China and India priority dates: how the backlog changes the route

How the queue is built

Employment-based immigrant visas are limited each year and divided among the preferences: 28.6 per cent each to EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 (with no more than 10,000 for EB-3 'other workers'), and 7.1 per cent each to EB-4 and EB-5, with unused numbers falling down from the higher preferences. On top of that, INA 202 limits any single country to 7 per cent of the combined family and employment preference total; the October 2026 Visa Bulletin states the figure as 25,620. The limit is applied by country of chargeability, which is normally the applicant's country of birth, not nationality, with cross-chargeability to a spouse's country of birth in some cases.

Demand from applicants born in mainland China and India exceeds their share in the employer-sponsored categories year after year. The Department of State therefore sets separate cut-off dates for them, and an applicant's place in the queue is fixed by the priority date: the date the PERM application was filed with the Department of Labor, or, where no labour certification is required, the date the I-140 was filed. Only applicants whose priority date is earlier than the final action date can be issued a visa or have adjustment approved in a given month.

Reading the two charts

The Visa Bulletin publishes a Final Action Dates chart and a Dates for Filing chart. The first governs approval. The second, when USCIS designates it for adjustment applicants in a given month, allows an applicant with an earlier priority date to file Form I-485 and obtain employment authorisation and advance parole while waiting, which matters for job flexibility and for dependants. The two charts can diverge by years, and USCIS announces each month which chart applies.

The October 2026 bulletin shows the structure clearly. EB-1 was current for the rest of the world but carried final action dates of July 2023 for China and February 2023 for India. EB-2 carried January 2025 for the rest of the world, October 2021 for China and November 2013 for India. EB-3 carried May 2024 for the rest of the world, January 2022 for China and January 2014 for India. The EB-5 unreserved category carried December 2016 for China and December 2023 for India while the rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure set-asides were current for everyone. The bulletin also recorded that some rest-of-world categories had retrogressed to keep issuances within the fiscal-year limits. These dates will have moved by the time this is read; what persists is the shape, in which an Indian-born EB-2 applicant waits more than a decade behind a colleague born elsewhere with an identical petition.

What the backlog changes: category

For a rest-of-world applicant, category choice is about eligibility and the employer's willingness to run PERM. For a China- or India-born applicant it is about which queue to join. EB-1 has the shortest wait and is the only employer-sponsored category without PERM; an EB-1A self-petition or an EB-1C petition that is credible, even if less certain than an EB-2 case, is often the right first filing because the difference in queue is measured in years rather than months. EB-2 NIW, attractive because it needs no employer, places the applicant in the longest employer-category queue for India and a very long one for China, which is why NIW applicants from those countries frequently file an EB-1A alongside it once their record allows. EB-3 can be ahead of EB-2 for a given country in a given month, and employers sometimes file a second I-140 in EB-3 on the same labour certification to take whichever chart moves first; the movement reverses, so the decision must be reviewed monthly rather than assumed.

EB-5 is a different queue again. The unreserved category is backlogged for China and India, but the set-asides created by the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act were current for every country in October 2026. For an investor family with lawful, traceable capital the set-asides can be the fastest route to a green card available to a China- or India-born applicant, subject to the commercial and regulatory risks of the project.

What the backlog changes: timing and status

The priority date is an asset and should be secured as early as a genuine petition can be filed. A PERM started in the first months of an assignment, or an I-140 filed while the person is still abroad, fixes a place in the queue that a later petition in any category can retain under 8 CFR 204.5(e) unless the original approval is revoked for fraud or similar grounds. Because the date is portable across employers and categories, the earliest credible filing is worth more than the strongest later one.

The temporary status must then outlast the queue. H-1B can: under AC21, a person with a labour certification or I-140 filed at least a year earlier can extend in one-year increments beyond six years, and a person with an approved I-140 and no available visa number can extend in three-year increments; an H-4 spouse of such a person may apply for employment authorisation. L-1A cannot beyond seven years, L-1B beyond five, and neither has an AC21 extension; an L-1 transferee from a backlogged country who will not reach the front of the queue before the limit needs an H-1B petition, a cap-exempt position or another classification arranged in good time. O-1 and E-2 can be renewed while the facts continue and permit the pursuit of permanent residence. Once an I-485 can be filed under the Dates for Filing chart, the applicant gains employment authorisation and, after 180 days, portability to a same-or-similar job under INA 204(j), which restores much of the job flexibility the queue takes away.

What the backlog changes: country

For some families the backlog changes the destination. Canada's economic immigration programmes select by points and do not ration by country of birth, and a US work period, US education and English or French ability score well. A family can obtain Canadian permanent residence within a timeframe that bears no relation to a US EB-2 queue, work in Canada, and keep a US priority date maturing in parallel, returning on an immigrant visa when the date becomes current or not at all. Several other jurisdictions covered on this site offer talent and investment routes with no country-of-birth element. The analysis is a mobility capital one: a decade in a single H-1B role waiting for a number may add less to a person's knowledge, judgement and options than five years in a second country with full rights, and the choice should be made on the family's objectives rather than on the sunk cost of a US process.

A planning checklist

For any applicant born in mainland China or India: identify the country of chargeability, including any cross-chargeability through a spouse; file the earliest credible petition to fix a priority date; choose the category by queue as well as by eligibility, and consider parallel filings; check each month which chart USCIS applies and file the I-485 at the first opportunity; ensure the temporary status can last, with AC21 extensions or a change of classification planned years ahead; document dependants' options, since an H-4 spouse's work authorisation and the children's ageing out under the Child Status Protection Act both turn on the dates; and keep a second-country plan under review. None of this is advice to abandon a US case. It is a recognition that for these applicants the law allocates permanence by queue, and that the plan must be built around the queue rather than around the petition.