The Department of Labor shows a PERM case one line of status text in capitals and explains none of it. There's no official glossary, and of the sixteen strings the system can return, five have no published definition anywhere. Here's what the ones you're likely to see mean.
The status is public and keyed on the case number. PERM Tracker's free case status lookup reads it from DOL's own case-status service every day, pending cases included, and needs no account.
ANALYST REVIEW
This is the ordinary queue. The case is in line for a human analyst. Nothing has been asked of the employer, and nothing changes until someone opens the file.
Almost every pending case is here. On November 1, 2026, 80,233 of the 87,415 PERM cases waiting on a decision were at analyst review, about 92% of them. 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.
RFI ISSUED
The analyst wants something clarified before deciding. It's lighter than an audit. An RFI asks about one part of the filing, where an audit demands the whole file.
Be careful with the deadline. The phrase "request for information" and the acronym RFI appear nowhere in 20 CFR part 656. Their nearest hook is 656.20(d), which lets the certifying officer ask for supplemental information and sets no deadline. The 30 days that circulates online is the audit rule wearing the wrong label. Go by the date printed on the letter.
An RFI reads as bad news, and most end well. Of the RFIs on record that had reached a decision by November 1, 2026, 85% were certified, 2,452 of 2,882. Half of the ones that resolved did so within 33 days. Both figures describe a group of cases. Neither is a schedule for any single one.
Audit
A formal demand for the documentation behind the application: the recruitment report, the tear sheets, the notice of filing, the resumes, and the reason each U.S. applicant was rejected. Some applications are picked at random for quality control, so an audit isn't by itself an accusation.
The deadline is 30 days from the date on the audit letter, whatever day the letter arrives. The officer may grant one discretionary extension of up to 30 days. Missing the date costs more than the application: under 656.20(a)(3) it counts as a failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and then the appeal to BALCA isn't available.
Audited cases wait in their own queue, apart from analyst review. DOL printed where that queue stood until October 31, 2026, and prints no audit figure now.
SUPERVISED RECRUITMENT
It's rare, and it's a real escalation. DOL takes the recruitment over. The employer drafts an advertisement, the certifying officer approves the wording and decides where it runs, and applicants send resumes to the officer rather than to the employer.
There are two clocks, both 30 days: the draft advertisement within 30 days of being notified, and the recruitment report within 30 days of the officer asking for it. Missing either is a denial.
CERTIFIED
DOL granted the labor certification, which ends the PERM stage. The employer has 180 calendar days from the certification date to file the I-140, with no extensions. The certification is the document the I-140 gets filed with. It isn't a green card or a petition.
CERTIFIED - EXPIRED
The certification was granted and the 180-day window has since passed. That's all it says.
It isn't a finding that nobody filed. DOL grants the certification, USCIS receives the I-140, and nothing suggests DOL is told when one arrives. So a case where the employer filed on day 30 and a case where nobody ever filed both carry this status. If an I-140 went in inside the window, it's unaffected. Whoever filed knows which happened, and no public page can.
DENIED
The certifying officer refused the application, and the letter states the grounds. There are two routes out, and both close 30 days after the date of the determination.
Reconsideration goes back to the same officer, and can only carry documents DOL already received or ones that existed at filing and had to be kept on file. New evidence can't be added to fix what the denial was based on. A request for review puts the denial in front of DOL's appeals board, and it also goes to the officer who denied it rather than to the board directly. BALCA reviews the record the decision was made on, so the request is a legal argument. It can't bring in new evidence.
Letting both windows lapse counts as a failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and the denial becomes the final determination of the Secretary.
WITHDRAWN
The employer withdrew the application and DOL won't decide it. DOL records no reason. A withdrawal isn't a denial, and it counts against nobody.
Where in a case's life each status shows up
Each case is read once, so what can be measured is how old a case tends to be when it's found at a stage. This is our scan of every pending case on November 1, 2026. The RFI and audit page carries the current cohort sizes.
| Status | Cases | Median days since filing | Middle 80% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst review | 80,233 | 129 | 27 to 264 |
| Application on hold | 2,880 | 276 | 72 to 305 |
| RFI issued | 623 | 321 | 292 to 358 |
| Reconsideration appeals | 2,632 | 527 | 404 to 689 |
| NORD issued | 133 | 683 | 640 to 727 |
| BALCA appeals | 898 | 859 | 684 to 1,081 |
The ladder holds for a mechanical reason: a case can't be at BALCA without first being filed, reviewed and denied. Read it as a map of where a status sits. It doesn't say how long a stage lasts.
On a case that hasn't been decided, you can leave an email address and get one message when the status changes. You confirm the address first (double opt-in), and the link in the email stops the alerts.
The statuses nobody can explain
IN PROCESS, APPLICATION ON HOLD, NORD ISSUED, DETERMINATION ISSUED and DENIED - BALCA DISMISSED have no published definition, so nothing here invents one. NORD isn't expanded either. No DOL or OFLC publication confirming what it stands for could be found. An acronym guessed from its shape is a plausible wrong answer, and those get acted on.
On November 1, 2026, 1,831 of the 2,880 cases at application on hold belonged to one employer. A count of that status that reads like a program-wide pattern is mostly one company's filings.
What this can't tell you
A status can't tell you why DOL acted, how long a case will sit at a stage, or whether it'll be pulled for an RFI or an audit.
- Why. DOL publishes a status without its reasoning. The letter the employer got says more than any status word.
- How long your case will sit where it is. This page's table shows where a status appears. It doesn't show how long the status lasts, because a snapshot can't watch a case enter or leave a stage.
- Whether RFIs are becoming more common. It's the same reason. Counting cases at a stage today is possible. Counting arrivals last month isn't.
- Whether your case will be pulled for an RFI or an audit. Measured rates describe named groups. Belonging to a group with a 9% rate doesn't make a case 9% likely. This site deliberately has no blended risk score anywhere, because the factors aren't independent.
- A date. Where an estimated decision window appears elsewhere on this site, it's graded against real decisions on the estimate scorecard.
- Anything from the last few hours. The data is refreshed once a day, and DOL is the authority for any single case.
Related
- Case status lookup, which takes PERM, prevailing wage and LCA numbers
- RFIs, audits and appeals, for the current count at each stage
- PERM processing times, for where DOL's queues stand
