US green card shock: EB-1 for Indians may shut within weeks

Indian professionals face fresh uncertainty in the US green-card queue, with the State Department warning that the employment-based EB-1 category could become unavailable within weeks because of heavy demand.

In its September Visa Bulletin, the State Department said demand from applicants chargeable to India could exhaust the country's EB-1 allocation before the US fiscal year ends on 30 September.

“High demand and number use by aliens chargeable to India in the EB-1 visa category may necessitate making the category unavailable in the coming weeks,” the department said.

The warning adds to mounting pressure on Indian applicants, who are already facing some of the longest employment-based green-card waits.

For September, the EB-1 India final action date is 15 October 2022. If the allocation is exhausted, the category could be listed as unavailable until additional visa numbers become available under the applicable annual limits.

EB-1 covers priority workers, including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers.

The situation is even tighter in EB-2, the category covering professionals with advanced degrees and people of exceptional ability.

EB-2 India remains unavailable in September, after also being listed as unavailable in August. The State Department uses “U” to indicate that visa numbers are not authorised for issuance in that category during the relevant period.

The EB-3 queue is also heavily backlogged. India's EB-3 final action date is 1 January 2014, leaving many applicants waiting more than 12 years for their priority dates to become current.

The contrast with other countries highlights the severity of the Indian backlog. In September, the EB-3 final action date is 1 September 2024 for most countries not separately listed, compared with 1 January 2022 for mainland China and 1 August 2023 for the Philippines.

India's unreserved EB-5 investor category is also unavailable for final action in September. However, EB-5 set-aside categories for rural projects, high-unemployment areas and infrastructure remain current for applicants from all countries.

Indian applicants have somewhat earlier access under the September dates-for-filing chart, with cut-offs of 1 December 2023 for EB-1, 15 January 2015 for EB-2 and 15 January 2015 for EB-3.

However, applicants seeking adjustment of status from within the US must first check which Visa Bulletin chart the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has authorised for that month.

The worsening queues are largely driven by high demand colliding with statutory limits on employment-based immigrant visas. For fiscal 2026, the worldwide employment-based preference limit is 186,317.

US immigration law also generally applies a 7 per cent per-country limit to family- and employment-based preference visas, although unused numbers and statutory carryovers can affect the final allocation.

For Indian professionals, the latest EB-1 warning is therefore another sign that even the highest-priority employment-based green-card route is under intense pressure — and that further retrogression or unavailability could come with little notice.

With IANS inputs