Priority Date: How to Find It and What It Means

The dates you compare it with are in the current Visa Bulletin dates. You check it against the visa bulletin to see if your turn has come.

Here's how to find it, what it means, and why the waiting line exists in the first place. How to understand and read the bulletin itself is covered in the visa bulletin overview; which table to use for filing is explained in Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing.

Where to find your priority date

You'll find it on the I-797 (Notice of Action) from USCIS for your I-140 petition. There is a separate line called Priority Date. This is not your approval date or the date you started preparing your case.

What your priority date is based on depends on your process:

• EB-1 and EB-2 NIW - the date your I-140 was filed
• EB-2 and EB-3 through an employer - the date the PERM labor certification was filed, which is earlier than the I-140 submission date

The timing is about the same. Even if the PERM takes over a year, that time is still spent waiting in line. The priority date for EB2 PERM is the date the PERM is filed, for EB2 NIW it's the date the I-140 is filed.

How to know if your turn has come

The process is simple: Compare your priority date with the date in the relevant visa bulletin table for your category and country of birth.

• If your priority date is earlier than the date in the table, your turn has come.
• If your priority date is later, you need to wait for the bulletin date to move forward.
• If the table shows C (current), there is no waiting period right now.

There are two tables and they answer different questions. Dates for Filing (Table B) tells you when you can file the next set of documents, while Final Action Dates (Table A) tells you when a decision can be made. Both tables are explained in detail in a separate article about Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing.

Here's an example. Suppose your priority date is February 1, 2023. If Table B shows February 15, 2023, you can submit the next stage documents (such as I-485). But you will only get your green card or visa later, once Table A matches your date. If your date is later than the one in the table, you still need to wait for the bulletin to move.

Community members emphasize: what matters is whether the date falls under "current," not the exact filing date:

The date in the bulletin shows who can move forward. If, for example, the EB2 date becomes current, it absolutely does not matter if the case was filed on January 30, 2024 or May 30, 2024.

For those who already have an I-140 approved under EB-2 NIW, the main bottleneck is the date in the bulletin, without which you can't proceed to adjust status:

You need to wait for your date in the visa bulletin. Currently, the adjustment of status cutoff is August 1, 2023, which means only those who filed before that date can apply for AOS.

Why There Is a Queue for Employment-Based Green Cards

Congress caps the number of employment-based green cards at about 140,000 per year. Each category (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3) gets around 40,000 visas. No country of birth can receive more than 7 percent of the total, regardless of demand.

The 7 percent limit means that a country with a population of 1.4 billion gets the same quota as a small state. With hundreds of thousands in line and only about 2,800 visas per country in a category, this creates a multi-year wait for some countries and a much shorter one for others.

NVC explains this logic in its letter to applicants, quoted by community members this way:

The reason for this delay is that there are more applicants than there are visas available in your category.

For some categories, the wait for current can stretch for years, and during this time, you need to stay mindful of your status:

First you need to wait for your priority date to become current. Sometimes that takes 2-3 years or more.

What Happens While You Wait for Your Date

A common misconception is that timelines add up: first petition review, then the queue. In reality, these processes run in parallel, and speeding up the petition doesn't move the line forward.

Petition review and waiting for the current date in the bulletin happen at the same time. The time is not cumulative.

Here is a practical point about premium processing: it speeds up the USCIS response for the petition itself but has no impact on the visa bulletin. It makes sense if you want a decision sooner and, if something goes wrong, you have time to reapply.

The second thing to remember: until your date becomes current, you need to maintain legal status in the US or plan for consular processing. An approved I-140 does not give you status by itself.

How long people waited for the interview after their priority date: community messages

The priority date comes up in more than 900 messages in the community chats. Below are the cases where members named both their date and the date of the invitation or the interview. All four messages come from the EB-2 NIW members' chat, consular path; the category is named explicitly in the first two.

It came to a little over a month from the month we became current to the letter inviting us to the interview.

Generalized community observations from the same timelines base: the wait for the interview after an EB-1 approval was reported from a few months to about 14 months counting the NVC, the bulletin and the embassy queue; after the NVC DQ, 5-6 months on average, depending heavily on the consulate. How to read the dates you compare your priority date with is in the current Visa Bulletin dates.

Can You Lose Your Priority Date

As long as your petition is approved, the date remains yours. Issues come up if the petition is denied and you refile. In that case, your priority date resets and you'll get a new one.

Yes, that's right. If your petition is approved, nothing changes. If it is denied, it's obviously frustrating to spend those six months waiting and then have to submit a new case. And you'll get a new priority date, not your previous one.

This is why community members consistently advise not to delay filing if your case is ready.

If your case is ready, don't wait, just file. Priority date is very important too. The visa bulletin will move along with the backlog, but your date will stay with you. Everything depends on that date: when you can get a green card or apply for adjustment of status.

Retrogression: When Dates Move Backward

The practical meaning of retrogression is that the window of opportunity may close before you can submit your documents. That's why the community advises not to delay the next stage if your date becomes current. There is no guarantee the bulletin will keep moving forward.

Key Points

1. The priority date is your place in line; it's shown as the Priority Date on your I-797 notice for your I-140 petition.
2. For EB-1 and EB-2 NIW, the date matches the I-140 filing date; for employment-based categories through an employer, it is the PERM filing date.
3. Compare your date with the relevant visa bulletin table: Table B shows when you can file documents, Table A is when decisions are made.
4. The queue exists because of an annual cap of about 140,000 visas and a 7% per-country limit based on country of birth.
5. Petition review and waiting for current status happen in parallel, so premium processing does not speed up the queue.
6. If approved, your date is retained; if denied and you file a new case, the date resets. It does not pay off to delay filing a ready case.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Materials

Related materials - Wait for the decision

• How to track your case after filing an O-1/EB-1 petition
• RFE: What Is a Request for Evidence
• Why an RFE Comes: Causes and Statistics
• RFE response: how to answer USCIS step by step
• How to format evidence so USCIS counts it: real RFEs
• NOID: how to respond to a Notice of Intent to Deny
• What Happens After EB-1 / EB-2 Petition Approval
• How to Read the Visa Bulletin for EB-1 and EB-2
• Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing
• The standards that trigger an RFE
• How the evidence was gathered
• Mandamus and Congress: what really works in case of delay
• USCIS uses AI: Claude, ELIS, ATLAS, and FOIA requests

All articles in «Wait for the decision»

Next stepInterview prepReach the interview calmly: question rehearsal with self-check plus a readiness checklist.

From community discussions

• «In no way is this legal advice. But as someone who is going through the financial sector and putting together my own case, having read many forums, chats, RFE and NOID, I came to the conclusion that an officer primarily looks at the contribution to the industry or the critical/leading role in a top organization. And based on this, you need to select the remaining criteria and put together the Final Merits.»

  community member · from public community chats

• «When I entered on a B1/B2 we discussed with the lawyers what the difference is: Founder mode (allowed) - you negotiate investments, partnerships, take part in conferences, pitch the company. CEO mode (prohibited) - the company has other employees and you manage them on a regular basis, look for new clients - it's your work duty from 9 to 12, any activity that falls under W2.»

  Rustam · from public community chats

• «Usually this means that formally the criteria are met, but in the officer's opinion they're not enough to establish that the beneficiary is among the small percentage at the very top of the field. There's work at a respected company, but the critical capacity isn't proven, and so on.»

  community member · from public community chats

Personal opinions of community members from public discussions, not legal advice.

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