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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 sit inside EB-2, and USCIS reports them separately. Over the quarters here, E21 was denied 2.53% of the time and a national interest waiver 47.26%, a difference of about 19 times. E21 is an employer-sponsored petition, which is what a PERM leads to; a waiver is a self-petition that asks USCIS to set the job offer aside. Trackers that label E21 “National Interest Waiver” put the smaller, safer number under the riskier name.

I-140 petitions, quarter by quarter

USCIS reports receipts, approvals, denials and the pending queue for each employment-based category. These are its own figures and its own category names.

EB2 · Second Preference · 6 quarters reported

Receipts

164,599

petitions filed across these quarters

Approved

104,481

across these quarters

Denied

24,412

across these quarters

Pending

94,495

waiting at the newest quarter, not a sum

Approval rate

81.06%

of petitions USCIS decided

Denial rate

18.94%

of petitions USCIS decided

Both rates are over petitions USCIS actually decided, not over receipts. A rate measured against receipts falls in a quarter where USCIS simply decided less, while nothing about the outcomes changed. Pending is a snapshot at the newest quarter for the same reason summing it would be wrong: it would count one waiting petition once per quarter.

Receipts per quarter

Only quarters USCIS has reported. A quarter it has not published is absent rather than drawn at zero, which would read as filings collapsing.

  1. FY2025 Q1 28,437
  2. FY2025 Q2 28,701
  3. FY2025 Q3 28,214
  4. FY2025 Q4 30,845
  5. FY2026 Q1 24,839
  6. FY2026 Q2 23,563

Approved against denied

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

  1. FY2025 Q1 2,946
  2. FY2025 Q2 3,278
  3. FY2025 Q3 4,726
  4. FY2025 Q4 6,040
  5. FY2026 Q1 3,446
  6. FY2026 Q2 3,976
Approved Denied The number on the right is denials.

Denial rate over time

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

0%13%25%FY2025 Q1FY2025 Q2FY2025 Q3FY2025 Q4FY2026 Q1FY2026 Q2

What the EB2 rate is an average of

18.94% 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 47.26%
  • E21 · Professionals with Advanced Degrees 2.53%

Denial rates over the 128,893 petitions USCIS decided in these 6 quarters, per subtype: NIW 47,291, E21 81,602. These are rates over past petitions, not odds for a particular one.

Common questions

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 2026Q2 · quarterly

The rules behind these numbers

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