The EB-4 backlog is running about four years for applicants from every country. The June 2026 Visa Bulletin sets the Final Action Date at July 15, 2022 across all chargeability areas, so only petitions filed before that date can result in a green card right now.1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for June 2026 The Dates for Filing cutoff sits a bit later, at January 1, 2023. The wait reflects a hard annual ceiling of roughly 9,940 visas for a category that pulls demand from religious workers, Special Immigrant Juveniles, former U.S.-affiliated Iraqi and Afghan translators, certain international organization employees, and several smaller groups, all competing from the same pool.
How to Read Your Place in Line
Your priority date is the date USCIS accepted your Form I-360 for processing, and it stays with you for the rest of the case.2U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Availability and Priority Dates To see where that date stands, you compare it against the monthly Visa Bulletin.
The bulletin has two charts that matter. Final Action Dates (Chart A) controls when a green card can actually be issued: if your priority date is earlier than the listed date, a visa number is available. Dates for Filing (Chart B) controls when you may submit Form I-485 to adjust status, and it usually runs a few months ahead of Chart A. Each month, USCIS announces which chart adjustment applicants should use.3U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin A “C” in a category means current, with no wait.
Dates can advance by weeks or months in one bulletin and retrogress in the next when demand spikes. Checking the bulletin when it posts (usually mid-month for the following month) is the only reliable way to catch your window.4U.S. Department of State. The Visa Bulletin
Why the Wait Is This Long
Federal law reserves 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based visa level for EB-4, which comes out to about 9,940 visas a year against roughly 140,000 total employment-based visas.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas6U.S. Department of State. Employment-Based Immigrant Visas Within that ceiling, non-minister religious workers are capped at 5,000 per fiscal year. A separate per-country cap holds any single nation to no more than 7 percent of total employment-based visas.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
One structural detail makes the EB-4 ceiling especially unforgiving. Unused EB-4 numbers flow upward to EB-1, and EB-4 receives no overflow from higher preference categories.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas EB-2 and EB-3 applicants sometimes benefit when higher categories underuse their allotment; EB-4 applicants never do.
The current backlog took its present shape in March 2023. Since 2016, the State Department had listed separate visa availability columns for El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, reflecting heavy EB-4 demand from those countries. In 2023 the department concluded that its earlier reading of the per-country proration rules was wrong: prorated allocation required a country’s combined family- and employment-based demand to exceed the per-country ceiling, not demand in a single category. Applicants from those three countries were folded back into the worldwide queue.8USCCB. Explainer on April 2023 Change Impacting Special Immigrant Religious Workers Final Action Dates for every EB-4 applicant retrogressed sharply, and people who had been near the front were pushed back years. That is the backlog visible today.
The September 30, 2026 Deadline for Non-Minister Religious Workers
If you’re a non-minister religious worker, you face a deadline other EB-4 applicants do not. The special immigrant program for non-minister religious workers is not permanent law; Congress must reauthorize it, and the current authorization expires September 30, 2026.9U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Special Immigrant Religious Workers The most recent extension was signed into law on February 3, 2026 through H.R. 7148.
Ministers, meaning those whose primary role is leading worship and performing religious ceremonies, have permanent statutory authority and are not affected. Non-ministers, which includes religious brothers, sisters, and others in a religious vocation or occupation in either a professional or non-professional capacity, depend on renewal.9U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Special Immigrant Religious Workers
If the program lapses, USCIS has indicated it will reject new petitions filed on or after the expiration date and place pending petitions on hold.10Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. Non-Minister Religious Worker Program Sunsets Amid Government Shutdown Combined with a four-year backlog, this means many non-minister applicants with approved petitions still cannot adjust status before the sunset date. The petition can be approved and the pathway can still freeze if Congress does not act again.
Special Immigrant Juveniles and Deferred Action
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status applicants (young people who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned and hold a qualifying state juvenile court order) draw their visas from the same annual EB-4 pool, so they wait the same four years or so. The I-360 must be filed before the applicant’s 21st birthday, and USCIS generally decides these petitions within 180 days.11U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Special Immigrant Juveniles Approval does not confer status, though, and the applicant cannot file for adjustment until a visa number is available.
To fill that gap, USCIS had a policy of automatically considering approved SIJS beneficiaries for deferred action, which provides temporary protection from removal and work authorization eligibility. The policy was rescinded in June 2025, and a federal court in the Eastern District of New York stayed the rescission in November 2025. As of mid-2026 USCIS is again automatically considering SIJS beneficiaries for deferred action and accepting renewal requests on Form G-325A, though the agency has said it “strongly disagrees” with the court’s order and reserves discretion to terminate individual grants.11U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Special Immigrant Juveniles The rules here are unstable, and SIJS applicants should track them closely.
Holding Status While You Wait
A four-year gap between petition approval and visa availability creates a status problem for anyone already in the United States. R-1 nonimmigrant status is the usual bridge for religious workers. Initial admission runs up to 30 months, with extensions available up to a total of five years.12U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 2 Part O Chapter 6 – Admissions, Extensions of Stay, and Changes of Status A recent rule change removed the earlier requirement that R-1 workers who used their full five years live outside the United States for a full year before readmission, but departure at the end of the five-year period is still required.13U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. R-1 Nonimmigrant Religious Workers
When the backlog runs past five years, R-1 status expires before a visa number arrives. H-1B may work for some, but not every religious worker qualifies as a specialty occupation. Plan for the gap early.
On dual intent, R-1 sits in the middle. USCIS cannot deny an R-1 petition or extension solely because you have a pending immigrant petition, but R-1 holders are still technically expected to maintain the intent to depart when their stay ends.13U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. R-1 Nonimmigrant Religious Workers A pending I-360 will not sink your extension, but the protection is not as clean as what H-1B holders get.
The 180-Day Rule at Adjustment
When your priority date does become current and you file Form I-485, the status requirement is more forgiving than “must always have been in status.” For EB-4 special immigrants under certain subparagraphs, including religious workers classified under INA 101(a)(27)(C), you can adjust if you were lawfully admitted and have not been out of status or engaged in unauthorized employment for a cumulative total exceeding 180 days.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1255 – Adjustment of Status of Nonimmigrant to That of Person Admitted for Permanent Residence A short, inadvertent gap does not automatically disqualify you; crossing 180 days does. You also have to be physically in the United States when you file.
Working and Traveling With a Pending I-485
Once your I-485 is on file, you can apply for an Employment Authorization Document using Form I-765, which lets you work for any employer during the wait.15U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment Authorization Document That matters if your current nonimmigrant visa ties you to one employer.
Travel is riskier. If you leave the United States with a pending I-485 and no advance parole, USCIS treats the application as abandoned.16U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. While Your Green Card Application Is Pending with USCIS Advance parole is requested on Form I-131 before you travel. An emergency trip without the document in hand can undo years of waiting, so confirm approval before booking flights.
Children Who May Age Out
A four-year wait puts derivative children at real risk. If a child turns 21 before a visa number opens, they normally lose eligibility. The Child Status Protection Act cuts some of that risk by adjusting the calculation.
Under CSPA, effective age equals the child’s biological age on the date a visa becomes available, minus the number of days the underlying I-360 was pending before approval. So a petition pending two years, a child biologically 22 when the visa opens, yields a CSPA age of 20 and preserves eligibility. The child must stay unmarried and must seek permanent residence within one year of visa availability to lock in the protection.17U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 7 Part A Chapter 7 – Child Status Protection Act
CSPA does not save every case. If the petition moved quickly, there is little pending time to subtract, and a long backlog can still push the child past 21 on paper. Run the numbers early; if the child is going to age out regardless, an independent petition or another route is far easier to pursue before the birthday than after.
Tracking Your Case
After the I-360 is filed, the USCIS online case status tool shows the most recent action on your petition. You enter the 13-character receipt number (three letters followed by ten digits).18U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Checking Your Case Status Online For applicants processing at a U.S. consulate abroad, the National Visa Center handles fee collection and document submission after USCIS approves the petition, using its own case number and invoice ID. Between the case status tool and the monthly Visa Bulletin, you have the two documents you need to know when to act.