The Department of Labor is the slowest stage of the employment green card — and it has no premium processing. Here are the current OFLC queue months for PERM, prevailing wage determinations, and LCA, plus what each one means for your timeline.
DOL processes PERM (ETA-9089) labor certifications in roughly filing-date order. The "analyst review" queue month below tells you which filing dates are currently being worked — if your PERM was filed before that month, expect a decision soon; if after, you are still waiting.
| PERM Stage | Now Processing (Filing Month) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PERM — Analyst Review | Apr 2024 | Standard PERM applications in the analyst review queue |
| PERM — Audit Review | Dec 2023 | Cases selected for audit take materially longer |
| PERM — Reconsideration to BALCA | Sep 2023 | Appeals after denial |
Source: DOL OFLC FLAG processing-times page. Queue months update monthly; verify at flag.dol.gov before relying on these figures.
Before PERM recruitment can be finalized, DOL must issue a prevailing wage determination (ETA-9141). This is the most underestimated bottleneck in the whole green card process — at ~5–6 months, it often takes longer than the PERM adjudication itself.
| PWD Type | Now Processing (Request Month) |
|---|---|
| PWD — OEWS (H-1B/PERM, Wage Source: OEWS) | Dec 2024 |
| PWD — Non-OEWS (employer/other wage source) | Oct 2024 |
| PWD — Redetermination | Nov 2024 |
| PWD — CBA (collective bargaining agreement) | Sep 2024 |
| DOL Step | Typical Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| LCA (ETA-9035) — H-1B/H-1B1/E-3 | 7 business days | Certified electronically via FLAG; the fastest DOL step |
| Prevailing Wage Request (ETA-9141) | 5–6 months | Required before PERM; the slowest pre-PERM bottleneck |
The LCA is required for the H-1B petition; the PWD/PERM steps are part of the green card (PERM) process — different stages of your immigration journey.
The employment green card runs PWD → PERM → I-140 → I-485/visa. DOL owns the first two steps and they are the slow ones: budget roughly 5–6 months for the PWD plus 13–15 months for PERM before you even reach the USCIS I-140 (which can use premium processing). Your PERM filing date also becomes your priority date for the visa bulletin — so a faster PERM is worth real years in the green card queue for backlogged countries.
Balaji Ingole
SMIEEE · FBCS · FIETE | 16+ years data engineering | 30+ peer-reviewed papers
Built H1BVisaJobs.com on 10 GB+ of DOL LCA disclosure data. Processing-time figures are sourced from DOL OFLC and reviewed monthly. Read full bio →