EB-3 visa predictions for fiscal year 2026 point to steady forward movement for Rest of World, Mexico, and the Philippines, modest gains for China, and a nearly frozen line for India. As of the June 2026 Visa Bulletin, the EB-3 Final Action Date for India sits at December 15, 2013, while Rest of World has reached June 1, 2024.1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for June 2026 The gap between those two numbers, more than a decade, is the story of EB-3: where you were born matters more than when you filed.
Where EB-3 Cutoff Dates Stand Now
The June 2026 Visa Bulletin sets EB-3 Final Action Dates for skilled workers and professionals as follows:1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for June 2026
- Rest of World: June 1, 2024
- China (mainland born): August 1, 2021
- India: December 15, 2013
- Mexico: June 1, 2024
- Philippines: August 1, 2023
The Final Action Date is the date a green card can actually be issued. The Department of State also publishes a Dates for Filing chart, which sits ahead of the Final Action chart and controls whether you can submit your adjustment of status paperwork. USCIS decides each month which chart applicants may use.2U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin On the June 2026 Dates for Filing chart, Rest of World and Mexico were listed as current for EB-3, meaning applicants in those groups could file regardless of priority date.
How Fast Dates Have Moved in Fiscal Year 2026
Comparing the start of the fiscal year to the most recent bulletin gives the clearest read on pace. When FY2026 opened in October 2025, the EB-3 Rest of World Final Action Date was April 1, 2023.3U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for October 2025 By June 2026 it had advanced to June 1, 2024. That is roughly 14 months of priority date movement in eight calendar months.
China-born applicants saw more modest gains. The Final Action Date moved from March 1, 2021 to August 1, 2021 over the same stretch, about five months of progress. The Philippines advanced from April 2023 to August 2023.
India is a separate case. The EB-3 India date crept from August 22, 2013 to December 15, 2013 during the first eight months of FY2026, roughly four months of priority date advancement per eight real-time months. At that rate, the current backlog of more than twelve years would take well over two decades to work through, and new filings keep adding to the queue. No realistic projection puts EB-3 India on a path to becoming current in the near term without a change in the law.
Why the Movement Looks the Way It Does
Congress set the baseline supply of employment-based green cards at 140,000 per year, with unused family-sponsored visas from the prior year added on top.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1151 EB-3 receives up to 28.6 percent of that total, plus any visas left unused by EB-1 and EB-2.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 That spillover from higher categories is the single biggest variable in year-to-year predictions. In years when EB-1 and EB-2 demand is low, thousands of extra visas trickle down and EB-3 dates jump forward. When those categories are fully subscribed, EB-3 is stuck with its base share of roughly 40,000 visas.
On top of the category limits, no single country can receive more than 7 percent of the total employment-based visas in a given year.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 That per-country ceiling is what creates the enormous backlogs for India and China. Both countries generate far more EB-3 petitions than 7 percent of 140,000 can absorb, so the excess demand rolls into a queue that grows each year. Countries with lower demand never hit the cap, which is why their dates move faster.
The Fiscal Year Cycle and Retrogression Risk
The federal fiscal year starts on October 1, and that date resets the visa supply.7Congress.gov. Basic Federal Budgeting Terminology When the new allotment drops, the Department of State typically pushes dates forward in the October bulletin. The October 2025 bulletin followed exactly this pattern, allowing across-the-board advances from September’s positions.3U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for October 2025
From there the pattern is fairly predictable. Steady or accelerating advancement from October through roughly March, then a slowdown as the Department of State starts rationing the remaining supply. By July and August, dates often stall or move backward as the government avoids overshooting the annual cap before September 30. If your priority date is close to a cutoff, the spring months are generally your best window.
Retrogression is the sharper version of that seasonal slowdown. It happens when the Department of State moves a cutoff date backward, so applicants who were previously eligible to file suddenly are not. This can occur mid-year if USCIS approvals outpace the Department of State’s projections and more demand materializes than the remaining supply can absorb. The risk is highest for oversubscribed countries and for the Other Workers subcategory.
Other Workers Move on a Different Track
The EB-3 Other Workers subcategory covers unskilled labor positions requiring less than two years of training.8U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment-Based Immigration – Third Preference EB-3 Federal law caps this subcategory at 10,000 visas per year, carved out of the broader EB-3 allocation.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 That hard ceiling is the core problem. While skilled workers and professionals share roughly 30,000 or more visas, unskilled workers compete for a small fraction of that supply.
The June 2026 Other Workers dates lag the skilled worker chart across the board:1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for June 2026
- Rest of World: February 1, 2022
- China (mainland born): April 1, 2019
- India: December 15, 2013
- Mexico: February 1, 2022
- Philippines: November 1, 2021
The Rest of World Other Workers date trails the skilled worker date by more than two years, and the China gap is similar. That divergence has been widening. Applicants in this subcategory should expect long periods of stagnation punctuated by small advances at the start of each fiscal year when the 10,000 allotment refreshes. The annual limit has historically been exhausted well before September 30, triggering summer freezes.
What Could Change the Outlook
Every EB-3 prediction carries a caveat: legislative action could reshape the system quickly. Proposals to eliminate or raise the per-country cap have circulated in Congress for years. If enacted, such a change would dramatically accelerate dates for India and China while potentially slowing movement for other countries. Recapture of unused visas from prior years is another recurring proposal that would add supply to the system.
Short of legislation, the biggest variable remains spillover. In years when EB-1 and EB-2 demand drops, the Department of State allocates those surplus visas to EB-3 under the statutory framework.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 The Department of State decides how to distribute spillover each fiscal year, and its approach to the per-country cap within spillover distribution has changed over time.9U.S. Department of State. The Operation of the Immigrant Numerical Control System Tracking EB-1 and EB-2 usage through the year gives a rough sense of whether EB-3 will get a boost, but the actual allocation isn’t known until the Department of State acts on it.
USCIS processing speed also feeds into month-to-month predictions. Faster I-140 adjudication means more approved petitions feeding the queue, which can trigger retrogression. Slower processing can paradoxically help dates advance by reducing the visible demand the Department of State must account for when setting cutoffs.
Strategies That Can Change Your Effective Timeline
Downgrading From EB-2 to EB-3
For India-born applicants, a common strategy involves filing a new I-140 petition under EB-3 while retaining the priority date from an earlier EB-2 petition. Federal regulations allow you to carry forward the earliest approved priority date when you have multiple petitions, even across preference categories.10U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7, Part A, Chapter 8 This works because the EB-3 India Final Action Date, while still badly backlogged, sometimes runs ahead of the EB-2 India date during certain periods.
The downgrade requires a new PERM application and I-140 petition for an EB-3-qualifying position. It adds cost and processing time, but for applicants whose EB-2 India priority date would otherwise mean decades of waiting, the switch can shave years off the timeline when EB-3 happens to be more favorable. Whether it makes sense depends on how the two categories compare at the moment you’re ready to file.
Job Portability Under AC21
Once your I-485 has been pending for at least 180 days, you can change employers without losing your place in line, provided the new job falls within the same or a similar occupational classification as the one on your original petition.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1154 Without this protection, you’d be tied to a single employer for the length of the backlog. The catch: your priority date has to be current enough to file the I-485 in the first place, so portability isn’t available to applicants still waiting for their date to move.
Watching CSPA Math for Children
A long EB-3 wait raises the risk that your children turn 21 before your priority date becomes current. The Child Status Protection Act allows a special age calculation: your child’s age when a visa becomes available, minus the number of days the I-140 petition was pending, equals the adjusted age.12U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) If the adjusted age comes out under 21 and the child remains unmarried, they stay eligible as a derivative. A 2025 USCIS policy update clarified that for adjustment of status applications filed on or after August 15, 2025, the agency uses the date the priority date first becomes current in the Visa Bulletin to determine when a visa “becomes available” for this calculation. Families with children approaching 21 should run the CSPA math each time the priority date advances.
Checking the Bulletin Each Month
Priority date movement shifts monthly, sometimes forward and occasionally backward. Reading the Visa Bulletin every month isn’t optional if you’re tracking a pending case. The pace early in the fiscal year, the level of EB-1 and EB-2 spillover, and any late-summer signs of retrogression together give the most honest picture of when your date is likely to become current.