The monthly Visa Bulletin is the single most important document for millions of employment-based green card applicants. But it's confusing — two charts, cryptic codes, dates that go backward. Here's the complete decoder.
The Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin each month to show which priority dates in each employment-based and family-based preference category have "cut-off dates." Because Congress limits annual green card numbers by country of chargeability (birth) and preference category, a queuing system determines who gets processed when.
If your priority date is before the Visa Bulletin cutoff for your category and country, your date is "current" and you can proceed with the final green card step. If your date is after the cutoff, you wait.
| Category | Who Qualifies | PERM Required? |
|---|---|---|
| EB-1 (Priority Workers) | Extraordinary ability, outstanding professors/researchers, multinational managers | No |
| EB-2 (Advanced Degree) | Advanced degree or exceptional ability; NIW self-petition | Usually yes |
| EB-3 (Skilled Workers) | Bachelor's degree, skilled workers (2+ yrs training), other workers | Yes |
| EB-4 (Special Immigrants) | Religious workers, broadcasters, certain others | No |
| EB-5 (Investors) | Investors creating 10+ US jobs, $800K–$1.05M investment | No |
Your priority date is established when the earliest immigrant petition in your chain is filed. For most employment-based cases, the priority date is the date DOL receives your PERM labor certification. If PERM is not required (EB-1, EB-2 NIW, EB-5), the priority date is the date USCIS receives your I-140 petition.
This date stays with you permanently — even if you change employers (via AC21 portability), the I-140 is revoked by the employer (after 180 days approval), or you file a new petition under a different category (like EB-2 to EB-3 downgrade).
Retrogression happens when more green card demand exists than the annual cap allows. Each fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), only 140,000 employment-based green cards are available globally. No more than 7% can go to any single country of chargeability. India and China routinely exhaust their 7% allocation early, causing dates to retrogress mid-year.
Sumit covers green card strategy, priority date optimization, and US immigration pathways for foreign professionals waiting in the employment-based backlog.