What Is the EB-3 Visa? Eligibility, Backlog, and Green Card Steps

The EB-3 visa is an employment-based green card for foreign workers with a permanent, full-time job offer from a U.S. employer. It covers three groups: skilled workers, professionals, and unskilled workers. Federal law sets aside about 40,000 of these visas each year, and the process runs through the Department of Labor and USCIS in sequence. For most applicants the full timeline is measured in years; for those born in India it can be measured in decades.

Who Qualifies

The EB-3 category has three subcategories, and the one you fall into is fixed when your employer files the labor certification.¹

Skilled workers: the job requires at least two years of training or work experience, and the position is permanent and non-seasonal. Letters from prior employers documenting the length and nature of your experience are essential.
Professionals: the job normally requires a U.S. bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent, and you hold that degree. Work experience alone cannot substitute for the degree.
Other workers: sometimes called unskilled workers, this covers permanent jobs requiring less than two years of training or experience. Congress caps this subcategory at 10,000 visas per year, which produces much longer waits.²

Every EB-3 applicant needs a permanent, full-time job offer from a U.S. employer, and every petition needs an approved labor certification from the Department of Labor before USCIS will consider it.¹ You must meet the qualifications for your category at the time the labor certification is filed, not later.³

How the Country Backlog Affects Your Wait

EB-3 gets 28.6 percent of the annual worldwide employment-based visa allocation, plus any visas EB-1 and EB-2 do not use, which works out to roughly 40,000 in a typical year.³ But federal law also caps any single country at 7 percent of employment-based visas issued in a year.⁴ Countries whose applicants far exceed that slice pile up.

As of the October 2025 Visa Bulletin, the final action date for EB-3 India was August 22, 2013, meaning Indian-born applicants with priority dates after that were still waiting for a visa number, a backlog of over 12 years.⁵ China, Mexico, and the Philippines are also oversubscribed, though their backlogs are generally shorter. Applicants born in countries without heavy demand often find their priority dates current, with little wait beyond petition processing. Country of birth is the single biggest factor in how long the EB-3 process takes.

Step 1: PERM Labor Certification

Before your employer can file anything with USCIS, it has to prove to the Department of Labor that no qualified, willing U.S. worker is available for the job. This happens through the Program Electronic Review Management system, known as PERM, and it is usually the longest single stage.

The employer first requests a prevailing wage determination, which sets the minimum salary for the role based on location and job requirements.⁶ It then runs a recruitment campaign: for professional roles, a 30-day job order with the State Workforce Agency, two newspaper ads (one on a Sunday), and three additional recruitment steps. Nonprofessional positions need the job order and newspaper ads without the extra steps. All recruitment must occur within 30 to 180 days before the PERM application is filed.

The employer must also demonstrate a continuing ability to pay the offered wage from the priority date through your approval as a permanent resident. USCIS evaluates this through the employer’s annual reports, federal tax returns, or audited financial statements; companies with 100 or more employees can instead submit a statement from a financial officer.⁷ If the employer cannot show it had the capacity to pay the wage in any year from the priority date onward, the petition is likely to be denied.⁸

As of February 2026, the Department of Labor reported an average PERM processing time of 503 calendar days for cases under analyst review, roughly 16 months for the labor certification alone.⁹ Audits can extend that further. Your priority date, the date DOL accepted the PERM application, is set here and follows you through the rest of the process.

Step 2: The I-140 Immigrant Petition

Once PERM is approved, your employer has 180 days to file Form I-140 with USCIS before the labor certification expires.¹⁰ Missing that deadline means restarting PERM from scratch.

The petition needs the approved labor certification, the employer’s tax ID, your educational credentials and employment history, the job location, and the Standard Occupational Classification code assigned by DOL.¹¹ Skilled workers should include detailed letters from prior employers confirming exact dates and duties. Professionals need transcripts and diplomas showing the required bachelor’s degree. Selecting the wrong subcategory or submitting credentials that don’t match the labor certification’s requirements commonly triggers denials or requests for evidence.

The base filing fee is on the USCIS fee schedule.¹² Employers who want a faster decision can pay a premium processing fee of $2,965 for a guaranteed response within a set timeframe.¹³ Without premium processing, median I-140 processing was about 3.7 months as of early fiscal year 2026.¹⁴

Step 3: Waiting for Your Priority Date

After the I-140 is approved, you wait for a visa number. The State Department publishes a monthly Visa Bulletin with two charts: Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing. USCIS announces each month which chart applicants may use.¹⁵ If your priority date is earlier than the date shown, you can move to the next stage. A “C” in your category means current, and there is no wait.

The Dates for Filing chart sometimes lets you submit your green card application earlier than the Final Action chart would. Filing earlier doesn’t shorten your wait for permanent residency, but it lets you get work authorization and travel documents in the meantime, which matters for anyone stuck in a long backlog.

Step 4: Getting the Green Card

When your priority date is current, you have two paths depending on where you are.

If you are inside the United States, you file Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, with USCIS.¹⁶ You generally cannot file this until a visa number is available.¹⁷ When a visa is immediately available at the time of filing, the I-140 and I-485 can be filed together, called concurrent filing, which is common for applicants from countries without long backlogs.¹⁸

If you are outside the United States, you go through consular processing at a U.S. embassy in your home country, which involves document review and an in-person interview before you receive an immigrant visa for entry.

Medical Exam

Every I-485 applicant must submit Form I-693, the Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record. As of December 2024, USCIS requires this form at the time of filing and may reject an I-485 submitted without it.¹⁹ The exam has to be done by a USCIS-designated civil surgeon, who checks for certain communicable diseases (including tuberculosis), verifies required vaccinations, and seals the completed form in an envelope. Don’t open it. Civil surgeon fees are unregulated and vary by provider, so call around.

Biometrics and Background Checks

USCIS and the FBI run fingerprint-based criminal history checks, name checks across government databases, and national security screenings on every green card applicant. You will be scheduled for a biometrics appointment. Prior deportations, unlawful presence, criminal convictions, or misrepresentation on immigration applications can all trigger inadmissibility findings that delay or block approval.

Working and Traveling While You Wait

Once your I-485 is filed, you can apply for an Employment Authorization Document using Form I-765, which lets you work for any employer while the case is pending. USCIS typically issues a combo card that also serves as your advance parole travel document.

Travel is where people most often make catastrophic mistakes. If you leave the United States without advance parole while your I-485 is pending, USCIS will treat your application as abandoned.²⁰ That means losing your filing fees and potentially starting over. A narrow exception lets certain H-1B, H-4, L-1, and L-2 visa holders reenter on their existing status, but everyone else needs advance parole approved and in hand before booking a flight.

Changing Employers Under AC21

EB-3 ties you to a specific employer for years, which is a real problem when layoffs, bad conditions, or better opportunities come along. The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, known as AC21, provides a safety valve: once your I-485 has been pending at least 180 calendar days, you can switch to a new employer without losing your place in line.²¹

The new job must be in the same or a similar occupational classification as the one in your original petition. USCIS compares DOL occupation codes, job duties, required skills, education requirements, and salary. A software developer moving to another software development role is straightforward. A software developer moving to management consulting is much harder to justify.

To notify USCIS of the change, you file Supplement J to Form I-485 with evidence of the new job offer. If your original employer withdraws the I-140 or goes out of business before your I-485 has been pending for 180 days, you lose portability protection and need a new employer to restart PERM and the I-140 from scratch.²¹ After the 180-day mark, even a withdrawn petition or a shuttered employer will not automatically kill your case.

Bringing Your Family

Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 can apply for permanent residency alongside you as derivative beneficiaries. They don’t need separate employer sponsorship or labor certifications. Once your I-140 is approved, eligible family members can file their own I-485s (or go through consular processing) with you or after you.¹

The risk for children is aging out. If your child turns 21 before a visa number becomes available, they may lose derivative eligibility. The Child Status Protection Act provides some relief by subtracting the time the I-140 petition was pending from the child’s age, but in categories with multi-year backlogs, aging out remains a real concern to plan around early.

How Long All of This Actually Takes

Add up the stages and you get a rough total. Prevailing wage and PERM recruitment take several months. The PERM application itself averaged 503 days for DOL analyst review as of early 2026.⁹ The I-140 takes roughly four months without premium processing.¹⁴ Then comes the visa bulletin wait, which is essentially zero for applicants from most countries and beyond a decade for those born in India. The I-485 stage adds several more months to a year.

For someone from a country without a backlog, the entire process from PERM filing to green card runs about three to four years. For someone born in India in the “other workers” subcategory, the honest answer is that it could take decades. Knowing this upfront matters, because pursuing EB-3 means committing to years tied to a sponsoring employer, with the life events that will happen in that time.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment-Based Immigration: Third Preference EB-3
2
U.S. Department of State. Annual Limit Reached in the EB-3 and EW Categories
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1153 – Allocation of Immigrant Visas
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States
5
U.S. Department of State. Visa Bulletin for October 2025
6
eCFR. 20 CFR Part 656 – Labor Certification Process for Permanent Employment of Aliens in the United States
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part E Chapter 4 – Ability to Pay
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Establishing an Employer’s Ability to Pay the Proffered Wage for Certain Employment-Based Immigrant Visa Petitions
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Processing Times
10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Petition Filing and Processing Procedures for Form I-140
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS to Increase Premium Processing Fees
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Historic Processing Times
15
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin
16
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
17
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Adjustment of Status
18
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Concurrent Filing of Form I-485
19
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record
20
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. While Your Green Card Application Is Pending with USCIS
21
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Chapter 5 – Job Portability After Adjustment Filing and Other AC21 Provisions