USCIS Sets January 2025 Adjustment of Status Filing Charts for the Visa Bulletin
Categories: EB-1 , EB-2 , EB-3 , EB-4 , EB-5 , Visa Bulletin
Sheetal A. Patel of Pasricha & Patel, LLC, explains the adjustment of status filing charts for the Visa Bulletin
With the U.S. Department of State (“DOS”)’s publication of its January 2025 visa bulletin, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) will continue to use the Dates for Filing for Employment-Based Adjustment of Status Applications (Chart B). This is in continuation of the change that started with the October 2024 visa bulletin. Meanwhile, USCIS also decided to continue to follow the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications table. Please refer to the sections below for specific discussions about the visa availability date movements and trends under both the employment-based immigrant visa petitions, as well as the family-based immigrant visa petitions.
Employment-based Immigrant Visa Categories:
- USCIS and the Department of State will continue to manage the demand and usage of employment visa numbers, while fully recognizing that there is overwhelming demand, which resulted in the visa numbers in this category being exhausted and used up in late August to early September of 2024 in the last fiscal year.
Therefore, USCIS will continue to utilize the Dates for Filing for Employment-Based Adjustment of Status Applications chart to accept applications in all employment-based categories. This does seem to be serving as encouragement to those applicants who have been waiting for quite some time to see any meaningful movements in the visa categories. Specifically, EB-1 India’s filing date remains unchanged with April 15, 2022, while EB-2 India’s filing date also remains on January 1, 2013, and EB-3 India’s filing date also stays on June 8, 2013.
Meanwhile, the final action dates for India and China actually moved ahead with some advancements in January 2025, with India experiencing visa movement forward in EB-2 (October 1, 2012), and EB-3 (December 1, 2012). China’s EB-2 moved ahead to April 22, 2020, and its EB-3 also moved ahead to June 1, 2020.
- Employment-based first preference category (EB-1) (in the Final Action Dates table):
- There was no change in the EB-1 cutoff dates for November. For India, the visa availability date remains on February 1, 2022.
- China’s visa cutoff date also remains on November 8, 2022. It is unchanged from the December 2024 visa bulletin;
- Meanwhile, for ‘World’, and Mexico, and Philippines, EB-1 continues to be Current/Available.
- Employment-based second preference category (EB-2)(in the Final Action Dates table):
- The visa availability date for EB-2 for India moved ahead even more to October 1, 2012. It is still not clear if there will be any more significant or major movements in the next few months of FY 2025 visa bulletin though. This certainly is a category that needs further monitoring.
- For China’s visa preference category: the visa availability date also moved ahead by one (1) month to April 22, 2020.
- There was also movement in the EB-2 visa category across all other countries and regions in the January 2025 visa bulletin. It is moved ahead by one month to April 1, 2023.
As already mentioned above, due to the strong demand for employment-based visas overall this past fiscal year 2024, Department of State will continue to do its best to try to hold the line in visa number usage, particularly in the early part of FY 2025. It is not clear if there will be any further major movements in these next few months. This is an area that certainly needs continual monitoring.
- Employment-based third preference category (EB-3) (in the Final Action Dates table):
- EB-3 India’s visa availability date moved slightly forward to December 1, 2012.
- EB-3 China’s visa availability date moved ahead by about two (2) months, to June 1, 2020. It was on April 1, 2020 in the December 2024 visa bulletin. So, this category’s visa numbers are seeing improvements as well.
- EB-3 world’s visa availability date moved ahead to December 1, 2022. The same date is shown for Mexico and Philippines too. A reminder that in the Fiscal Year 2024/September 2024 visa bulletin, all these regions’ visa availability all retrogressed to December 1, 2020. So, this is certainly back to its normal availability level.
- In the EB-3 Other Workers (EW) category, there is slight forward movement for Rest of the World countries – to December 8, 2020. India moved ahead to December 1, 2012. Mexico’s visa availability date moved ahead to December 1, 2020. And there was also no movement for China (remained on January 1, 2017). And there is also no movement for the Philippines (it had moved to December 1, 2020 from previous date of May 1, 2020 in the first month of Fiscal Year 2025/October 2024 visa bulletin) in this category.
- As Department of State has been warning for this past year, due to high demands for all visa numbers from all regions of the world, the Department of State will continue to exercise maximum control to manage the visa number usage, at least for the beginning months of FY 2025. This is a situation that needs to be monitored carefully by Department of State and they will make any necessary adjustments as needed in the coming months.
- Employment-based fourth preference category (EB-4):
- Because Congress has to take action to extend this program, the EB-4 category is now marked as ‘U’ for unavailable for all countries.
- Once this special religious worker visa program is extended, this category will resume to become subject to the same final action dates as the other employment fourth preference categories that are charged to each foreign state. This is a situation that needs to be monitored continuously as further Congressional action will be needed in December 2024 to extend this visa program again.
- Employment-based fifth preference category (EB-5) (referring to the Final Action Date chart):
- In the Unreserved category, EB-5 visa availability date remains on January 1, 2022 for India. Meanwhile, for China, the date also remains on July 15, 2016.
- For the other countries, and the rest of the world, the visa continues to be available for the nationals from those countries and regions.
- But in the January 2025 visa bulletin, both Department of State and USCIS have seen more approvals of I-526E (investing via regional center). With more applications being approved, US Department of State is warning that it may become necessary to establish Final Action Dates table, and Dates for Filing table at any time during this fiscal year 2025 so that visas in this category are not all used up in a particular period of time.
- On the EB-5 immigrant investor visa category, a reminder once again to readers that DOS’s visa bulletin for EB-5 preference category has also been updated to reflect the new provisions of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act (RIA).
- It now has two (2) pools of visa numbers within the EB-5 category. One is reserved for certain set-aside categories (Rural, High Unemployment, and Infrastructure projects), while the remaining available numbers remain ‘unreserved’.
- Finally, in the Final Action Dates chart for EB5 Set Asides (which covers Rural, and High Unemployment, and Infrastructure areas) for Chinese born and Indian born applicants as well as applicants from around the world continue to remain ‘Current’.
- Family-based Immigrant Visa Categories (with discussions also touching on the Final Action Dates table)::
- A reminder that DOS continues to use the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications chart.
- But in connection with the actual Final Action Dates table which is the actual visa availability date table to look at, and starting in June 2023, due to the steady usage of the F2A – Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents – DOS had to set a final action date for this category in order to maintain steady availability of this particular visa category for the upcoming months.
- So, in the Final Action Date for F2A- India for January 2025, it did not move and it remained on January 1, 2022. All other countries remain largely unchanged with some movement for Mexico and as per the January 2025 chart: China is at January 1, 2022, and Mexico is at May 15, 2021, and the Philippines is at January 1, 2022, and the Rest of the World (is also at January 1, 2022).
- In the December 2024 Final Acton Dates for Family-Sponsored Preference Cases, the various regions have visa availability dates of varying cutoff dates.
- Back in the August 2023 visa bulletin, the DOS had also explained that the F2B – Unmarried Son and Daughters (21 years of age or older) of Permanent Resident, is experiencing steady usage throughout the FY2023 and “it may become necessary to retrogress the final action dates for Rest of World countries, India, and China in the coming months to keep number use within the FY-2023 annual limit.”
- So, for the latest January 2025 visa bulletin, U.S. Department of State has maintained dates in F2B as follows:
- India improved to May 22, 2016.
- China also moved to May 22, 2016.
- The rest of the world also moved to May 22, 2016.
- Mexico also remained on July 1, 2005, and the Philippines remains on October 22, 2011.
- There was some major movements in the F-3 dates as follows:
- India – July 1, 2010.
- China – July 1, 2010.
- The rest of the world also moved ahead to July 1, 2010.
- Mexico moved ahead to November 22, 2000, and the Philippines moved slightly ahead to November 8, 2022.
Even in the first few months of the new Fiscal Year 2025, the U.S. Department of State is still doing its best to try and keep the various employment-based visa numbers in steady movement and to not have the visa numbers be used up too quickly. But with still high demand for these visas, Department of State will continue to be cautious in how it sets its monthly visa number goals.
It will be interesting to see if India will have steady movements in the coming months, because it is not certain if the Department of State will have enough leeway to move ahead with more visa movement advancements starting in October 2024 and through the next few months. But it will also be important to keep track of how USCIS decides to either use Dates of Filing or Final Action Dates table as we move further into FY 2025 and through the upcoming few months.
For this key reason, we do encourage readers to check in this space regularly for any further updates.
Pasricha & Patel’s Immigration Department has extensive experience in handling business and personal immigration matters. Our team is happy to speak with you on your specific issue.