The Visa Bulletin & priority dates

How the cutoff-date system works

Each month the bulletin lists a cutoff date for every oversubscribed preference category, broken out by country of birth. If your priority date falls before the listed cutoff, a visa number is considered available. If it falls on or after the cutoff, you keep waiting. Because a few high-demand countries file far more cases than the per-country cap allows, those countries get their own, later cutoff columns while the rest of the world advances faster.

• "C" means current — numbers are available for everyone in that category, regardless of priority date.
• A date means only priority dates earlier than that date are current this month.
• "U" means unavailable — no numbers are being issued in that category this month.
• Cutoff dates can move forward, stall, or even retrogress (move backward) as demand and supply shift during the fiscal year.

Dates for Filing vs. Final Action Dates

The bulletin contains two sets of charts for each category, and it is important to know which one applies to you.

Final Action Dates are the dates a green card can actually be approved and issued. Dates for Filing are earlier dates that let you assemble and submit your application paperwork sooner, so everything is ready when a number becomes available. For consular cases, the National Visa Center uses the Dates for Filing chart to invite applicants to submit documents. For adjustment of status inside the U.S., USCIS decides each month which chart applies and posts its choice on the USCIS website — so always confirm on USCIS before filing Form I-485.

The annual caps behind the queue

The waits exist because Congress caps the numbers. For fiscal year 2026 the worldwide family-sponsored preference limit is 226,000 and the employment-based preference limit is at least 140,000. These totals are divided among the preference categories.

• Family preferences: F1 (unmarried adult sons/daughters of citizens), F2A (spouses and minor children of permanent residents), F2B (unmarried adult sons/daughters of permanent residents), F3 (married sons/daughters of citizens), F4 (siblings of adult citizens).
• Employment preferences: EB-1 (priority workers), EB-2 (advanced degree/exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled workers/professionals), EB-4 (special immigrants), EB-5 (immigrant investors).
• Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouses, minor children, and parents) are NOT capped and do not use the Visa Bulletin — no priority-date wait applies.

The per-country limit

No single country may take more than 7% of the combined annual family and employment preference totals — 25,620 visas for fiscal year 2026 (with a 2% cap, 7,320, for dependent areas). This is not a per-country quota guaranteeing that many visas; it is a ceiling that prevents any one country from dominating. It is why applicants born in high-demand countries such as India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines often see much longer waits and separate cutoff columns than applicants from the rest of the world in the same category.

Reading the bulletin in practice

Find your category (for example F2A or EB-2), then read across to the column for your country of birth — not your country of residence or citizenship. Compare the listed date to your priority date. Check the USCIS website to see whether Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing applies to your adjustment case that month. The bulletin is republished monthly, cutoff movement is not guaranteed and can reverse, so check the current month's edition rather than relying on an older one.