How long does a green card take?

Why green card waits exist

U.S. immigration law caps the number of green cards issued each year. Family preference categories are limited to about 226,000 visas annually, employment categories to about 140,000, and no single country may receive more than 7% of the total in either pool. When more people apply from a country than its share allows, a backlog forms — and the older a category's "cutoff date" gets, the longer the wait.

The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin every month. Each entry on this page corresponds to one row in that bulletin. A "Current" estimate means there is no numerical wait — applicants in that category can move forward as fast as USCIS can process their paperwork. A wait of "~12.0 years" means an applicant who files today should expect roughly 12 years before the priority date becomes current.

What the wait estimate does and does not include

These estimates measure the visa availability backlog only — the gap between today's date and the published cutoff. They do not include USCIS processing time on the petition itself (Form I-130 or I-140), which can add another several months to a year before you even have a priority date locked in.

They also assume the cutoff line moves forward at roughly the same pace it has in recent years. In practice, cutoff dates can retrogress (move backward) when too many people in a category have filed, or jump ahead suddenly when a category gets unused visas spilled down from another preference. Your actual wait could be shorter or longer than the headline number.

For category- and country-specific narrative — including the historical pattern, what triggers retrogression, and what to do while you wait — click into any row above.