What Is the EB-3 Visa? Categories, PERM Process, and Costs

The EB-3 visa is an employment-based immigrant visa that gives a foreign worker a permanent U.S. green card through a job offer from an American employer. It covers three groups of workers — skilled, professional, and “other” (unskilled) — and receives about 28.6 percent of all employment-based immigrant visas each year, roughly 40,000 green cards.¹ The process is employer-driven: a U.S. company must sponsor you, prove no qualified American worker is available for the job, and commit to paying at least the prevailing wage. Once approved, you and your immediate family become permanent residents.

Who Qualifies

Federal regulations at 8 CFR 204.5(l) split the EB-3 into three subcategories, and your employer picks the one that matches the job’s minimum requirements, not your best credential.²

Skilled workers hold jobs that require at least two years of training or hands-on experience. Relevant college coursework counts toward the two-year threshold, and the position must be permanent, not seasonal.³
Professionals hold a U.S. bachelor’s degree (or foreign equivalent) and work in a field where that degree is the standard entry requirement. Work experience cannot substitute for the diploma in this subcategory.³
Other workers fill permanent, year-round positions that require less than two years of training or experience. Congress caps this subcategory at 10,000 visas per fiscal year, so waits here run longer than in the other two groups.¹

Someone with a master’s degree who accepts a role whose minimum requirement is two years of experience still files as a skilled worker, because the classification tracks the job, not the person.

EB-3 or EB-2?

The EB-2 category is for jobs that require an advanced degree (master’s or higher) or a bachelor’s plus at least five years of progressive experience. Everything below that line — bachelor’s-level professional roles, skilled trades, and unskilled positions — falls into EB-3. EB-2 is a higher preference category and generally moves faster, but the backlogs for high-demand countries sometimes reverse that. When EB-3 final action dates advance past EB-2 dates in the Visa Bulletin, some applicants with an approved EB-2 petition file a second petition under EB-3 to use the better cutoff. This “downgrade” requires a new labor certification unless the same employer sponsors the second petition for a role that qualifies under EB-3.

What the Employer Has to Do

A U.S. company must offer you a permanent, full-time job and sponsor the petition. It also has to show it can pay the offered wage from the filing date until you receive your green card. USCIS typically verifies this through federal tax returns, audited financial statements, or annual reports; employers with 100 or more workers can submit a statement from a financial officer instead.⁴

Labor Certification (PERM)

Before an employer can petition USCIS, the Department of Labor must certify that no qualified, willing, and available American worker can fill the position. That certification is called PERM (Program Electronic Review Management).

The employer first requests a prevailing wage determination from the Department of Labor, setting the minimum salary for the occupation and location. Then it runs a structured recruitment: at minimum, a 30-day job order with the state workforce agency and two Sunday newspaper advertisements. Professional-level positions require three additional recruitment steps — job fairs, employer website postings, trade journals, and similar options — from a list of ten in the regulations.⁵ Recruitment must take place within 180 days before filing, but no later than 30 days before filing.

Employers must keep the full audit file — copies of ads, all resumes received, and written explanations for rejecting each U.S. applicant — for at least five years from the filing date.⁶ The Department of Labor audits PERM cases at random, and an incomplete file can sink the case.

Jobs That Skip PERM: Schedule A

A short list of occupations is pre-certified by the Department of Labor. Registered nurses (holding a CGFNS certificate, a full state nursing license, or a passing NCLEX-RN result) and physical therapists eligible for state licensure can move straight to the I-140 stage, skipping recruitment.⁶ That shortcut can save months or years.

The Three Steps to a Green Card

Step 1: PERM Labor Certification

Unless you fall under Schedule A, the case starts with PERM. The date the employer files the PERM application becomes your priority date, marking your place in line for a visa number.

Step 2: Immigrant Petition (Form I-140)

After PERM approval, the employer files Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers.⁷ The employer submits the approved labor certification, its federal employer identification number, and financial records showing ability to pay. You supply official transcripts and diplomas, signed experience letters on company letterhead from former employers describing specific duties, and proof that your qualifications meet the minimums listed on the labor certification.

Every detail on the I-140 — job location, duties, minimum requirements — must match the PERM exactly. Small discrepancies can trigger denial.

Step 3: Green Card Application

When a visa number becomes available for your priority date, you apply for permanent residency. If you are in the United States, you file Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, with USCIS.⁸ If you are abroad, you attend an interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate through consular processing. Both routes require a medical examination on Form I-693, performed by a USCIS-designated civil surgeon (in the U.S.) or a panel physician (abroad).⁹ Medical fees are set by the provider, not USCIS, and vary widely.

What It Costs and How Long It Takes

Fees stack up across the stages. The I-140 filing fee is currently $715, and the I-485 fee is $1,440; check the USCIS fee schedule for the current amounts, since they are adjusted periodically. Employers can pay $2,965 for premium processing on the I-140, which guarantees an initial response within 15 business days. That premium fee rose from $2,805 on March 1, 2026.¹⁰ Premium processing is available only at the I-140 stage — not for PERM and not for the I-485.

PERM is usually the longest single stage. As of early 2026, the Department of Labor is averaging about 503 calendar days on standard PERM applications and working through cases filed in late 2024.¹¹ Audited cases take longer. Add I-140 adjudication (weeks with premium processing, months without) and any wait for a visa number, and the full timeline commonly runs past three years.

The Visa Bulletin and Country Backlogs

The State Department publishes a monthly Visa Bulletin listing which priority dates are eligible to move forward. If your priority date falls before the cutoff for your country and category, you can proceed. If it doesn’t, you wait.

Waits depend heavily on where you were born. The June 2025 Visa Bulletin shows the spread:¹²

Most countries: priority dates before February 8, 2023 — about a two-year wait.
China (mainland born): priority dates before November 22, 2020 — roughly four and a half years.
India: priority dates before April 15, 2013 — over twelve years.

The Indian backlog stems from high demand combined with a per-country ceiling that limits any single country to roughly 7 percent of employment-based green cards in a year. Indian and Chinese nationals make up the majority of applicants but receive the same allotment as countries that generate far fewer petitions.

Cutoff dates do not always advance. When demand outpaces supply, the State Department pulls dates backward, a phenomenon called retrogression. If your date was current one month and isn’t the next, USCIS will not adjudicate your I-485 until a number becomes available again; the case is not denied, just paused. If you already filed the I-485 before retrogression, you can generally still request work authorization and travel permission while you wait.¹³

Working and Traveling While Your Case Is Pending

Once your I-485 is on file, you can request two interim benefits. Form I-765 gets you an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), letting you work for any U.S. employer while the green card is pending. Form I-131 gets you advance parole, a travel document that lets you leave and re-enter the country without abandoning the application. Both can be filed alongside the I-485.

The EAD is especially useful for workers on employer-tied visas like H-1B, because it opens the door to changing jobs or taking on additional work without endangering the green card case. Traveling abroad while the I-485 is pending without advance parole may cause USCIS to treat the application as abandoned.

Changing Employers Mid-Process

Federal law offers relief from being tied to one sponsoring employer for years. Under INA Section 204(j), if your I-485 has been pending for at least 180 days and your I-140 has been approved, you can move to a new employer without starting over, as long as the new job is in the same or a similar occupational classification.¹⁴

“Same or similar” is evaluated mainly by comparing the Standard Occupational Classification codes of the old and new jobs. Identical codes almost always qualify; different codes can still work when duties overlap, but that is a judgment call by the adjudicator. To port, you file Supplement J to the I-485 with the new employer’s information.

Timing matters. If your original employer withdraws the I-140 before the I-485 has been pending 180 days, you lose portability. After that 180-day mark, even a withdrawn I-140 generally won’t derail your case.

Family Members

When your I-140 is approved, your spouse and unmarried children under 21 become eligible to apply for green cards as derivative beneficiaries. They can file their I-485s alongside yours or later, and they receive the same permanent resident status.³ Family members abroad go through consular processing.

Children Who Might Age Out

Because EB-3 waits can stretch past a decade for some countries, a child who was young at filing may be over 21 before a visa number opens. The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) addresses this by subtracting the number of days the I-140 was pending from the child’s age on the date a visa becomes available.¹⁵ If your child turned 22 by the time the visa number opened and the I-140 was pending 400 days, the CSPA age comes out around 20 years and 11 months, still eligible. The child must remain unmarried. CSPA doesn’t fix every aging-out scenario, particularly for Indian-born families facing decade-plus waits, but it helps in shorter backlogs.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
2
eCFR. 8 CFR 204.5 – Petitions for Employment-Based Immigrants
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment-Based Immigration: Third Preference EB-3
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Volume 6 – Immigrants, Part E – Employment-Based Permanent Residence, Chapter 4 – Ability to Pay
5
eCFR. 20 CFR 656.17 – Filing Applications
6
eCFR. 20 CFR Part 656 – Labor Certification Process for Permanent Employment
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS to Increase Premium Processing Fees
11
Flag.dol.gov. Processing Times
12
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for June 2025
13
USCIS. Visa Retrogression
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-485 Supplement J, Confirmation of Valid Job Offer or Request for Job Portability Under INA Section 204(j)
15
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Child Status Protection Act (CSPA)