Business Immigration Insights

The Visa Bulletin is released monthly by the Department of State and is used to determine when a sponsored foreign national can submit the final step of the green card process. The complete visa bulletin can be found here.

Below is a summary of the May Visa Bulletin, including Final Action Dates and changes from the previous month:

• China EB-2 has slowed and advances only three weeks in May, EB-3 jumps ahead two months, and the EB-3 cut-off date (October 1, 2014) remains ahead of the EB-2 date (February 8, 2013)
• India EB-2 remains stalled at June 22, 2008 and EB-3 advances only one day to March 25, 2005
• Philippines EB-3 jumps ahead four months to January 1, 2013
• Worldwide EB-3 moves forward one month to March 15, 2017

PLEASE NOTE:  USCIS has not yet announced if it will accept I-485 applications in May based on the Department of State’s Dates for Filing chart. However, the trend over the last several months has been to NOT honor the Dates for Filing chart, and instead only accept I-485 applications based on the Final Action Dates as listed above.