US warns Indian EB-1 green cards may become unavailable before September 30 amid high demand

Indian applicants in the US employment-based immigration queue could face another setback, with the State Department warning that EB-1 green card numbers may become temporarily unavailable before September 30, the end of the US fiscal year, due to high demand.

The warning comes as Indian applicants already face severe backlogs in other employment-based categories. The EB-2 category for India remains unavailable in the September Visa Bulletin, while EB-3 continues to have a long wait.

EB-1 India could hit annual limit

In its September Visa Bulletin, the State Department said heavy demand and visa number usage by applicants chargeable to India could exhaust the country's pro-rated EB-1 allocation before the fiscal year ends.


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It said the category may have to be made unavailable in the coming weeks if India's allocation is reached.

“This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly,” the department said.

EB-1 is the employment-based first-preference category. It covers people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers.

For September, the EB-1 India final action date is October 15, 2022. Applicants generally need a priority date earlier than this cutoff for a visa number to be available for final issuance, subject to other eligibility requirements.

The dates-for-filing chart provides a later date of December 1, 2023, for EB-1 India.

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Applicants seeking adjustment of status in the US, however, must check which Visa Bulletin chart the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has authorised for use in that month.

EB-2 India unavailable, EB-3 India faces long queue

The pressure on Indian applicants extends beyond EB-1.

The EB-2 India category is marked “U” or unavailable in the September Visa Bulletin. The category was also unavailable in August.

The EB-2 category covers professionals with advanced degrees and people with exceptional ability.

The EB-3 category also remains heavily backlogged for Indian applicants. Its September final action date is January 1, 2014.

For comparison, the EB-3 final action date is September 1, 2024, for most countries not separately listed in the bulletin. It is January 1, 2022, for mainland China and August 1, 2023, for the Philippines.

For India, the September dates-for-filing cutoff for both EB-2 and EB-3 is January 15, 2015.

The backlog is linked to high demand for employment-based green cards and statutory limits on immigrant visa numbers.

For fiscal year 2026, the State Department has set the worldwide employment-based preference limit at 186,317. US immigration law also generally applies a 7% per-country limit across family- and employment-based preference categories, subject to statutory provisions and available carryover numbers.

India's large pool of employment-based applicants means these limits can create lengthy queues across categories.