The filing was supposed to go in weeks ago. You have no receipt and no case number, and the person who has both isn't answering. This guide is the order to check things in, what each result means, and the one thing no search can tell you. Start by searching the employer's name on PERM Tracker's free case search. It brings back the employer's PERM, wage request and LCA filings together, pending ones included.
Who gets the receipt, and why it isn't you
A PERM is filed by the employer, or by the attorney filing for the employer. When the Department of Labor receives it, DOL assigns a case number and the filing appears in the FLAG account of whoever filed it. The beneficiary isn't a party to the application and has no account, so the receipt lands with the employer or the attorney, and nothing is sent to you.
That's why the question "was it received" so often has no answer for the person it matters most to. The filing is real, but its confirmation sits somewhere you can't see. The searches below read the same federal records the filer's account does.
Three places a filing shows up, in order
A filing shows up first in DOL's case-status index, then in our nightly walk of that index, and only once it's decided in DOL's quarterly disclosure file.
| Where | What's in it | How soon after filing | Pending cases included? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DOL's case-status index | Every case DOL has indexed, with its current status | Days | Yes |
| Our nightly walk of DOL's index | Every new filing DOL indexed, found by case number | 0 to 2 days behind DOL, measured | Yes |
| DOL's quarterly disclosure file | Decided cases only, with the wage and worksite | Up to three months | No |
The first two answer "was it received". The third never can: DOL's disclosure files hold only cases that have been decided, so a pending filing is absent from them by definition, however long ago it went in.
The two lime boxes are the ones that can confirm a filing while it's still pending. The dashed box is where most "PERM data" on the internet comes from, and it's the wrong place to look for a receipt.
The check, step by step
Search the employer, read the newest PERM rows for one whose filing month matches, and look the case up directly if you have its number.
Search the employer
Open the case search and type the employer's name, the shorter the better: "Acme" finds more spellings than "Acme Technologies Inc." Every PERM, prevailing wage request and H-1B filing under that name comes back together, pending ones included, sorted newest first.
Read the newest rows
Look for a PERM row (a G-100- number) whose filing month matches when you were told it went in. The job title and worksite state are on the row, so a company that files many cases is still readable. A status like "Analyst review" means DOL has received the case and is holding it in the queue.
If you do have a number, look it up directly
A case number in hand skips the search. The case status lookup asks DOL's own index for that number and shows the record as DOL holds it, including a pending status. If our table has never seen the number, the lookup asks DOL live and records the answer, so a filing from yesterday still resolves.
What each answer means
A row with a pending status means DOL has the case. No row is harder to read, and a number DOL's index returns nothing for is the one result worth a phone call.
A row with a pending status
DOL has it. The filing month on the row is the month the case number encodes, which is the date DOL received it. From here the processing times page tells you which filing month DOL is deciding now, and the row's own page estimates the wait.
No row under the employer, and no number
There are three possibilities, and the search can't tell them apart. The filing hasn't gone in yet, or it went in within the last day or two and the nightly walk hasn't reached it. Or the employer filed under a spelling the search didn't match. Try the shortest form of the name first, then wait two days and search again before assuming the worst.
You have a number and DOL's index returns nothing
That's the one result worth a phone call. DOL's index returns pending cases. So a number that resolves to nothing is mistyped or from a program the lookup doesn't cover. Otherwise, DOL never issued it. Read it back digit by digit to whoever gave it to you.
If DOL's own site is down
DOL's case status search goes offline for maintenance and went dark for weeks during the October 2025 shutdown. This site keeps its own copy of every case it has ever seen, refreshed nightly. So the employer search and the lookup keep answering from the last sweep, with its date shown. A case filed during an outage appears once DOL's index is back and the walk reaches it.
What this can't tell you
This check can't tell you whether a filing is about to go in, which of several rows for the same job is yours, or whether a received case was filed correctly.
- Whether a filing is about to go in. Nothing exists in any index until DOL receives it.
- Which case is yours, when an employer filed several for the same job title in the same month. The row shows the job and the worksite. It doesn't show the beneficiary's name, because DOL doesn't publish it.
- Anything DOL hasn't decided to show. A pending case shows the status DOL reports and nothing more.
- Whether the case was filed correctly. Received only means DOL has it, and a received case can still be denied or audited.
