SIJS Priority Date: Visa Bulletin, Backlog, and Aging Out

Your SIJS priority date is the day USCIS physically receives your Form I-360, and it appears on the Form I-797 receipt notice mailed back to you. That date locks in your place in the EB-4 visa queue and controls when you can apply for a green card. Because the EB-4 category that covers Special Immigrant Juveniles is heavily backlogged, the gap between your priority date and an available green card currently stretches several years.

Where Your Priority Date Comes From

The clock starts when you file Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, with USCIS after you have the required state juvenile court order finding abuse, neglect, or abandonment by a parent.¹ USCIS mails back a Form I-797, Notice of Action, confirming receipt.² The priority date printed on that notice is the date the USCIS field office received your petition, not the day you mailed it and not the day USCIS eventually approves it.

Keep that receipt. The date stays with your case permanently, even if your file transfers between offices or adjudication drags on. USCIS generally decides I-360 petitions within 180 days of the official filing date, but the priority date itself is set on day one.¹

Why SIJS Petitioners Wait

Special Immigrant Juveniles compete for green cards inside the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category, which also includes religious workers and other special immigrants.³ Federal law caps EB-4 at 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based level of at least 140,000 visas per year, or roughly 9,940 visas annually shared across every type of special immigrant.⁴

On top of that, no single country’s nationals can receive more than 7 percent of the total employment-based visas issued in a fiscal year.⁵ Your country of chargeability is usually your country of birth. Approved SIJS petitions have surged while the visa supply has stayed fixed, so the category is severely oversubscribed. The priority date rations the shortage: earlier filers get their green cards before later filers.

Reading the Visa Bulletin

The Department of State publishes a Visa Bulletin every month with two charts, and USCIS then announces which chart controls adjustment of status filings that month.⁶

Final Action Dates show when a green card can actually be issued. Your priority date must be earlier than the date listed for EB-4 and your country.
Dates for Filing show when you may submit Form I-485 even if no visa is immediately available. USCIS only authorizes this chart when it decides enough visas are available to justify early filing.

If the EB-4 row shows the letter “C,” the category is current and anyone with an approved petition can proceed regardless of priority date. If a date appears instead, only applicants whose priority date falls before that date may move forward.⁷ When EB-4 is current on the Final Action Dates chart but has a cutoff on the Dates for Filing chart, you file using the Final Action Dates chart.⁶

Where the Backlog Stands in 2026

As of the May 2026 Visa Bulletin, the EB-4 Final Action Date is July 15, 2022, and the Dates for Filing cutoff is January 1, 2023, across all countries of chargeability.⁸ Someone who filed an I-360 in mid-2022 is just now reaching the front of the line. If you filed in 2024 or 2025, expect a wait of several years. These dates shift monthly, sometimes by weeks, sometimes by a full year in one jump, so check each new bulletin.

Filing for the Green Card When Your Date Is Current

Once your priority date is earlier than the cutoff on the applicable chart, you can file Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. If a visa number happens to be immediately available when you first file the I-360, you can file both forms together, which is called concurrent filing.¹ Given the current backlog, that is rare for new SIJS petitioners, but it remains available if the category ever becomes current again.

For most applicants, the I-485 goes in months or years after the I-360 is approved. You’ll need a medical examination on Form I-693 completed by a USCIS-designated civil surgeon. Get that scheduled before your date becomes current so you aren’t scrambling when the bulletin moves.

Aging Out and the Child Status Protection Act

SIJS is only available to people under 21, and the multi-year backlog means many petitioners turn 21 while waiting. The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) provides a formula that can freeze your legal age for immigration purposes and keep you eligible past your 21st birthday.⁹

The Formula

The calculation has three pieces.¹⁰

Pending time is the number of days between the date USCIS received your I-360 and the date USCIS approved it.
Age at visa availability is your actual age on the date a visa becomes available under the Final Action Dates chart.⁹
CSPA age is age at visa availability minus pending time. If the result is under 21, you qualify.

Say your I-360 was pending for 10 months and you are 21 years and 8 months old on the first day of the month when the Final Action Dates chart shows your priority date current. Subtract 10 months and your CSPA age is 20 years and 10 months. You still qualify. If instead the petition was approved quickly and only pended for two months, that same scenario puts your CSPA age over 21, and you age out.

The One-Year Filing Rule

The formula alone isn’t enough. You must also “seek to acquire” permanent resident status within one year of the date a visa becomes available to you.¹¹ In practice, that means filing your I-485 within that year. Missing it can destroy your CSPA protection even when your calculated age is under 21. If you don’t notice your date has gone current, the one-year clock runs silently, which is why monthly bulletin checks matter.

What Happens If You Age Out

If your CSPA age is 21 or older, or if you miss the one-year filing window, you lose eligibility for SIJS-based adjustment. There is no automatic conversion to another category and no administrative appeal that resets the clock. Other forms of immigration relief may be available in some cases, but they are separate from SIJS.

Deferred Action and Work Authorization While You Wait

Since 2022, USCIS has considered SIJ beneficiaries with an approved I-360 for deferred action automatically when a visa number is not immediately available. Deferred action doesn’t grant a green card, but it provides temporary protection from removal and eligibility to apply for an Employment Authorization Document.¹

The policy has been unstable. USCIS rescinded it in June 2025, and a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York stayed that rescission on November 19, 2025. As of that date, the original policy is back in effect and USCIS is again processing initial grants and renewals.¹ USCIS has stated it disagrees with the court’s decision and reserves the right to terminate individual grants, so anyone relying on deferred action should watch for further changes.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Special Immigrant Juveniles
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-797 Types and Functions
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment-Based Immigration Fourth Preference EB-4
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin
7
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for March 2026
8
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for May 2026
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Updates Policy on CSPA Age Calculation
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Updates Policy Guidance for the Sought to Acquire Requirement Under the Child Status Protection Act