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Priority dates and visa availability

An approved I-140 is not a green card. You also need a visa number available for your priority date. Here is how to determine whether yours is, in four steps, against the authoritative source.

We deliberately do not print a live “you are current” answer here. Visa Bulletin data goes stale within weeks, and a wrong answer could cause someone to file, or fail to file, at the wrong moment. Check the two official pages linked below, they take a minute and they are correct.

  1. 01

    Find your chargeability area

    It is your country of birth, not citizenship, not residence. India and China have their own columns; everywhere else falls under “All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed”, which moves far faster and is frequently current.

  2. 02

    Find which chart USCIS says to use this month

    Each bulletin has two charts, and USCIS decides monthly which one adjustment-of-status applicants may use. Do not assume the more favourable one applies, check the USCIS filing-charts page, not just the bulletin.

  3. 03

    Read the EB-2 row for your area

    A date means petitions with priority dates before it may proceed. C means current, no backlog. U means unavailable, nobody proceeds that month.

  4. 04

    If it is current and you are ready, that is the moment

    A current date on the applicable chart means you can file Form I-485 concurrently with your I-140. Categories retrogress, sometimes at fiscal year-end when annual limits bind. Waiting is a bet on a chart you do not control.

The two official pages

Department of State, Visa Bulletin ↗

The cutoff dates themselves, both charts. Published monthly, in the second or third week, for the following month.

USCIS, Adjustment of Status Filing Charts ↗

Which of the two charts you may actually use this month. The step most people skip.

Before you file concurrently

A pending I-485 gets you an EAD and Advance Parole, which can matter more than the green card timeline if your nonimmigrant status has a hard expiry. But filing it is an affirmative act of immigrant intent, and several statuses, F-1 among them, require the opposite. If the I-140 is denied, a concurrent I-485 is denied with it.

Where that decision interacts with an expiring status, buy an hour of attorney time. It is one narrow question and being wrong about it is expensive. The full explanation is here.