Where an employment-based priority date sits against the visa bulletin cutoffs, and which way those cutoffs have been moving.
Checked against the newest bulletin, with which way the cutoff has been moving: cutoffs go backwards as well as forwards.
When a green card can actually be approved.
Reading the November 2026 visa bulletin.
These figures come from that bulletin and the ones before it. Cutoffs change every month, in both directions.
Open the current visa bulletin at travel.state.gov
What USCIS is accepting now
For November 2026, USCIS says employment-based adjustment of status filings must use the Dates for Filing chart. You have the Final Action Dates chart selected, which is the other one.
Read from uscis.gov on November 9, 2026. It publishes which chart controls. It doesn't publish the cutoff dates themselves. USCIS filing charts
Bulletin month along the bottom, the cutoff it published up the side. The shaded part of each column is the range of priority dates that qualified that month, so a taller column is a month more people were current in.
From the 238 visa bulletins published between June 2005 and November 2026.
What this can’t tell you
A cutoff that advances thirty days in a month has stood still: everyone waiting behind the cutoff is exactly as far back as they were. Measured from October 2014 to November 2026, 13 of the 27 queues with a pace moved slower than that.
| Category | Rest of world | China | India | Mexico | Philippines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EB-1 | Current 1.43x pace | August 1, 2023 1.32x pace | February 1, 2023 1.28x pace | Current 1.43x pace | Current 1.43x pace |
| EB-2 | April 1, 2025 1.09x pace | October 1, 2021 0.98x pace | November 1, 2013 0.37x pace | April 1, 2025 1.09x pace | April 1, 2025 1.09x pace |
| EB-3 | June 15, 2024 1.05x pace | January 22, 2022 1.06x pace | January 22, 2014 0.84x pace | June 15, 2024 1.05x pace | August 15, 2023 0.98x pace |
| EB-3 other workers | June 1, 2022 0.88x pace | October 1, 2019 1.17x pace | January 22, 2014 0.84x pace | June 1, 2022 0.88x pace | January 1, 2022 0.85x pace |
| EB-4 | December 15, 2022 0.12x pace | December 15, 2022 0.12x pace | December 15, 2022 1.26x pace | December 15, 2022 1.25x pace | December 15, 2022 0.12x pace |
| EB-5 | Current | December 1, 2016 0.31x pace | December 1, 2023 0.90x pace | Current | Current |
| EB5R | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
| EB5HU | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
| EB5I | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
Cutoffs as published in the November 2026 bulletin. Current means every priority date qualified that month. Closed means none did: no visa numbers were being issued.
Between the first and last bulletin with a real cutoff for each line. At 1.00 the cutoff keeps pace with the calendar. Below it, the wait got longer even as the date moved forward.
The upright rule is 1.00, holding station. Bars reaching right of it are queues that shortened. Bars reaching left of it are queues that lengthened while their cutoff was still moving forward.
13 of the 27 queues measured here moved slower than one month per month.
A pace needs two real cutoff dates to measure between.
These published no cutoff date in this window. Each was open to every priority date:
Visa bulletin through Nov 2026. How these figures are counted. Spotted an error? Tell us; every fix is dated in the corrections log.
Visa bulletin: travel.state.gov (the bulletin's tables, read in a browser; the site refuses automated clients) · data through Nov 2026 · monthly
What this data includes
Visa bulletin: Cutoff dates as the State Department published them each month. Nothing here is forecast.