nationals strategize ways to advance their priority dates. As a result of this increased demand, the US Department of State is likely to retrogress these visa categories towards the end of the summer.

What does this mean? If it happens, it could prevent us from filing an adjustment of status for these categories until October of this year. However, we should be able to continue to file I-140 petitions.

EB-1 – India and China

Recently, applicants from India and China have benefitted from “otherwise unused numbers” not currently required for other countries.  But, the ability to use these numbers has ended.

Additionally, the particularly high demand has led to a priority date retrogression to January 1, 2012 for applicants from India and China. This category will return to being current for both countries on October 1, 2017, which is the first day of fiscal year 2018 (FY18).

EB-2 – India

In March, demand for EB-2s from India doubled from the February numbers. Based on this spike, the best-case scenario appears to be a final action date to reach December 2008.

EB-3 – The China Downgrade Phenomenon Continues

The gap between EB-2 China and EB-3 China continued to widen in May, with EB-3 China advancing six months to October 1, 2014, while EB-2 China has only advanced less than one month – to February 8, 2013.

Consistent with this trend, applicants should not expect significant advancement in the final action date for EB-2 China this fiscal year. However, it does look like we may continue to see good advancement of EB-3 China.