July 2026 Visa Bulletin: What EB-2 and EB-1 India Applicants Should Know?
The State Department’s July 2026 Visa Bulletin is out, and there are important developments for EB-2 and EB-1 India applicants that warrant prompt attention.
EB-2 India: Closed through the end of the fiscal year. In June 2026, the Final Action Date for EB-2 India was September 1, 2013, meaning applicants with a priority date earlier than that were eligible to file their I-485 adjustment of status application. For July, the category has become unavailable, and current guidance indicates it is expected to remain unavailable through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2026.
The category’s closure does not undo eligibility for filings properly made while it was open, but the window to file fresh applications under those June dates has now closed. Applicants who met the June cutoff but had not yet filed are now in a more uncertain position and should evaluate their options promptly.
EB-1 India: Cutoff date has moved earlier. In June 2026, the EB-1 India Final Action Date was December 15, 2022. For July, it has retrogressed two months, to October 15, 2022.
Applicants whose priority date falls between October 15, 2022 and December 15, 2022 met the June cutoff but no longer meet the July one. Filing promptly is advisable for anyone in this window, since further retrogression remains possible.
EB-3 India: Modest forward movement. In June 2026, the EB-3 India Final Action Date was December 15, 2013. For July, it advanced two weeks, to January 1, 2014.
Why proper filing matters right now?
Filing a green card application is not just about meeting a cutoff date on paper. A rejected or improperly prepared filing can cost an applicant the benefit of an open window that may not reopen for months or longer.
One filing detail drawing increased attention is USCIS’s payment requirements. As a documented rule, USCIS does not accept a single form paid for using a mix of payment instruments: a Form G-1650 (ACH bank debit) and a Form G-1450 (credit card authorization) cannot both be used to pay the fee for the same form, even if the combined amount is correct.
Beyond that documented rule, we are increasingly seeing, as a matter of practice, that USCIS lockboxes appear to be applying this same single-payment-method expectation more broadly across full filing packages, including packages covering multiple family members or related petitions, such as H-1B/H-4 filings or I-485 applications submitted together for a principal applicant and dependents. Based on this trend, we recommend using one consistent payment method (either ACH or credit card) across an entire family or multi-form package, rather than mixing G-1650 and G-1450 forms within the same submission, to reduce the risk of rejection.
A separate development worth knowing about: On June 5, 2026, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that USCIS could no longer suspend the processing of immigration benefit applications, including green cards, work permits, and naturalization, for nationals of 39 countries that had been subject to processing freezes since late 2025. As a result, USCIS is now required to resume adjudicating a large volume of previously suspended applications from nationals of those 39 countries. This ruling is currently being evaluated for appeal, and it specifically affects USCIS’s internal processing freeze; it does not change the Visa Bulletin’s per-country allocation numbers or India’s Final Action Dates directly.
Bottom line: Applicants who qualified under June’s cutoffs for EB-2 India, EB-1 India, or who are newly eligible under EB-3 India’s modest advance, should review their priority dates carefully and act promptly. Getting the filing right the first time, including payment method compliance, has become more important than ever.
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