Your F4 priority date is the date U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received the Form I-130 petition your U.S. citizen sibling filed for you. It fixes your place in the line for the roughly 65,000 immigrant visas set aside each year for brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens, and you’ll wait until the monthly Visa Bulletin cutoff moves past that date before a green card can be issued. As of the March 2026 Visa Bulletin, the government was still working through petitions filed in 2008 for most of the world and in 2001 for people born in Mexico.1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for March 2026
The date itself gives you nothing. You can’t live or work in the United States because of it. It’s a marker, not a status. But it’s the number that governs every step that follows, so knowing what yours is, where to find it, and what can wipe it out matters.
Where to Find Your Priority Date
When USCIS accepts the I-130 for processing, it mails a Form I-797 receipt notice. The date USCIS received the petition is printed on that notice, and that’s your priority date.2U.S. Department of State. NVC Processing Keep the notice. You’ll reference the date for years, possibly decades. If it’s lost, your petitioning sibling can request a copy through USCIS.
One eligibility rule affects how long that date stays yours: you must be unmarried when the petition is filed and stay unmarried the entire time you wait. Federal law has no visa category for a married sibling of a U.S. citizen, so a marriage at any point before the green card is issued revokes the petition.3USCIS. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part B Chapter 2 – General Eligibility Requirements A later divorce doesn’t bring it back.
Current F4 Wait Times by Country
The Final Action Dates in the March 2026 Visa Bulletin show which priority dates have actually reached the front of the line:1U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for March 2026
- All chargeability areas except those listed below: January 8, 2008
- India: November 1, 2006
- Philippines: September 1, 2006
- Mexico: April 8, 2001
That works out to roughly 18 years for most of the world, 19 for India and the Philippines, and about 25 for Mexico. Petitions filed today will face a comparable wait. The gap between countries exists because federal law caps any single country at 7 percent of family-sponsored and employment-based visas issued in a fiscal year, and countries with heavy demand hit that ceiling every year.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
Your country of chargeability is usually your country of birth, not your current citizenship or where you live.
Reading the Visa Bulletin
The Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs publishes the Visa Bulletin each month, typically mid-month for the following month.5U.S. Department of State. The Visa Bulletin For family-sponsored preferences it publishes two charts, and the difference matters.
Final Action Dates show when a visa number is actually available for issuance. When your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the F4 row for your country, or the chart shows “C” for current, a green card can be issued.
Dates for Filing show when you can start submitting paperwork to the National Visa Center, ahead of a visa being available. This chart usually moves faster. For people already in the United States who want to file Form I-485, USCIS announces each month which chart applies to adjustment of status applicants; consular applicants abroad follow the NVC’s instructions.6USCIS. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin
Find the F4 row, find your country, and compare the listed date to the date on your I-797. That’s the whole check. Do it monthly. When your date finally becomes current, you need to move quickly.
How the Dates Move
Each month the Department of State advances cutoffs based on how many visa numbers it expects to use. In a good month an F4 cutoff may jump forward several weeks. In a slow month it barely moves. Over a year, dates for the general “all chargeability” category tend to advance somewhere between a few months and roughly a year of real time, though the pace is not steady.
Dates can also move backward. That’s called retrogression, and it happens when more applicants are ready to finalize their cases than there are remaining visas in the fiscal year. The Department of State pulls the cutoff back to slow filings. If your priority date was current last month and the cutoff retrogresses past it, you wait again until it advances back. Retrogression shows up more often near the end of the federal fiscal year, which runs October through September.
When Your Priority Date Becomes Current
What happens next depends on where you are.
If You’re Outside the United States
The case moves to the National Visa Center, which typically opens processing six to twelve months before a priority date is expected to become current. The NVC sends a welcome notice with instructions for the Consular Electronic Application Center, where you submit the DS-260 immigrant visa application, pay fees, and upload documents.2U.S. Department of State. NVC Processing Your petitioning sibling files Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Once the NVC confirms the file is complete, it schedules your interview at the U.S. embassy or consulate.
If You’re Already in the United States
You may be able to file Form I-485 to adjust status without leaving. The Visa Bulletin governs when that filing is permitted, and USCIS’s monthly announcement tells you which chart, Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing, applies to adjustment applicants for that month.
The One-Year Response Deadline
Once the NVC notifies you that a visa is available, you have one year to respond. Miss it and the government can terminate the petition. Reinstatement is possible within two years if you can show the failure to respond was beyond your control, but it isn’t guaranteed.2U.S. Department of State. NVC Processing After waiting nearly two decades, this is the deadline most worth guarding. Keep your address and email current with the NVC through every move during the wait.
Children Who May Age Out
Children listed as derivatives on your petition must be unmarried and under 21 to immigrate with you. In a queue this long, biological children often cross 21 before the visa is available. The Child Status Protection Act allows a calculated age instead of the actual one:7USCIS. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)
CSPA age = age when the visa becomes available − time the I-130 was pending
“Age when the visa becomes available” is measured on the later of the petition approval date or the first day of the month the Final Action Dates chart shows a visa available. “Pending time” is the days between filing and approval of the I-130. If the petition took two years to approve, two years come off the child’s age for CSPA purposes.
Even with the formula, a child can still age out if the math doesn’t work. The child must also stay unmarried and take steps to acquire permanent residency within one year of a visa becoming available, which in practice means filing the DS-260 or adjustment application promptly.8USCIS. USCIS Updates Policy Guidance for the Sought to Acquire Requirement Under the Child Status Protection Act Run the CSPA calculation well before your date is current so you know where each child stands.
What Can Wipe Out Your Priority Date
Because the wait is so long, a lot can go wrong. Three events destroy the petition entirely.
Marriage. If you marry before receiving the green card, the petition is revoked. No visa category exists for married siblings of U.S. citizens.3USCIS. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part B Chapter 2 – General Eligibility Requirements A later divorce does not restore the petition. A new I-130 would start the clock over.
Death of your petitioning sibling. An approved petition is automatically revoked by regulation when the petitioner dies. INA section 204(l) can let the case continue, but only if you were residing in the United States when the petitioner died and continue to reside there, and only with a substitute sponsor filing the Affidavit of Support.9USCIS. Basic Eligibility for Section 204(l) Relief for Surviving Relatives Relief is discretionary and can be denied on public-interest grounds. Beneficiaries waiting abroad for consular processing generally aren’t eligible.
Missing the NVC’s one-year deadline. Silence terminates the case. Keep your contact information updated through every move, every new email address, every change over the years you wait.
The F4 category rewards patience and record-keeping in about equal measure. Know your priority date, know your country’s cutoff, check the bulletin, and don’t let anything sever the link between USCIS, the NVC, and you.