For thousands of Indian professionals working in the United States, getting a green card has become a wait measured not in months or a few years, but potentially in decades. A new analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) estimates that nearly one million Indians were caught in the US employment-based green card backlog by the end of 2025.
Indians accounted for around 79% of the total backlog across the three major employment-based categories — EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3. The situation is particularly difficult for those entering the queue in 2026. According to the analysis, a new Indian applicant could potentially face a wait of 179 years in EB-2 and 38 years in EB-3 under current conditions.
These are estimates, not guaranteed individual waiting periods, and the actual timeline could change if visa availability, the number of people leaving the queue or US immigration laws change.
Nearly 1 Million Indians Are in the Queue
The estimated Indian backlog across EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 stood at 996,599 people in December 2025. Of these:
EB-1: 51,619 Indians
EB-2: 731,566 Indians
EB-3: 213,414 Indians
Total: 996,599
The figures show that EB-2 accounts for the overwhelming majority of the Indian backlog.
EB-2 generally covers professionals with advanced degrees or people with exceptional ability in areas such as science, arts and business. In some cases, a bachelor’s degree followed by five years of progressive experience can also qualify as equivalent to an advanced degree.
EB-3 covers professionals, skilled workers and other workers.
EB-1, meanwhile, is meant for highly accomplished professionals, including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and professors, as well as certain multinational executives and managers.
India’s Backlog Has Grown Sharply
The Indian backlog has not increased evenly across all three categories.
Between April 2020 and December 2025, the total Indian backlog increased from 835,255 to 996,599, a rise of 161,344 people, or 19.3%.
The biggest increase was recorded in the EB-3 category, where the number of Indian applicants in the backlog rose from 141,205 in April 2020 to 213,414 by December 2025, marking a 51.1% increase.
The EB-2 backlog also grew significantly, rising from 622,062 to 731,566, an increase of 17.6%. In contrast, the EB-1 backlog declined by 28.3%, falling from 71,988 to 51,619 during the same period.
Overall, the number of Indians waiting across EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 increased from 835,255 in April 2020 to 996,599 in December 2025, representing a 19.3% rise in the employment-based green card backlog.
Interestingly, the EB-1 backlog moved in the opposite direction. It fell by more than 28% during this period.
The EB-2 backlog, however, increased by 17.6%, while EB-3 recorded the fastest growth, rising by more than 51%.
The US Backlog Has Crossed 1.2 Million
India’s situation is part of a much larger employment-based immigration backlog in the United States.
Across EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3, the total US backlog increased from 1,048,342 in April 2020 to 1,264,495 in December 2025.
That represents an increase of 216,153 people, or 20.6%.
The figures show:
EB-1: 101,253 in 2020 → 84,420 in 2025
EB-2: 684,257 → 840,869
EB-3: 260,812 → 339,206
Total: 1,048,342 → 1,264,495
This means Indian applicants alone made up almost four out of every five people waiting in these three employment-based categories.
The analysis also estimates that the overall employment-based backlog could cross two million by 2040 if US immigration law remains unchanged.
Why Are Indian Professionals Facing Such Long Waits?
Two major limits in the US immigration system are identified as important reasons for the backlog.
The first is the annual employment-based immigrant visa limit of 140,000. This limit was established in 1990 and includes both the main applicant and eligible dependent family members.
That means the available numbers are not meant only for workers. Spouses and children who qualify as dependants also use part of the available visa numbers.
The second major restriction is the 7% per-country limit.
Under this rule, employment-based immigrant visas available to nationals of one foreign country generally cannot exceed 7% of the total.
This creates a particular challenge for countries such as India, where a very large number of skilled professionals seek permanent residence in the US.
The same country-level limit can apply to India and China as it does to much smaller countries such as Iceland and Luxembourg, despite the very different number of people seeking employment-based immigration from these countries.
A Huge Gap Between Approvals and Green Cards
The history of the Indian EB-2 backlog shows how quickly the queue can grow.
In fiscal year 2016, US authorities approved 47,601 EB-2 applications from Indians. When eligible dependants were included, the estimated number of people represented by those applications was 98,594.
However, only 4,407 Indians received permanent residence through this category that year.
This created an estimated annual gap of 94,187 people.
The data from the following years shows how the gap continued to build. In FY2016, an estimated 98,594 Indians, including dependants, were approved in the EB-2 category, but only 4,407 received green cards, leaving an annual gap of 94,187. In FY2017, the estimated number of Indians approved stood at 84,928, while just 3,328 received permanent residence, creating a gap of 81,600.
The situation remained similar in FY2018, when 80,999 Indians were estimated to have been approved, but only 4,527 received green cards, leaving a gap of 76,472. When more people enter the system than can receive permanent residence, the unmet demand is carried forward, adding to the existing queue and pushing potential waiting periods further into the future.
When more people enter the system than can receive permanent residence, the unused demand gets pushed further into the future, creating a queue that can eventually stretch across decades.
Even Extra Green Cards Could Not Clear the Queue
One of the striking points in the analysis is that the backlog continued to grow even after the US issued more employment-based green cards than the normal annual allocation.
The usual employment-based allocation is 140,000 green cards a year.
Between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, however, the US issued an estimated 980,460 employment-based green cards, compared with an expected 700,000 over five years.
That means around 280,000 additional green cards became available during this period.
The additional numbers came partly because family-sponsored immigrant visa numbers went unused during the pandemic and other periods of disruption and were subsequently made available to employment-based categories.
Even this additional supply was not enough to eliminate the accumulated backlog.
What the August 2026 Visa Bulletin Shows
The August 2026 Visa Bulletin highlights how far behind the queue is for Indian applicants.
A priority date determines an applicant’s place in the green card queue. For many employment-based applicants, it is linked to the date the government receives the labour certification application, or, where labour certification is not required, the date the employment-based immigrant petition is filed.
For Indians in August 2026, the relevant dates were:
EB-1: Priority date earlier than October 15, 2022
EB-2: Listed as unavailable
EB-3: Priority date earlier than January 1, 2014
For comparison, EB-2 had a priority-date cut-off of September 1, 2013, in the June 2026 bulletin.
In simple terms, someone who entered the employment-based system recently, particularly in 2025 or 2026, is still extremely far from the front of the queue in EB-2 and EB-3.
Could a 2026 Applicant Really Wait 179 Years?
The NFAP analysis estimates that an Indian whose employment-based immigration petition or labour certification application was filed in January 2026 or later could face a potential wait of:
179 years in EB-2
38 years in EB-3
The figures are based on current conditions and should not be treated as a guaranteed waiting period for an individual.
Future changes in US immigration law, visa availability and the number of people who leave the queue could significantly change the actual timeline.
Still, the estimates underline the extraordinary size of the existing backlog.
For Indian professionals in EB-2 and EB-3, the analysis suggests that the wait is more likely to be measured in decades rather than years when their priority dates are close to 2025 or 2026.
The Waiting Period Can Begin Before the Green Card Queue
The problem does not necessarily begin when a person enters the green card queue.
For many employment-based immigrants, labour certification is required before they can move through the immigration process.
According to the information provided, the labour certification process itself can take two to three years.
The prevailing wage determination, which is the first step, can take three to eight months. The recruitment process must generally continue for at least 60 days and can take longer.
As of August 2026, average processing times cited in the analysis were:
403 days for PERM applications under analyst review
290 days for applications under audit review
For Indian professionals already working in the US, these delays can mean spending many years in temporary immigration status while waiting for permanent residence.
Why the Backlog Matters to Families and Employers
The consequences go beyond the immigration application itself.
Many Indian professionals caught in the backlog are working in the US on temporary H-1B status while waiting for their green cards. Their ability to remain and work in the country can remain linked to extensions and continued compliance with the immigration system.
For families, this can create uncertainty that continues for a large part of a person’s working life.
The long wait can also create difficulties for American companies that want to attract and retain highly skilled workers.
NFAP executive director Stuart Anderson said the long waiting periods create significant hardships for individuals and their families and make it harder for companies to attract and retain talent.
This Is a Law-Based Backlog, Not Simply a Processing Delay
The analysis makes an important distinction: the employment-based backlog should not simply be viewed as a problem of immigration agencies taking too long to process applications.
The larger issue is the limited number of immigrant visas available under US law.
Even if applications are processed efficiently, the number of people who can receive employment-based immigrant visas each year remains restricted by the existing legal framework.
As demand continues to exceed the available supply, the queue keeps growing.
Calls for Changes to the Immigration System
The analysis argues that the fundamental problem requires changes to US immigration law.
It refers to a proposal considered by the US House of Representatives in 2022 as part of legislation that later became the CHIPS and Science Act. The proposal would have exempted certain people with PhDs in science and technology fields and master’s degrees in critical industries from employment-based green card numerical limits and backlogs.
According to the analysis, such a measure could have significantly reduced the employment-based backlog, but it did not become part of the final legislation.
Without changes to the system, the basic problem remains: the demand for employment-based permanent residence is much higher than the number of visas available each year.
For Indian professionals, the combination of a large applicant pool and the per-country limit has made that imbalance particularly severe.
A Queue Measured in Generations
The numbers paint a stark picture. Nearly one million Indians were estimated to be waiting in the first three employment-based green card categories at the end of 2025, while the overall US backlog had crossed 1.26 million.
Even after hundreds of thousands of additional employment-based green cards became available between 2020 and 2024, the backlog continued to grow.
For Indians entering the system today, particularly in EB-2 and EB-3, the biggest concern is no longer simply whether they will have to wait. It is how many years — or even decades — that wait could last.
The analysis concludes that America’s legal immigration system faces a less visible problem: people who have followed the employment-based legal route can still find themselves facing waiting periods that extend far beyond a normal working lifetime.
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