Business Immigration Insights

The Visa Bulletin is released monthly by the Department of State and is used to determine when a sponsored foreign national can submit the final step of the green card process. The complete visa bulletin can be found here.

Below is a summary of the August Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month:

• China: EB-1 and EB-3 both remain stalled at January 1, 2012, while EB-2 creeps forward one month to April 22, 2013
• India: EB-1 remains at January 1, 2012, EB-2 stalls at July 22, 2008 and EB-3 continues to advance, moving forward five months to July 15, 2006
• Philippines: EB-3 once again leaps forward an entire year to June 1, 2015, surpassing EB-2, which retrogresses to April 1, 2015
• All Other Countries: In an unusual turn of events, EB-2 retrogresses to April 1, 2015, while EB-3 becomes current

China EB-1, India EB-1 and All Other Countries EB-2 are expected to become current again in October 2017.

PLEASE NOTE: USCIS has not yet announced if it will accept I-485 applications in August based on the Department of State’s Dates for Filing chart. However, the trend over the last several months has been to NOT honor the Dates for Filing chart, and instead only accept I-485 applications based on the Final Action Dates as listed above.