Indian professionals waiting for a US green card through the EB-1 employment-based category could face another setback this month, as the US State Department has warned that visa numbers for India may run out before the end of the current fiscal year.
The warning appears in the department’s September Visa Bulletin, which indicates that rising demand has led to greater use of EB-1 numbers allocated to applicants from India. If the available numbers are exhausted, the category could become unavailable for Indian applicants in the remaining weeks of the fiscal year.
The US fiscal year ends on September 30. The State Department said it is continuing to track demand and could make changes to the allocation if necessary. For now, however, EB-1 India has not been made unavailable.
Where EB-1 India currently stands
The September bulletin puts the EB-1 India final action date at October 15, 2022.
This means an applicant generally needs a priority date earlier than the applicable cutoff to have their case considered for final action, along with meeting the other requirements of the immigration process.
The EB-1 category is the first preference among employment-based immigrant visas. It includes people who demonstrate extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, as well as certain multinational executives and managers.
The more immediate concern is that the available EB-1 numbers could be used up before September ends.
Other employment categories are already under pressure
Indian applicants are also dealing with significant backlogs in other employment-based categories.
The EB-2 India category is unavailable for September, meaning immigrant visa numbers cannot currently be issued in that category during the month. It was also listed as unavailable in August.
EB-2 generally covers professionals with advanced degrees and people with exceptional ability. The situation is different but still difficult under EB-3, where India’s final action date is January 1, 2014. For comparison, the EB-3 final action dates are:
India: January 1, 2014
Mainland China: January 1, 2022
Philippines: August 1, 2023
Most other countries: September 1, 2024
The Indian cutoff therefore reflects a backlog stretching more than a decade behind the current period.
Filing may be possible even when final approval is not
The dates for filing applications are considerably ahead of the final action dates for Indian applicants in September. For India, the filing dates are:
EB-1: December 1, 2023
EB-2: January 15, 2015
EB-3: January 15, 2015
However, people applying for adjustment of status from inside the US need to check which Visa Bulletin chart USCIS has designated for September, as the filing-date chart that can be used is determined by USCIS.
EB-5 also has restrictions for India
The pressure extends to the investor-based EB-5 programme.
India’s regular EB-5 category is listed as unavailable for final action in September. However, certain reserved EB-5 categories remain current for applicants from all countries.
These include visas reserved for projects in rural areas, high-unemployment areas and qualifying infrastructure projects.
Why the Indian backlog is so large
The long wait faced by Indian applicants is linked to several limits built into the US employment-based immigration system.
The US sets an annual ceiling on employment-based immigrant visas. For fiscal year 2026, the worldwide employment-based preference limit is 186,317 visas.
Immigration law also generally applies a 7% per-country limit to family- and employment-based preference visas. Other rules concerning unused visa numbers can influence how visas are ultimately distributed between categories and countries.
With a particularly high number of Indian applicants seeking employment-based permanent residency, demand has contributed to long waiting periods across multiple categories.
What the EB-1 warning means
The September warning does not mean that all Indian EB-1 applicants will suddenly become ineligible for a green card.
It means the number of visas available for India under the category could be exhausted before September 30, depending on demand and visa usage.
For Indian professionals already facing years-long waits under EB-2 and EB-3, the possibility of EB-1 becoming unavailable adds another layer of uncertainty to an already heavily backlogged employment-based immigration system.
Also Read: H-1B Visa Shock: US Proposes $103,265 Fee As Indian Professionals Face Tougher Rules
