Priority date calculator

Where an employment-based priority date sits against the visa bulletin cutoffs, and which way those cutoffs have been moving.

Is my priority date current?

And which way the cutoff has been moving. Cutoffs go backwards as well as forwards.

Your priority date

How the cutoff has moved

Bulletin month along the bottom, the cutoff it published up the side. The shaded part of each column is the range of priority dates that qualified that month, so a taller column is a month more people were current in.

The cutoff that month
Dates that qualified
Closed, no visa numbers

From the 84 visa bulletins published between October 2019 and September 2026.

What this can’t tell you

Enter a priority date to see where it sits against the cutoff.
It can’t tell you this month's cutoff. It holds archived bulletins only, and the archive itself stops at September 2026. Check the current bulletin before acting on any of it.

Which queues are actually moving

A cutoff that advances thirty days in a month has stood still: everyone waiting behind it is exactly as far back as they were. Across the 84 bulletins held here, October 2019 to September 2026, most of these queues moved slower than that.

Where every category stood in September 2026

Employment-based final action cutoffs by category and country of birth, from the September 2026 visa bulletin.
Category	Rest of world	China	India	Mexico	Philippines
EB-1	Current 1.35x pace	July 1, 2023 0.96x pace	October 15, 2022 1.13x pace	Current 1.35x pace	Current 1.35x pace
EB-2	Current 0.60x pace	September 1, 2021 0.96x pace	Closed	Current 0.60x pace	Current 0.60x pace
EB-3	September 1, 2024 1.18x pace	January 1, 2022 0.89x pace	January 1, 2014 0.72x pace	September 1, 2024 1.18x pace	August 1, 2023 0.84x pace
EB-3 other workers	April 1, 2022 0.81x pace	May 1, 2019 1.64x pace	January 1, 2014 0.72x pace	April 1, 2022 0.81x pace	December 1, 2021 0.60x pace
EB-4	December 15, 2022 0.13x pace	December 15, 2022 0.13x pace	December 15, 2022 0.13x pace	December 15, 2022 0.81x pace	December 15, 2022 0.13x pace
EB-5	Current	December 1, 2016 0.31x pace	Closed	Current	Current

Cutoffs as published in the September 2026 bulletin. Current means the category was open to every priority date that month. Closed means no visa numbers were being issued at all, so no priority date qualified however early it was.

Cutoff days gained per calendar month

Measured between the first and last bulletin here that published a real cutoff date for each queue. At 1.00 the cutoff advances one month per month and the wait ahead of a fixed priority date is unchanged. Below it, the wait got longer while the number on the page went up.

EB-3 other workers China 1.64x
EB-1 All other countries 1.35x
EB-1 Mexico 1.35x
EB-1 Philippines 1.35x
EB-3 All other countries 1.18x
EB-3 Mexico 1.18x
EB-1 India 1.13x
EB-2 China 0.96x
EB-1 China 0.96x
EB-3 China 0.89x
EB-3 Philippines 0.84x
EB-4 Mexico 0.81x
EB-3 other workers All other countries 0.81x
EB-3 other workers Mexico 0.81x
EB-3 India 0.72x
EB-3 other workers India 0.72x
EB-2 All other countries 0.60x
EB-2 Mexico 0.60x
EB-2 Philippines 0.60x
EB-3 other workers Philippines 0.60x
EB-5 China 0.31x
EB-4 All other countries 0.13x
EB-4 China 0.13x
EB-4 India 0.13x
EB-4 Philippines 0.13x

The upright rule is 1.00, holding station. Bars reaching right of it are queues that shortened. Bars reaching left of it are queues that lengthened while their cutoff was still moving forward.

18 of the 25 queues measured here moved slower than one month per month.

Queues with no pace to report

A pace needs two real cutoff dates to measure between, and it’s withheld for a category that’s currently shut: measured up to the month a queue stopped, it would describe a queue that no longer exists.

EB-2 India was closed in September 2026, after advancing 4 years 4 months across the bulletins before it.
EB-5 All other countries published no cutoff date in this window. It was open to every priority date instead.
EB-5 India was closed in September 2026, after advancing 4 years 5 months across the bulletins before it.
EB-5 Mexico published no cutoff date in this window. It was open to every priority date instead.
EB-5 Philippines published no cutoff date in this window. It was open to every priority date instead.

Common questions

What’s a priority date?

For an employment-based case it’s the date DOL received the PERM application, or the date USCIS received the I-140 where no labor certification was required. It’s your place in the queue for a visa number, and it stays with you across most category changes.

Why is this behind the current bulletin?

The State Department publishes the bulletin on a site that refuses automated requests, so these figures come from a public archive of the same pages plus a second mirror for the months the archive missed. In mid-July 2026 travel.state.gov began refusing the archive's crawler as well, so nothing here reaches this page directly from the source. Every figure is labelled with the bulletin it came from, the page states how far behind the live bulletin it is, and the current bulletin is one click away on the State Department's own site.

What does it mean when a category shows U?

Unavailable. No visa numbers are being issued in that category that month, so no priority date is current, however early it is. It usually means the annual limit has been reached and it typically resets at the start of the next fiscal year in October.

Can a cutoff move backwards?

Yes, and it does. Retrogression happens when demand in a category turns out higher than expected, and a date that was current one month can stop being current the next. That’s the main reason this page shows the whole series rather than just the latest number.

The cutoff moved forward. Why is the wait no shorter?

Because a cutoff has to advance about thirty days a month just for the queue to stay the same length. It moves forward while a month of real time passes, so anyone holding a fixed priority date only gains ground when it advances faster than that. Across the bulletins held here most employment-based queues moved slower, which means the number on the page went up and the wait got longer at the same time. The pace figures on this page are that measurement.

Which chart should I use, final action or dates for filing?

Final action dates govern when a green card can actually be approved. Dates for filing govern when the adjustment application can be submitted, but only in months when USCIS says it’s honouring that chart, which it announces separately.

Visa bulletin: State Dept via Internet Archive; gaps via permtrack.app mirror · data through Sep 2026 · monthly