On one day in August 2026, six public PERM tools were asked the same question (how long a PERM takes) and answered between 335 and 503 days. DOL's own published average that day was 372. The spread is five months, far beyond rounding, on a wait that people plan their lives around. This guide is what an estimate can know, what it can't, and what we measured when we checked our own. PERM Tracker's processing times page shows DOL's own published figures beside our own daily check of where DOL is deciding.
What an estimate actually is
Every PERM estimator does the same arithmetic underneath. DOL works cases roughly in filing order, so there's a filing month it's deciding now, and your case has a filing month. The estimate is the distance between the two, converted to days using how fast the queue has been moving. Everything else a tool adds sits on top of that one subtraction: an employer's initial, a "confidence" label, a colour. DOL printed the month it was deciding until October 31, 2026. Since then it has to be found from DOL's own case statuses, which this site does every day.
Ours counts instead of subtracting months: the cases in DOL's normal queue filed before yours, divided by the rate DOL has been deciding them, walked over the days DOL works. A weekend, a federal holiday or the slow days around Thanksgiving and the new year move a date the way they move DOL. Cases on hold, at a request for information or on appeal are out of line, so they aren't counted as ahead of you.
That's also why estimates fail the same way. When DOL's queue slows, every tool built on the previous pace is late together. When DOL reorders work, as it did after the October 2025 shutdown, every tool is wrong in the same direction at once.
What we measured
Every night the site rebuilds DOL's line as it stood a few weeks earlier and works out the date it would have given each case then. It sets each one against the day DOL decided it. It does the same for every other kind of date it gives: a case DOL's line has already passed, a case at a request for information, a wage request, a priority date waiting on the visa bulletin, and H-2A, H-2B and CW-1 applications. Here's how each check came out, read live:
- When DOL decides a PERM case waiting in its line3 days typically, 86% within a week10,284 cases DOL decided from October 19 to November 8, 2026, each dated as the line stood on the first day
- The range given with that date, near the front of the line74% decided inside it61,931 cases, tested on start days the range wasn't drawn from
- When DOL decides a PERM case its line has already passedAt least 9 days off, where answering "today" was at least 3 days3,632 such cases, the ones still waiting counted at the days they're late, from October 19 to November 8, 2026
- When DOL decides a PERM case after an RFI3 days typically, 52% inside the range435 RFI cases DOL decided, dated from their own RFI day
- When DOL issues a prevailing wage determination1 day typically, 99% within a week3,548 requests DOL decided through November 8, 2026
- When a priority date a year past the cutoff becomes current7.6 months typically, 23% within a quarter1,853 dates replayed on every visa bulletin since October 2016
- When DOL decides an H-2A application53% inside the window's middle half32,539 certifications, each dated from DOL's earlier ones
- When DOL decides an H-2B application43% inside the window's middle half15,225 certifications, each dated from DOL's earlier ones
- When DOL decides a CW-1 application52% inside the window's middle half1,288 certifications, each dated from DOL's earlier ones
The estimate scorecard shows each check in full, with a fresh random sample of pending cases recorded every morning before DOL decides them. The first of these checks ran on September 13, 2026. Counting every pending case as ahead (the rule until September 26, 2026, which also counted cases on hold or at an RFI) missed by nine days. Counting only the line missed by three. That's why only the line counts now.
Those figures are for dates within about a month. A date further out has more that can change before it arrives, and the daily sample will show by how much as it fills.
The second number is the one every rival talks about and few publish: how much the employer's initial moves a decision. Across DOL's decided cases, a company starting with A has tended to be reached before one starting with Z. Its size is the question, so we measured it over 339,518 decided cases.
Historically the effect was 27 days end to end: A about 11 days earlier than the average case in its month, Z about 16 days later. The published claim of plus or minus 80 days is the same effect inflated roughly six times. In 6 of the 30 filing months we could check, the order ran backwards. And at the front of the queue in September 2026 it didn't show at all: DOL decided about 80% of each letter's cases in the same fortnight. Adding it to our dates made them worse, so they don't use it.
What each estimator uses
Any estimator can know DOL's queue position and how fast the queue has moved. None can know about an audit, an RFI or a hold before DOL issues it.
| Input | Can any tool know it? | What we do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Where DOL's line is | Yes, from DOL's own case statuses (DOL stopped printing the month on October 31, 2026) | Found every day by this site's own check, and the anchor of every PERM date |
| How fast DOL decides | Yes, from DOL's decisions | Measured from DOL's decisions each day, walked over the days DOL works, and shown with a range |
| The employer's initial | Yes, it's on the record | Not used. At the front of the queue it made dates worse |
| An audit, an RFI, or a hold | No, until DOL issues it | Nothing in advance. Once one appears, the case is dated by its stage: an RFI from its own RFI day, a hold toward the slow end of its filing month's decisions |
| Which analyst gets the file | No | Nothing |
The two rows marked "No" are the ones that produce the big misses, and they're the same for every tool. An audit adds months and is invisible until DOL issues it. No estimator, including this one, can see it coming.
How to read ours
Start from the most likely date, read the cases-ahead line, and check where DOL's queue is right now.
Start from the most likely date
The estimate leads with the single date the strongest model gives, then the window under it. That window shows the uncertainty. The date is there as an anchor, so you have something to plan against.
Read the cases-ahead line
It says how many cases in DOL's normal queue were filed before yours and the pace DOL has been deciding them. If that count looks wrong for your month, the date will be too, and the line is there so you can check it.
Check where DOL's queue is right now
The estimate is anchored to where DOL's line is. Since October 31, 2026 DOL no longer prints that month, so the queue page finds it each day from DOL's own case statuses and shows every filing month's cases still waiting. If DOL's line hasn't moved in weeks, expect every estimate, ours included, to drift late.
When we refuse to give a date
We print no date for a case on appeal, for an RFI that's run past its window, or for a passed filing month when the rate DOL finishes those cases can't be read.
If DOL has already passed your filing month
The filing-month arithmetic has nothing left to say: its date has gone by. A case page then dates the case by the rate DOL has been finishing the cases its line left behind, which the check above holds to account. The processing time calculator, which knows only a month and not a case, gives no date. It says how that month's cases are splitting and the rate they're finishing at. A case still pending well behind the line is often in an audit, a request for information or a hold, and the case lookup shows the status DOL holds.
An appeal is a separate proceeding, so its page shows how long such cases have waited and gives no date. An RFI is dated from its own RFI day, through the 30 days the employer has to answer and the days DOL usually takes after. Once it has run past both, it usually has an extension or a second request, and neither can be dated. A blank is a true answer, and a confident wrong date isn't one.
What this can't tell you
This guide can't tell you your decision date or whether your case will be audited. It also can't speak to a case DOL hasn't received, or explain how another tool got its number.
- Your decision date. Near the front of the queue our dates have typically landed within a few days. Further out there's more room to miss, and the estimate scorecard shows how much.
- Whether your case will be audited. Nothing can, until DOL issues it.
- Anything about a case DOL hasn't received. An estimate needs a filing month, which needs a filing.
- How another tool got its number. Where a rival publishes a method, we describe it. Where it doesn't, we say so on the methodology page.
