PERM Tracker
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I-140 trends

PERM Tracker

I-140 trends by category

What USCIS received, approved, denied and still has pending in each employment-based category, quarter by quarter, in its own words.

An advanced degree and a national interest waiver aren't the same category

Both are EB-2, reported separately. Over these quarters, E21 was denied 2.54% of the time and a national interest waiver 46.94%, about 19 times apart. E21 is employer-sponsored, which is where a PERM leads. A waiver is a self-petition.

I-140 petitions, quarter by quarter

USCIS’s own figures, and its own category names.

EB2 · Second Preference · 7 quarters reported

Receipts

193,913

petitions filed across these quarters

Approved

120,400

across these quarters

Denied

27,833

across these quarters

Pending

104,941

waiting as of the newest quarter alone

Approval rate

81.22%

of petitions USCIS decided

Denial rate

18.78%

of petitions USCIS decided

Both rates are over petitions USCIS decided. A rate over receipts would fall whenever USCIS decided less. Pending is the newest quarter's snapshot, since summing it would count one petition once per quarter.

Receipts per quarter

Only quarters USCIS has reported.

  1. FY2025 Q1 28,437
  2. FY2025 Q2 28,701
  3. FY2025 Q3 28,214
  4. FY2025 Q4 30,845
  5. FY2026 Q1 24,838
  6. FY2026 Q2 23,571
  7. FY2026 Q3 29,307

Approved against denied

Bars are scaled to the busiest quarter, so a shorter track means fewer decisions rather than a different mix.

  1. FY2025 Q1 2,946
  2. FY2025 Q2 3,278
  3. FY2025 Q3 4,726
  4. FY2025 Q4 6,040
  5. FY2026 Q1 3,442
  6. FY2026 Q2 3,975
  7. FY2026 Q3 3,426
Approved Denied The number on the right is denials.

Denial rate over time

Denials as a share of the petitions decided in that quarter.

0% 13% 25% FY2025 Q1FY2025 Q2FY2025 Q3FY2025 Q4FY2026 Q1FY2026 Q2FY2026 Q3

What the EB2 rate is an average of

18.78% is the blend. Nobody files under EB2 itself: every petition goes in under one of its subtypes, and they aren’t deciding alike.

  • NIW · National Interest Waiver 46.94%
  • E21 · Professionals with Advanced Degrees 2.54%

Denial rates over the 148,233 petitions USCIS decided in these 7 quarters, per subtype: NIW 54,218, E21 94,015. These are rates over past petitions. They aren't odds for a particular one.

FAQs

Is E21 the same as a National Interest Waiver?
No, and conflating them is the most common error in this data. E21 is USCIS's category for advanced-degree professionals, which on a PERM is an employer-sponsored petition. A national interest waiver is a self-petition that waives the job offer entirely. USCIS reports them as separate lines and their outcomes are nothing alike.
Why is the denial rate measured over decided petitions?
Because a rate over receipts moves with the backlog. It doesn't track outcomes. In a quarter where USCIS decided fewer petitions, a receipts-based rate falls even though nothing about approvals or denials changed. Denied divided by approved plus denied answers the question people are actually asking.
Why can't I add the categories together?
Because they're a hierarchy. EB1 is the sum of E11, E12 and E13. EB2 is E21 plus NIW, and EB3 is E31, E32 and EW3. Adding a preference to its own subtypes counts the same petition twice, so the selector keeps the two levels apart.
Why don't some quarters appear?
USCIS hasn't published them yet. An unreported quarter is left out and never drawn as zero: a bar at zero would read as filings collapsing, when there's no data for that quarter yet.

I-140 filings by category through 2026Q3. How these figures are counted. Spotted an error? Tell us; every fix is dated in the corrections log.

The sources in full

I-140 filings by category: USCIS Form I-140 by Fiscal Year, Quarter and Case Status (uscis.gov) · data through 2026Q3 · quarterly

What this data includes

I-140 filings by category: I-140 volumes by fiscal quarter and classification, as USCIS publishes them. Counts of filings. They don't count the people waiting.

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The rules behind these numbers