Somebody told you your PERM was filed. Maybe they said the wage request went in, or that the I-140 is approved and now you wait. If none of that means much yet, this is the whole thing laid out in order, with what each step takes right now and how to check yours without asking anyone. PERM Tracker's free green card timeline dates each step of your own case from today's DOL and USCIS figures, with the government fees.
This is written for the person waiting. Nothing here is legal advice, and your attorney knows your case in a way a public dataset never will.
The shape of it
An employer-sponsored green card is six steps with two agencies, and the State Department's visa bulletin between them. Each finishes before the next begins, and each has its own queue. Here's how long each takes today, and what the government charges for it.
The bulletin wait is the step that varies most. For some people it's a few months. For others, the wait after I-140 approval is measured in years, and none of the earlier steps change that.
Step one: the prevailing wage determination
Before an employer can advertise the job, it has to ask the Department of Labor what the job pays. That request is Form ETA-9141, and DOL's answer sets the floor the employer must offer.
How long right now. By our daily check of DOL's case status on November 9, 2026, DOL is deciding PERM wage requests filed on August 5, 2026, about 3 months after they were filed. DOL's own table, dated September 30, 2026, names June 2026. Requests that name another wage source than DOL's own survey wait in a separate queue, which DOL's table puts at June 2026.
How to check yours. The request has its own case number, starting with P-100-. Paste it into case status and you get DOL's own status for it, pending or decided, plus the wage once it's issued. If you don't have the number, search the employer.
There's a persistent myth that pending wage requests can't be checked by the public. It isn't true, and it's worth knowing because it's repeated on a lot of immigration sites.
What can go wrong. DOL can come back with a wage higher than the employer expected, which sometimes sends the whole thing back to the drawing board. The employer can also ask DOL to reconsider, which adds months.
What to do. There's very little to do. This step is entirely between the employer and DOL. See how DOL sets a prevailing wage if you want to understand the number when it arrives.
Step two: recruitment
The employer has to test the US labour market: newspaper ads, a job order with the state workforce agency, and several other steps, each with its own timing rule. There's a quiet period after the ads before the PERM can be filed, and a hard outer limit after which the ads go stale.
How long. In the 276,788 decided cases filed on DOL's current form, through June 30, 2026, the first recruitment step came a median 120 days before filing, and half the cases started between 90 and 160 days before it (PERM recruitment). The timing rules set most of it, rather than anyone's effort.
How to check. You can't, directly. Recruitment produces no public record. You can understand the clocks, though, because they decide when the PERM can be filed. The deadline calculator works them out from the determination date.
What can go wrong. A missed window restarts the recruitment. This is the step where delays happen out of sight, and it's the one your employer controls completely.
Step three: the PERM application
The employer files Form ETA-9089 and DOL decides whether to certify it. This is the step people mean when they say "my PERM is pending."
How long right now. By our check of DOL's case status on November 9, 2026, DOL's analyst review is working cases filed in February 2026. DOL's published average from filing to a decision is 300 days, measured on the cases it decided in the last 30 days, as of October 31, 2026. That average includes the cases DOL pulled aside for an audit or a request for information, so a case that goes straight through usually waits a little less.
How to check yours. The case number starts with G-100- (older ones use an A- format). Put it into case status and you'll see DOL's own status word, what it means in plain English, and where your filing month sits in the queue.
You can also leave an email address and hear when the status changes, so you don't have to keep checking. It's one message per change, and no account is needed.
What the statuses mean. Most cases sit in analyst review the whole time. A few get pulled into audit, supervised recruitment, or a request for information. Those aren't denials, but they do add months. What each status means goes through them one by one.
What can go wrong. Denials happen. The measured rates are published by factor rather than blended into one score. The factors aren't independent, and a single number would imply a precision the data doesn't support.
About estimates. Any date anyone gives you for your PERM is an estimate built on how fast DOL has been moving. Treat a predicted month as a rough centre, and don't plan around it as a date.
Step four: the I-140
Once the PERM is certified, the employer has 180 days to file the I-140 petition with USCIS. Miss that window and the certification expires.
How long. USCIS's median today is in the steps above, read from its quarterly figures. Premium processing decides it within 15 business days, for an extra fee.
How to check. This step is at USCIS rather than DOL, so the tracking is different. You'll have a receipt number beginning with three letters. USCIS has its own case status tool. The I-140 calculator shows USCIS's current times for each I-140 class.
What matters more than the timing. Your priority date is locked in when the PERM was filed, and it survives the I-140. That date is what governs everything after this point.
Step five: the wait for a visa number
From here, your country of birth matters more than processing times.
Every year Congress sets a fixed number of employment green cards, with a per-country cap. If more people from one country apply than the cap allows, a queue forms and the State Department publishes a cutoff date each month. You can only file the final step once your priority date is earlier than that cutoff.
How to check. The priority date tool holds every cutoff since October 2014, so you can see where the line is and which way it's been moving. That direction matters more than the current number.
Two things worth knowing. Cutoffs sometimes move backwards. That's called retrogression, and it's demoralising when it happens. And "current" means there's no backlog for your category and country at all. Most of the world is in that position, and India and China largely aren't.
What can go wrong. Nothing you can influence. This step is arithmetic on a quota.
Checking without asking anyone
A recurring frustration is that the person waiting has the least information. The employer's attorney has a portal login. You have whatever you're told.
That's less true than it used to be. DOL's own case status system answers to anyone holding a case number, pending cases included, across all three of its filings. So you can check the wage request, the PERM, and the H-1B labour condition application yourself, without a login and without waiting for someone to reply to an email.
If you don't have the number, ask whoever filed. It's an ordinary request and they have it on the receipt. Failing that, find it by employer.
What none of this can tell you
None of this can say when your case will be decided, why a decision went the way it did, or what your employer intends.
- When your case will actually be decided. Everything here is built on how fast DOL has moved recently. It has no view of your specific file.
- Why a decision went the way it did. DOL publishes outcomes without the reasoning.
- Anything about your employer's intentions. A filing is a legal step. It doesn't promise anything about your job.
- Whether to make a life decision. Nobody should change jobs, buy a house, or leave the country on the strength of a queue estimate. That's a conversation with your attorney.
What's actually worth doing while you wait
Check monthly rather than daily. Nothing changes between Tuesday and Wednesday, and an email alert removes the need to look at all.
Keep your own copies: the prevailing wage determination, the PERM certification, the I-140 approval notice. People change employers and lawyers, and documents go missing.
Know your priority date, and know your category. Those two facts determine more about your timeline than anything else on this page.
Ask your attorney the specific question rather than the general one. "Has the I-140 been filed, and do we have the receipt number" gets an answer. "How long will this take" doesn't.
Where to go next
Each step has its own detail:
- What each PERM status means and how to look one up
- How DOL sets a prevailing wage and how to track a request
- How the PERM queue works and where your month sits
- The deadlines that matter
- Why cases are denied or audited
- How the visa bulletin works
- Tracking a case without an account
- What to do while you wait
