How Family-Based Immigration Works: Visas, Wait Times, and Sponsorship

Family-based immigration is the system that lets U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents petition for close relatives to receive green cards. The relationship you have to your relative decides almost everything else: how fast the case moves, whether there is a waiting list at all, and which relatives you are even allowed to sponsor. A spouse of a U.S. citizen can have a green card in under a year. A sibling can wait more than twenty.

Who Can Sponsor, and Who Can Be Sponsored

You need to be either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident to file. People on temporary visas, student visas, or other nonimmigrant status cannot petition for family members.

Citizens have the wider list of eligible relatives. A citizen can petition for a spouse, an unmarried child under 21, an unmarried adult son or daughter, a married son or daughter, a parent (if the citizen is at least 21), and a sibling (also if the citizen is at least 21). Permanent residents can only petition for a spouse, an unmarried child, or an unmarried adult son or daughter.¹²

You also generally need to keep a home in the United States, or show you intend to return and live here with the relative you’re bringing. A citizen living abroad permanently usually cannot sponsor a relative into a country where the sponsor doesn’t reside.

Immediate Relatives vs. Preference Categories

The single most important distinction in the whole system is between “immediate relatives” and “preference” relatives.

Immediate relatives are the spouse of a U.S. citizen, the unmarried child under 21 of a U.S. citizen, and the parent of a U.S. citizen who is at least 21. This group is exempt from the annual numerical caps that apply to everything else.³ No cap, no backlog, no waiting line — the case moves as fast as the paperwork does.

Every other qualifying relationship falls into one of four preference categories, each with a fixed annual visa allocation:

First preference (F1): unmarried adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, roughly 23,400 visas per year.
Second preference (F2A and F2B): spouses and minor children of permanent residents (F2A) and unmarried adult sons and daughters of permanent residents (F2B). About 114,200 visas combined, with at least 77 percent reserved for F2A.
Third preference (F3): married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, roughly 23,400 visas per year.
Fourth preference (F4): brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who are at least 21, roughly 65,000 visas per year.

Each category picks up unused visas from the categories above it, so the real numbers shift a bit each year.⁴ Note that when the law says “child,” it means unmarried and under 21. If a son or daughter turns 21 or marries while the case is pending, they can move into a slower category.

If your relative qualifies under a preference category, their spouse and unmarried children under 21 can travel with them as derivative beneficiaries under the same priority date, without separate petitions.

How Long the Wait Actually Is

The Department of State publishes a monthly Visa Bulletin showing which priority dates are being processed for each preference category. Based on the April 2025 bulletin, the approximate waits look like this:

F1 (unmarried adult children of citizens): about 9 years for most countries, up to 20 years for Mexico.
F2A (spouses and minor children of permanent residents): about 3 years.
F2B (unmarried adult children of permanent residents): about 9 years for most countries, up to 19 years for Mexico.
F3 (married children of citizens): about 14 years for most countries, over 20 years for Mexico and the Philippines.
F4 (siblings of citizens): about 18 years for most countries, over 20 years for Mexico, the Philippines, and India.

These figures come from comparing the current final action dates against the present date.⁵ Four countries face especially long backlogs because demand from their nationals runs well past the per-country limits: Mexico, the Philippines, India, and China. If your relative is from one of those, expect the wait to be longer than the general timeline.

The Affidavit of Support and What You’re Signing Up For

Federal law requires every sponsor to sign an Affidavit of Support (Form I-864). It is a legally enforceable contract in which you guarantee that the relative will not have to rely on government cash assistance.⁶ You need household income of at least 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines for your combined household size, including the relative you’re sponsoring.

For 2026, a sponsor with a household of two needs at least $24,650 in annual income for the 48 contiguous states. A household of four needs $37,500. Alaska and Hawaii have higher thresholds.⁷ If your income falls short, you can add a co-sponsor who independently meets the requirement, or count certain assets toward the gap.

The obligation does not end when your relative gets the green card. It continues until the sponsored immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen, earns credit for 40 qualifying quarters of work (about 10 years), permanently leaves the country, or dies. Divorce does not end it. If your sponsored relative later receives certain means-tested benefits, the agency that paid them can sue you for reimbursement.⁶

Filing the Petition

The case starts with Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, which establishes that a qualifying family relationship exists.⁸ The filing fee is $625 online or $675 on paper.⁹

You’ll need to prove your own status (a U.S. birth certificate, passport, or green card) and the relationship itself (a marriage certificate for a spouse, birth certificates for a child or parent, or matching birth certificates for a sibling). Spousal petitions draw extra scrutiny: officers look for evidence of a shared life, such as joint bank accounts, a shared lease or mortgage, and photos across time.

Additional fees pile up as the case moves. Once USCIS approves the petition and forwards it to the National Visa Center, the immigrant visa processing fee for family cases is $325.¹⁰ Adjusting status inside the U.S. requires Form I-485 with its own fee, and the required medical exam has fees set by individual doctors.

Adjustment of Status or Consular Processing

Once a visa number is available, your relative gets their green card in one of two ways. If they are already in the United States with lawful status, they can file Form I-485 to adjust status without leaving. If they are abroad, they go through consular processing at a U.S. embassy or consulate.

Adjustment has a real practical benefit: the applicant stays in the country the whole time and can apply for work authorization while the case is pending. For immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, the I-130 and I-485 can be filed together, saving months. Consular processing loops in both USCIS and the State Department, with the National Visa Center handling documents and scheduling the interview overseas.

The choice isn’t always yours. If your relative has been out of lawful status in the U.S. for 180 days or more, they may be ineligible to adjust and forced to process abroad. Leaving the country to do that can trigger the unlawful presence bars discussed below, which is one of the most damaging traps in the system.

Conditional Green Cards for Recent Marriages

If the marriage is less than two years old when the green card is approved, the sponsored spouse gets a conditional green card valid for two years.¹¹ To convert to a standard green card, both spouses must jointly file Form I-751 during the 90-day window before the second anniversary of the green card. Filing too early gets the petition returned. Missing the window can cost the sponsored spouse their status. If the marriage has ended by then through divorce, abuse, or the sponsor’s death, the conditional resident can file for a waiver of the joint filing requirement at any time after receiving conditional status.

Children Turning 21 During the Wait

Because preference-category waits run for years, a child listed on a petition can hit 21 before their visa number comes up. The Child Status Protection Act uses a formula age instead of the child’s actual age. Take the child’s age on the date a visa number first becomes available (or the petition approval date, whichever is later), then subtract the number of days the petition was pending before approval. If the result is under 21, the child keeps their classification.¹² The child must also remain unmarried.

What Can Still Block the Green Card

An approved petition doesn’t guarantee a green card. Several grounds of inadmissibility can stop the case at the final step.

Health

Every applicant completes a medical exam by an authorized physician.¹³ A communicable disease of public health significance, a physical or mental condition that poses a safety threat, or substance abuse can each make a person inadmissible. Applicants also have to show proof of required vaccinations.¹⁴ Missing shots can usually be handled before or during the exam.

Criminal History

A conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude or any controlled substance offense can be a bar. Two or more convictions of any type, with combined sentences of five years or more, can also trigger one. A narrow exception applies to a single minor offense where the maximum possible sentence was one year or less and the person actually served less than six months.¹⁴

Unlawful Presence

This is the ground that catches the most families off guard. A relative who was in the U.S. without lawful status for more than 180 days but less than a year faces a three-year bar on reentry after leaving. A year or more of unlawful presence produces a ten-year bar.¹⁵ The bars are triggered by departure, which is what consular processing requires. A relative who overstayed a visa and then leaves for their interview can be locked out for years. Waivers exist but require showing extreme hardship to a qualifying U.S. citizen or permanent resident relative, and approval is never automatic.

After Approval

The Affidavit of Support stays in force after your relative gets the green card, on the terms above. A conditional resident on a two-year card has to file to remove conditions on time or risk losing status.

Permanent residence is not citizenship. Green card holders can live and work in the U.S. permanently, but they can’t vote, and they can lose status through extended absences, certain criminal convictions, or abandoning residence. Naturalization is generally available after five years of permanent residence, or three years for someone who got the green card through marriage to a U.S. citizen and is still living with that spouse. Naturalization also ends the sponsor’s financial obligation under the Affidavit of Support, and it lets the new citizen sponsor family members of their own.⁶

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Bringing Parents to Live in the United States as Permanent Residents
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Bringing Siblings to Live in the United States as Permanent Residents
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1151 – Worldwide Level of Immigration
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
5
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for April 2025
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1183a – Requirements for Sponsors Affidavit of Support
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-864P – HHS Poverty Guidelines for Affidavit of Support
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-130, Petition for Alien Relative
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1055, Fee Schedule
10
U.S. Department of State. Fees for Visa Services
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1186a – Conditional Permanent Resident Status for Certain Alien Spouses and Sons and Daughters
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 8 Part B Chapter 3 – Applicability of Medical Examination and Vaccination Requirement
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens
15
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Unlawful Presence and Inadmissibility