U.S. Visa Bulletin for August 2024

Your priority date is the date that holds your place in line for a green card. For family cases it is the day USCIS received your I-130 petition. For most employment cases it is the day the PERM labor certification was filed, or the day the I-140 was filed if your category does not require PERM. You keep that date as your spot in the queue, and you become current once the bulletin cutoff for your category and country moves past it.

Your priority date is current when it is earlier than the cutoff date listed for your category and country of chargeability. At that point a visa number is available to you. If the cell shows "C" the whole category is current, so your date does not matter. If it shows "U" no numbers are being issued that month. One detail catches people out: a priority date that exactly matches the cutoff is not current yet, you become current only once the cutoff moves past your date.

It is usually your country of birth that counts, not which passport you carry or which country you are a citizen of. That is what "chargeability" means, so holding a second passport normally does not change your place in line. There is one helpful exception called cross-chargeability: in some cases you can be charged to your spouse's country of birth (or, for a child, a parent's country of birth) when that country's dates are more favorable. This is general information, not legal advice, so check your specific situation before relying on it.

Final Action Dates tell you when your green card can actually be approved. Dates for Filing tell you the earliest you may submit your application or documents, which is often months earlier. Each month USCIS announces which chart adjustment-of-status applicants may use, and family and employment categories can be on different charts in the same month, so always check which one applies to you. If you are immigrating through a U.S. consulate rather than adjusting status, Dates for Filing is also what the National Visa Center goes by when it asks you to send in your documents.

It is a non-binding estimate, not a promise. We look at how the cutoff for your category and country has actually moved over the recent months and project that pace forward, while ignoring the large backward jumps that often happen at the October fiscal-year reset. Visa Bulletin dates are set monthly by the State Department and can speed up, stall, or move backward without notice. Do not make travel, job, or filing decisions on the projection alone.

Each category and country has a limited annual supply of green card numbers. When demand runs ahead of supply, the State Department moves the cutoff date backward to slow things down, which is called retrogression. It is frustrating but normal, and dates often recover later in the fiscal year. Our checker flags when your category moved backward this month so you are not caught off guard.

Immiva preparation starts at $99. See our pricing page for each application's preparation fee. I-130 and I-485 preparation are priced separately, and government filing fees are separate.