PERM case number format: what each part means

A DOL case number looks like G-100-26125-868956. Every part of it means something, and one part is commonly explained wrong. To check a number, type it into PERM Tracker's free case lookup, which takes every prefix and asks DOL's own case-status service.

The shape

A case number has four parts: a letter for the program, a three-digit segment, the filing day and a six-digit serial.

G  -  100  -  26125  -  868956
│      │        │         └── serial: one counter shared by every program, six digits, wraps at 999999
│      │        └── filing day: calendar year 2026, day 125 of the year (May 5)
│      └── a three-digit segment, see below
└── the letter: which program this filing belongs to

The letter is the program

This is the part that matters most, and it's measurable across every case in DOL's system:

Checked against the full corpus, this is clean: every PERM case carries G- or A-, every wage request P-, and every LCA I-. There are no exceptions in 374,000 PERM cases, 68,000 wage requests and 220,000 LCAs.

G or A is the form generation, and the switch has a date

Older PERM cases start with A-, newer ones with G-. The changeover is sharp and measurable:

That boundary is the day DOL's revised ETA-9089 took effect. So if your number starts with A-, your case was filed under the old form. Both are valid and both are looked up the same way.

The three digits in the middle

You'll read in several places that this segment identifies the processing centre, Atlanta or Chicago. That may well be right, and it isn't something this data can confirm or deny.

The data can say one thing it doesn't do. All four values appear across the same date range, so it doesn't encode time:

DOL doesn't publish a key for it, and nothing in the public record maps a value to a centre. It has no bearing on how your case is processed as far as anyone can demonstrate, so it isn't worth reading anything into.

The date segment, which is useful

The five digits after the middle segment are a date: the first two are the calendar year, the next three the day of that year. So 26125 is day 125 of 2026, which is May 5. This is usually explained as the fiscal year, but a fiscal reading would put it in February.

The serial after it doesn't reset by day or by program. DOL runs one counter across PERM, prevailing wage requests and LCAs alike, so a PERM filed at 2 PM and a wage request filed at 2:01 PM get neighbouring numbers. It's six digits, zero-padded (070550, never 70550), and it wraps: on June 10, 2026 it ran up to 999997 and restarted at 000001. The counter advances roughly 2,000 to 3,000 a day, of which about a tenth are PERM.

This is why a filing date can be read straight off the number without looking anything up. It's right about 95% of the time and off by a day for the rest, because the counter rolls at a moment that doesn't line up exactly with the calendar.

Where to find your number

It's on the receipt DOL sends whoever filed, so your employer or its attorney has it. Asking is the quickest route.

If that isn't working, every one of these is searchable by employer, job title and filing month:

• PERM cases for G- and A- numbers
• Wage requests for P- numbers
• H-1B LCAs for I- numbers

There's a fuller walkthrough in how to find a PERM case number by employer name.

Checking a number once you have it

Case status takes all three prefixes and works out the program from the letter. If the number isn't already held, it asks DOL directly at that moment, so a recent filing still resolves.

What this can't tell you

• What the middle segment means. DOL publishes no key, and this page won't guess.
• Whether a number is real before you check it. A wrong digit still makes a well-formed number, which is why a typo looks exactly like a missing case.
• Anything about cases before 2017. They're not in the published data.

Related

• How to check PERM case status by case number
• How to find a PERM case number by employer name
• What each PERM case status means