Updated October 16, 2026

I-140 trends by category

What USCIS received, approved, denied and still has pending in each employment-based category, quarter by quarter, in its own words.

An advanced degree and a national interest waiver are not the same category

Both are EB-2, reported separately. Over these quarters, E21 was denied 2.54% of the time and a national interest waiver 46.94%, about 19 times apart. E21 is employer-sponsored, which is where a PERM leads; a waiver is a self-petition.

I-140 petitions, quarter by quarter

USCIS’s own figures, and its own category names.

Receipts per quarter

Only quarters USCIS has reported.

FY2025 Q1 28,437
FY2025 Q2 28,701
FY2025 Q3 28,214
FY2025 Q4 30,845
FY2026 Q1 24,838
FY2026 Q2 23,571
FY2026 Q3 29,307

Approved against denied

Bars are scaled to the busiest quarter, so a shorter track means fewer decisions rather than a different mix.

FY2025 Q1 2,946
FY2025 Q2 3,278
FY2025 Q3 4,726
FY2025 Q4 6,040
FY2026 Q1 3,442
FY2026 Q2 3,975
FY2026 Q3 3,426

Approved Denied The number on the right is denials.

Denial rate over time

Denials as a share of the petitions decided in that quarter.

What the EB2 rate is an average of

18.78% is the blend. Nobody files under EB2 itself: every petition goes in under one of its subtypes, and they aren’t deciding alike.

NIW · National Interest Waiver 46.94%
E21 · Professionals with Advanced Degrees 2.54%

Denial rates over the 148,233 petitions USCIS decided in these 7 quarters, per subtype: NIW 54,218, E21 94,015. These are rates over past petitions, not odds for a particular one.

FAQs

Is E21 the same as a National Interest Waiver?

No, and conflating them is the most common error in this data. E21 is USCIS's category for advanced-degree professionals, which on a PERM is an employer-sponsored petition. A national interest waiver is a self-petition that waives the job offer entirely. USCIS reports them as separate lines and their outcomes are nothing alike.

Why is the denial rate measured over decided petitions?

Because a rate over receipts moves with the backlog rather than with outcomes. In a quarter where USCIS simply decided fewer petitions, a receipts-based rate falls even though nothing about approvals or denials changed. Denied divided by approved plus denied answers the question people are actually asking.

Why can I not add the categories together?

Because they are a hierarchy. EB1 is the sum of E11, E12 and E13; EB2 is E21 plus NIW; EB3 is E31, E32 and EW3. Adding a preference to its own subtypes counts the same petition twice, so the selector keeps the two levels apart.

Why do some quarters not appear?

USCIS has not published them yet. An unreported quarter is left out rather than drawn as zero, because a bar at zero reads as filings collapsing rather than as data that does not exist.

I-140 filings by category: USCIS Form I-140 by Fiscal Year, Quarter and Case Status (uscis.gov) · data through 2026Q3 · quarterly

What this data includes

I-140 filings by category: I-140 volumes by fiscal quarter and classification, as USCIS publishes them. Counts of filings, not of people waiting.

Cite this page

The rules behind these numbers

Waiting on a PERM case?

When it'll likely be decided
An email when DOL moves it