How to Read the Department of State Visa Bulletin

To read the Department of State Visa Bulletin, find the chart for your visa type, locate the row for your preference category, and move across to the column for your country of birth. The date in that cell is the cutoff. If your priority date is earlier than that cutoff, a visa number is available to you and your case can move forward. If it is not, you wait for a future month. That is the whole mechanic. Everything else in learning how to read the Visa Bulletin is knowing which three pieces of your own information to bring to the grid, and knowing which of the two charts applies to your situation.

The bulletin exists because federal law caps the number of immigrant visas issued each year — at least 226,000 family-sponsored and 140,000 employment-based — and demand routinely outruns supply.¹ The monthly cutoffs are how the State Department rations those numbers.

The Three Facts You Bring to the Grid

Your Priority Date

Your priority date is your place in line. For family cases, it is the date your Form I-130 was properly filed with USCIS.² For employment cases, it depends on whether a labor certification was required. If your employer went through PERM, your priority date is the date the Department of Labor accepted that application for processing. If no labor certification was needed — EB-1 extraordinary ability, National Interest Waivers — the priority date is the date your I-140 was filed.³

You will find the date on the I-797 Notice of Action USCIS sent when your petition was received or approved. Do not assume a PERM-based case has a priority date matching its I-140 filing date. It does not.

Your Preference Category

Your preference category is the row. Family-sponsored preferences run F1 through F4; employment-based preferences run EB-1 through EB-5.

The family categories:

F1: Unmarried adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens
F2A: Spouses and minor children of permanent residents
F2B: Unmarried adult sons and daughters of permanent residents
F3: Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens
F4: Brothers and sisters of adult U.S. citizens

The employment categories:

EB-1: Priority workers, including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational managers
EB-2: Professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability⁴
EB-3: Skilled workers, professionals with bachelor’s degrees, and other workers
EB-4: Certain special immigrants, including religious workers
EB-5: Immigrant investors

Your Country of Chargeability

Your country of chargeability is the column. It is almost always your country of birth, not your current citizenship or where you live now. Most applicants fall under the “All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed” column. A handful of countries with heavy demand — currently China (mainland-born), India, Mexico, and the Philippines — get their own columns because they consistently hit the per-country ceiling.⁵

One exception is worth knowing. If your spouse was born in a country with a shorter line, you may be able to use their country of chargeability instead of yours. The State Department calls this cross-chargeability. Both spouses must immigrate at the same time for it to apply; one spouse cannot come ahead of the other under this option.⁶

What the Cell Tells You

Bring those three facts to the grid and read the cell where your row meets your column. It shows one of three things.

A date means your priority date must be earlier than that date for you to be eligible. The letter “C” means the category is current: no backlog, and any qualified applicant can proceed regardless of priority date. The letter “U” means unavailable: the annual limit for that group has been exhausted, and no visas can be issued until numbers open again.⁵

Which of the Two Charts Applies to You

Each preference section contains two charts, and they do different work. This is where the bulletin genuinely trips people up.

Final Action Dates

The Final Action Dates chart controls whether a green card can actually be issued. When your priority date is earlier than the cutoff on this chart, a visa number is available and your case can be approved.² For applicants abroad, this chart is what tells the National Visa Center it can schedule the consular interview once your case is documentarily complete.⁷

Dates for Filing

The Dates for Filing chart has earlier cutoff dates and lets you get in line sooner. When your priority date falls before the date on this chart, you can begin assembling and submitting documentation to the NVC even though a visa number is not ready for final issuance. It is a signal to prepare paperwork, not a signal that a green card is coming.²

If You Are Adjusting Status Inside the U.S.

If you plan to file Form I-485 rather than process at a consulate abroad, there is an extra step every month. USCIS decides whether domestic applicants may use the Dates for Filing chart or must use the Final Action Dates chart. That call depends on how many visa numbers remain in the fiscal year’s inventory, and USCIS posts its determination on its Adjustment of Status Filing Charts page. Check it every month before filing.⁸

Filing an I-485 before your priority date is current under the chart USCIS designates for that month will get the application rejected and your fees returned.⁹ When a visa number is immediately available at filing, employment-based applicants can sometimes file Form I-140 and Form I-485 together, known as concurrent filing. The visa number must remain available throughout adjudication for the I-485 to be approved.¹⁰

Why Some Country Columns Show Much Older Dates

Federal law limits any single country to no more than 7% of the total family-sponsored and employment-based visas issued in a fiscal year.¹¹ The cap applies equally to every country regardless of how many applicants that country sends. Countries with enormous demand — India and China for employment cases, Mexico and the Philippines for family cases — develop backlogs measured in years, sometimes decades.

When demand for a category and country exceeds available supply, the State Department calls it oversubscribed and imposes a cutoff date to hold allocations within the statutory limits.² Two people in the same preference category, filed on the same day, can face waits years apart depending only on where they were born.

When the Date Moves Backward

Cutoff dates do not always move forward. Sometimes they jump backward, a phenomenon called retrogression. It happens when more people apply in a category than there are numbers available for the month, most commonly toward the end of the fiscal year from July through September as annual limits get used up.¹²

If you have already filed your I-485 and retrogression pushes the cutoff back past your priority date, your case is not denied. It is held until a number becomes available again, either at the service center that received it or at the National Benefits Center if an interview has already taken place. People who properly filed before retrogression hit can generally still apply for work authorization and advance parole while they wait.¹²

If you have not filed yet and retrogression makes your date no longer current, you wait for the dates to advance again. Windows can close without warning, which is why applicants who watch the bulletin monthly and keep their documents ready are the ones who do not lose time.

When the Bulletin Posts

The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin on its travel.state.gov website.¹³ Each edition covers the following month, so a bulletin released in mid-March sets April’s cutoffs. It typically appears around the middle of the prior month, though the exact date varies.

Because the federal fiscal year starts October 1, the October bulletin often brings the largest movement — new visa numbers become available at the start of each fiscal year, and cutoff dates can jump forward substantially. Summer months are when retrogression is most likely. Reading the bulletin is not a one-time exercise; the same three facts about your case can produce different answers month to month, and the answer you need is always the one in this month’s chart.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1151 – Worldwide Level of Immigration
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Availability and Priority Dates
3
eCFR. 8 CFR 204.5 – Petitions for Employment-Based Immigrants
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment-Based Immigration: Second Preference EB-2
5
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for April 2026
6
U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 9 FAM 503.2 Chargeability
7
U.S. Department of State. Helpful Hints: IV Processing
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Concurrent Filing of Form I-485
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Retrogression
13
U.S. Department of State. The Visa Bulletin