If you have a pending green card case in a preference category, one question tends to matter most: is your priority date current yet? The answer decides whether you can move forward this month or keep waiting. The trouble is that the official Visa Bulletin is a wall of charts, category codes, and country columns that's easy to misread, and one wrong row can cost you months.
So we built a free Visa Bulletin Checker that does the reading for you. You enter three things and it tells you where you stand against the most recent bulletin, how your cutoff moved this month, and a rough estimate of when your date may become current. This guide covers how to use it and how to read each result. For the full mechanics behind the charts, our complete guide to how the Visa Bulletin works has the details.
Check your priority date in under a minute
The checker asks for three pieces of information, all of which you already have.
First, pick your preference category. Toggle between Family-Sponsored (F1 through F4) and Employment-Based (EB-1 through EB-5, including the EB-5 set-asides and the other worker and religious worker subcategories), then choose your exact category from the dropdown.
Second, choose your country of chargeability. This is usually your country of birth, not your citizenship. The checker lists the four oversubscribed countries (China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines) plus an "all other countries" option for everyone else.
Third, enter your priority date. For family cases, that's the date USCIS received your I-130. For employment cases, it's your PERM filing date, or your I-140 receipt date if PERM wasn't required. You'll find it on your I-797 approval notice. Our I-130 priority date guide explains where to find it for family petitions.
You can also pick which chart to read, Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing. More on that difference below.
What your result actually means
Once you enter a priority date, the checker returns one of three results.
Your date is current. This is the green light. It means a visa number is available for your row, either because your priority date is earlier than the cutoff or because the whole category is marked "C" for Current. For example, under the July 2026 Final Action Dates, EB-2 for all countries except China and India shows as current, so a worldwide EB-2 applicant is clear to move forward regardless of priority date. The checker also draws a small "cutoff over time" chart and notes whether the date advanced, held steady, or moved back since last month. That gives you a quick read on which way things are heading.
Not current yet. If your priority date is later than the cutoff, the checker tells you exactly how far you have to go and gives a plain-language estimate. Say you're an EB-3 applicant born in India with a March 15, 2019 priority date. Against the July 2026 Final Action Dates, the cutoff sits at January 1, 2014, so the checker reports that the date needs to advance about 62 months to reach you, and it projects you would become current around January 2034 at a medium confidence level. That projection is based on recent movement, not a promise, and the same screen says so plainly.
Currently unavailable. Some rows show "U" for unavailable, which means no numbers are being issued for that category and country this month. In the July 2026 bulletin, for instance, EB-2 India is unavailable under Final Action Dates, and the checker even flags that it became unavailable this month. Unavailable is rarely permanent. It usually means demand outran the annual limit, and the row can reopen in a later bulletin once numbers free up.
Final Action Dates vs Dates for Filing
The bulletin publishes two charts every month, and they answer different questions.
Final Action Dates tell you when a green card can actually be approved and issued. Dates for Filing tell you the earliest point you may submit your application or send documents, often months before a number is truly available. Each month USCIS decides which chart adjustment-of-status applicants may use, and it can pick a different chart for family cases than for employment cases. Before you file, check USCIS.gov/visabulletininfo to confirm which chart applies that month.
One nuance trips people up: being current means your priority date is strictly earlier than the cutoff. A priority date that exactly matches the cutoff is not current yet; you become current once the cutoff moves past your date. The checker applies that rule for you, so you do not have to second-guess it.
What to do the moment your date is current
A current priority date does not stay open indefinitely. The State Department has been advancing dates quickly in 2026 to use up visa numbers before the fiscal year ends on September 30, but it has also warned about retrogression, and some India categories have already moved backward. So when your date is current, it is worth filing promptly rather than sitting on it. Our July 2026 Visa Bulletin analysis breaks down this month's movement category by category, and the family green card backlog explainer covers what the I-130 and I-485 wait looks like right now.
If you are in the United States, you will file Form I-485 to adjust status, often alongside the underlying petition. Our guide on how to file I-485 covers the documents and steps, and the I-485 adjustment of status guide goes deeper on each piece. If you still need to start the family petition, the I-130 petition guide explains that stage.
This is where most people weigh hiring an attorney against doing it themselves. Attorneys commonly charge $2,000 to $5,000 to prepare an I-130 and I-485 package. Immiva guides you through both forms question by question for $129, checking your answers as you go so the common mistakes that trigger a Request for Evidence get caught before you file. You can see the full breakdown on our pricing page.
Official Sources
This guide is based on current U.S. Department of State and USCIS materials. All information was verified against these official sources as of June 2026:
U.S. Department of State
USCIS
Immigration and Nationality Act
- INA Section 201: worldwide and per-category immigration limits
- INA Section 202: 7% per-country limit on preference visas
Immigration law changes frequently. We monitor USCIS and State Department updates and revise this guide when the rules change.