Visa bulletin · 96 months held, October 2018 to September 2026

The October 2026 visa bulletin, from the last 96

The newest bulletin we hold is September 2026. For every employment category and country, this page shows what each earlier October bulletin did, measured against the month before it, beside USCIS's count of applications ahead of the current cutoff. It is measured, not predicted, and it rolls forward by itself when the next bulletin lands.

When it comes out

The State Department announces no date. The one piece of evidence this archive holds is the day the Internet Archive first captured each bulletin, which is a floor on the publication day. Too few captures fall before the bulletin's own month to say more than "mid-month". Expect October 2026 in September; the day is the Department's.

The spillover, as the Department set it

For fiscal year 2026, the State Department set the employment-based limit at 186,000 worldwide: the statutory 140,000 plus 46,000 family-sponsored numbers that went unused in fiscal year 2025. The Department marks that sheet estimated, pending its official determination. No single country can take more than 13,020 of the employment total.

The year before is counted, not estimated. In fiscal year 2024, 215,959 family-sponsored and 167,394 employment-based numbers were used, by Table V of the Department's Report of the Visa Office 2024; the 10,041 family numbers left unused against the 226,000 floor are what fell to the employment side for fiscal year 2025.

Both figures are read from the Department's own PDFs, the annual numerical limits and the annual report, and nothing here is a forecast. The spillover for the fiscal year about to open is not published on bulletin day; this page prints it when the Department posts its sheet, usually in the first weeks of the fiscal year.

What the September 2026 bulletin did

Final action dates, each measured against August 2026.

What earlier October bulletins did, by category

Each row is one country. The cutoff is the newest final action date we hold. The moves are every October bulletin in the archive, measured against its own September; a median is printed only when there were date-to-date moves to take it over. “Ahead of the cutoff” is USCIS's newest monthly inventory: pending adjustment applications with an earlier priority date than the cutoff, a floor because USCIS withholds small cells.

Bulletin figures are the State Department's, one row per published bulletin since October 2018. Inventory figures are USCIS's monthly pending I-485 counts. Every month-by-month cutoff, both charts, is on the priority date page, and the queue ahead of your own date on the I-485 queue position tool.