EOIR-42B Visa Availability: Cap, Wait Times, and Filing Costs

Visa availability under Form EOIR-42B is capped at 4,000 grants nationwide per fiscal year, and once that cap is reached the immigration judge cannot issue a final grant even in cases the judge intends to approve. Instead, the judge reserves the decision and places the applicant on a first-come, first-served waiting list until a slot opens in a future fiscal year. That wait commonly runs a year or two, sometimes longer, on top of the years the case has already spent in immigration court.¹

How the 4,000 Annual Cap Works

Federal law limits the total number of cancellation of removal grants to 4,000 per fiscal year across every immigration court in the country.¹ The number is aggregate. It covers cancellation of removal cases under current law together with older suspension of deportation cases that are still working their way through the system.²

When the cap is reached before the fiscal year ends, judges continue hearing cases and continue reaching decisions. What they cannot do is issue a final grant. A judge who has decided to approve your case will enter an order reflecting an intent to grant and reserve the actual grant for a later date. You are not a lawful permanent resident yet. Your file goes into the queue, and the queue moves in the order decisions were reserved.

A reserved decision is not the same thing as a denial. Your case has been decided on the merits in your favor. The cap is a bottleneck on the paperwork that finishes the process, not a second chance for the government to relitigate whether you qualify.

What the Wait Actually Looks Like

Between the initial court backlog and the cap-driven waiting list, EOIR-42B cases stretch out over years. The wait after a reserved decision alone can run a year or two, and sometimes longer, depending on how quickly grants clear ahead of you and how many cases sit in the queue when yours joins it.

Two practical things follow from a wait this long.

First, stay reachable. Keep your address current with the immigration court at all times. You update it using Form EOIR-33. If the court cannot reach you when your number comes up, your case can stall indefinitely.

Second, plan for work authorization to bridge the wait. Once your Form EOIR-42B is properly filed with the court, you can apply for an Employment Authorization Document by submitting Form I-765 under eligibility category (c)(10).³ As of December 2025, USCIS reduced the maximum validity period for these work permits from five years to 18 months for both initial and renewal applications in this category.⁴ Because the case timeline plus the cap wait routinely exceeds 18 months, expect to renew the EAD more than once before your green card issues.

Qualifying Relatives and the Passage of Time

A long wait can quietly damage the case that got you the reserved grant in the first place, and the hardship requirement is the place this shows up. The statute requires exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a qualifying relative who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse, parent, or child.¹ A child qualifies only if unmarried and under 21. If a child turns 21 or marries before the judge rules, the qualifying relative can disappear, and with them the hardship claim.

Keeping track of your children’s ages relative to the hearing date matters for the same reason the cap does: both are calendars you do not control, and both can decide the case.

After a Slot Opens

Once a slot becomes available and the judge issues the final order granting cancellation of removal, your status adjusts to lawful permanent resident. The green card itself still takes a few more steps.

The DHS attorney forwards the judge’s order and your immigration file to the appropriate USCIS office. USCIS may schedule you for one or more appointments to collect biometrics and confirm your identity. After everything checks out, USCIS orders the card and mails it.⁵ Delivery typically takes about two months after USCIS orders it. If more than 45 days have passed since the judge’s final decision and you have heard nothing, you can call the USCIS Contact Center at 800-375-5283 to check on your case.

Filing Costs You Pay Before You Ever Reach the Cap Question

The filing fee for Form EOIR-42B in fiscal year 2026 is $1,640,⁶ with a separate $30 USCIS biometrics fee on top.⁷ Total government cost comes to roughly $1,670. If you cannot afford it, you can ask the immigration judge for a fee waiver. Before filing with the court, you send a copy of the application to the appropriate USCIS Service Center, follow DHS instructions for paying fees, and serve a copy on the DHS Assistant Chief Counsel. Only then do you file the original with the immigration court.⁸

Everyone 14 or older provides fingerprints and biographical information at a USCIS Application Support Center. USCIS mails the appointment notice. Missing the appointment can cause serious delays or lead the immigration judge to treat the application as abandoned, which ends the case long before the cap ever becomes an issue.⁸

Availability Only Matters If You Qualify

The cap sets a ceiling on how many people can be granted this relief. It does not lower the bar to get there. Before a judge ever reaches the point of granting or reserving a decision in your favor, you have to clear all four statutory requirements: ten years of continuous physical presence in the United States, good moral character throughout that period, no disqualifying criminal convictions, and exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a qualifying U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse, parent, or child.¹ Failing any one of them ends the case. Even after all four are satisfied, the judge still has discretion to deny relief based on the overall picture.

Two boundary points are worth flagging because they routinely trip people up.

The ten-year clock is not open-ended. It stops on the earlier of two events: the date you are served a Notice to Appear in immigration court, or the date you commit certain criminal offenses that make you inadmissible or removable. Time spent in court proceedings does not add to your total. Absences also cap out: any single departure of more than 90 days breaks continuous presence, and shorter trips totaling more than 180 days do the same.¹

And EOIR-42B is only available during removal proceedings in immigration court. You cannot file it affirmatively with USCIS. If you are not in proceedings, this form of relief is not on the table, and the cap discussion never applies to you.