Priority Date in US Immigration: Visa Bulletin and Retrogression

Your priority date in US immigration is the date the government received the first petition or application filed on your behalf, and it functions as a timestamp that holds your place in line for a green card. For family cases, that’s the day USCIS received the Form I-130. For most employment cases, it’s the day the Department of Labor received the PERM labor certification. Because most green card categories are capped each year, this date decides when your turn comes up.

How Your Priority Date Gets Set

Which filing establishes your date depends on the category you’re in.

Family-Sponsored Cases

If a US citizen or lawful permanent resident relative is sponsoring you, your priority date is the date USCIS properly receives Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative.¹ For certain special immigrants, a Form I-360 filing can set the date instead.

Employment Cases That Require PERM

Most EB-2 and EB-3 petitions require the employer to first obtain a permanent labor certification from the Department of Labor. When PERM is required, your priority date is the date DOL accepts the labor certification application, not the later date USCIS receives the I-140.² The PERM process itself can take months, so the earlier date matters.

Employment Cases Without PERM

Some categories skip labor certification. EB-1 priority workers, EB-2 national interest waiver applicants, and EB-4 special immigrants, among others, don’t need PERM. For these, your priority date is the date USCIS accepts the Form I-140 for processing.¹

When Priority Dates Don’t Apply

Not every green card applicant has to watch a priority date. The spouse, parent, or unmarried child under 21 of a US citizen is an “immediate relative,” and immigrant visas for immediate relatives are unlimited by statute.³ A visa is always considered available, the category doesn’t appear in the Visa Bulletin, and the case moves on processing time alone. Everyone else falls into a preference category with annual caps, and that’s where the priority date does its work.

Preference Categories and Country Caps

Preference applicants are divided into numbered categories, each with its own annual share of visas. Two applicants with the same priority date can wait very different amounts of time depending on category and country of birth.

Family Preferences

F1: Unmarried sons and daughters (21 and older) of US citizens
F2A: Spouses and children (unmarried, under 21) of lawful permanent residents
F2B: Unmarried sons and daughters (21 and older) of lawful permanent residents
F3: Married sons and daughters of US citizens
F4: Brothers and sisters of US citizens (the citizen must be at least 21)

Waits vary sharply across these. F2A often shows relatively current dates; F4 applicants from high-demand countries can wait over two decades.⁴

Employment Preferences

EB-1: Priority workers, including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational managers
EB-2: Professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability, including national interest waiver applicants
EB-3: Skilled workers, professionals with bachelor’s degrees, and other workers
EB-4: Special immigrants, such as religious workers and special immigrant juveniles
EB-5: Immigrant investors

EB-1 is often current for most countries. EB-2 and EB-3 applicants born in India or China face backlogs stretching years or decades.⁵

The 7 Percent Per-Country Limit

No single country can receive more than 7 percent of the total family and employment visas issued in a fiscal year.⁶ That cap is the main reason applicants born in India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines wait much longer than applicants from lower-demand countries with the same priority date.

How the Visa Bulletin Turns a Date Into a Green Card

Your priority date sits dormant until it becomes “current” in the Department of State’s monthly Visa Bulletin, which lists cut-off dates for each category and country. When your priority date is on or before the cut-off, a visa number is available and you can move forward.¹

Final Action Dates vs. Dates for Filing

The Bulletin has two charts. The Final Action Dates chart shows when a visa number can actually be assigned and your case approved. The Dates for Filing chart is more generous and shows when you can submit your adjustment of status application, which lets you request work authorization and travel permission while you wait for final approval.

Each month USCIS decides which chart adjustment applicants may use. If more visas are available than known applicants, USCIS allows the Dates for Filing chart; otherwise applicants use Final Action Dates.⁷ One exception: if your category is current on Final Action Dates, or the Final Action Dates cut-off is later than the Dates for Filing cut-off, you can file under Final Action Dates regardless of which chart USCIS designated that month.

When Dates Move Backward: Retrogression

Cut-off dates don’t only move forward. The State Department sometimes pulls a date backward, a phenomenon called retrogression, when demand for a category outpaces available visas.⁸

If your date was current last month but retrogresses this month, the impact depends on whether you’ve already filed adjustment of status. If you have, your case is held in abeyance: USCIS can’t approve it until your date is current again, but it won’t be denied, and you can still apply for work authorization and advance parole while the case is paused.⁸ If you haven’t filed yet, you wait for the dates to advance again. That’s why many practitioners advise filing the I-485 as soon as the applicable chart allows it: filing preserves access to work and travel benefits if retrogression later hits.

Keeping Your Priority Date Across Petitions

In employment-based cases, an approved I-140 lets you retain that priority date for any future petition, even if you change employers or your original employer withdraws the petition. The main exceptions are fraud, revocation of the underlying labor certification, or a USCIS finding of material error in the approval.²

If two or more petitions have been approved for you, you can use the earliest priority date from any of them for later petitions.² So if a 2018 PERM filing led to an approved I-140, and a new employer files a fresh I-140 in 2023, you can carry the 2018 date forward.

Using a Spouse’s Country of Birth

Because the 7 percent cap is measured by country of birth, applicants born in high-demand countries wait longer than others with the same date. If your spouse was born in a country with a shorter backlog, you may “cross-charge” your visa to your spouse’s country. Federal law allows this when necessary to prevent the separation of husband and wife, provided the spouse is immigrating with you or following to join you.⁶

Cross-chargeability applies to family, employment, and diversity categories. To request it, include your marriage certificate and your spouse’s birth certificate or passport, and specifically request cross-chargeability in your filing. The marriage must exist when the visa is approved, and the spouse must be accompanying or following to join.

Protecting a Child From Aging Out

Children on a petition can “age out” at 21 and lose their derivative eligibility. The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) offers a formula that can reduce a child’s immigration age below their biological age.

The formula: age when a visa becomes available, minus the number of days the petition was pending (from filing to approval), equals CSPA age. If the result is under 21, the child still qualifies. There’s a catch. Even if the CSPA age is under 21, the child must “seek to acquire” permanent resident status within one year of a visa becoming available, by filing Form I-485, submitting Form DS-260, or taking certain other qualifying steps. Missing that one-year window can cost CSPA protection, though USCIS has discretion to excuse the delay in extraordinary circumstances.⁹

If CSPA doesn’t save the child, federal law provides that the petition automatically converts to the appropriate adult preference category, and the original priority date is preserved.¹⁰ The date carries over, but the new category usually has a longer line.

Finding Your Priority Date

Your priority date is printed on Form I-797, Notice of Action, the approval notice USCIS sends for the petition filed on your behalf. For family cases, it’s on the I-797 for Form I-130. For employment cases, it’s on the I-797 for Form I-140. The date is labeled “Priority Date” on the notice.¹¹

If you’ve lost the notice, you can file Form I-824, Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition, to ask USCIS to take further action on your approved case.¹² Your immigration attorney, if you have one, will also have copies in your file.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Availability and Priority Dates
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part E Chapter 8 – Documentation and Evidence
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card for Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizen
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card for Family Preference Immigrants
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Retrogression
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Visa Availability and Priority Dates – Section: Finding Your Priority Date
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-824, Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition