US Visa Bulletin Shows Continued Backlog
The February 2026 Visa Bulletin reports little to no movement in priority or final action dates for employment-based immigration. The stagnation signals a continued backlog, offering no immediate increase in labor supply for U.S. employers seeking to hire talent from abroad.
- The employment-based green card backlog has reached a record 1.8 million cases. A primary reason for the backlog is the annual cap of 140,000 employment-based green cards and the rule that no single country can receive more than 7% of the visas, heavily impacting countries with high numbers of applicants like India and China. - Immigrants from India face the longest waits, with over 1.2 million applicants and their dependents in the employment-based backlog. For new Indian applicants in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories, the wait is estimated to be as long as 134 years, meaning many will not receive a green card in their lifetime. - The EB-2 category, for workers with advanced degrees, accounts for more than half of the entire employment-based backlog. The EB-3 category, for skilled workers with bachelor's degrees, makes up another 19%. - While most employment-based categories in the February 2026 Visa Bulletin saw no change, the EB-3 category for professionals and skilled workers advanced by five weeks for most countries, offering a small amount of progress. - The stagnation in visa processing disproportionately affects the tech and healthcare industries, which heavily rely on foreign talent to fill skilled positions. This can lead companies to outsource jobs or relocate operations overseas. - The number of pending I-140 petitions (the first step in the employment-based green card process) stood at over 80,000 in March 2023, representing roughly 171,000 individuals when including spouses and children. This is in addition to the 1.3 million who are waitlisted for a visa to become available. - Slow processing times at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have exacerbated the backlog. For example, the processing time for a labor certification from the Department of Labor has increased from about two months in 2017 to nearly 18 months. - The backlog for family-sponsored visas is even larger, with over 8.3 million cases pending, highlighting the widespread challenges within the U.S. legal immigration system.
