At a glance
The October 2026 Visa Bulletin, which opens fiscal year 2027, is running late, and the State Department hasn’t said why. Three separate restrictions are currently slowing immigrant visa processing at U.S. consulates.
Knowing who benefits and who waits starts with two questions: how many green cards are available, and which categories depend on consulates versus processing inside the U.S.
How many green cards are available each year? Most green card categories have annual limits, but one large group doesn’t: immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents of adult citizens) are unlimited. The capped categories are the ones that appear in the Visa Bulletin and create waiting lines.
| FY2026 (approx.) | |
|---|---|
| Family preference (capped) | 226,000 |
| Employment-based (capped) | ~186,000 |
| Diversity Visa (capped) | ~52,000 |
| Total capped numbers controlled by the Visa Bulletin | ~464,000 |
| Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens | Unlimited, typically several hundred thousand |
| All green cards, in recent years | Roughly 1 million |
The family preference limit is 226,000. The law technically allows it to go higher, but because of how it’s calculated, it has stayed at 226,000 for many years. The employment limit starts at 140,000 but grows when family numbers go unused the year before, which is why it reached about 186,000 in FY2026. The Diversity Visa is set at 55,000 but reduced to about 52,000 by other statutory deductions.
These limits cover all green cards, whether issued as an immigrant visa at a consulate or granted through adjustment of status inside the U.S. No single country can receive more than 7% of the combined family and employment preference numbers. The State Department listed this as about 25,600 for FY2026, based on the 140,000 employment baseline. For high-demand countries, that works out to roughly 7% of each category, as shown in the table below.
How the capped numbers break down by category:
| Category | Who qualifies | FY2026 (approx.) | Approx. max per country* | Mostly processed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens | 23,400 | ~1,640 | Consulates |
| F2A | Spouses and minor children of green card holders | ~87,900 | Largely exempt† | Consulates (some adjustment) |
| F2B | Unmarried adult children of green card holders | ~26,300 | ~1,840 | Consulates |
| F3 | Married children of U.S. citizens | 23,400 | ~1,640 | Consulates |
| F4 | Siblings of adult U.S. citizens | 65,000 | ~4,550 | Consulates |
| Family total | 226,000 | |||
| EB-1 | Extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers, multinational managers | ~53,200 (28.6%) | ~3,720 | Mostly adjustment in U.S. |
| EB-2 | Advanced degrees, exceptional ability | ~53,200 (28.6%) | ~3,720 | Mostly adjustment in U.S. |
| EB-3 | Skilled workers, professionals, other workers | ~53,200 (28.6%) | ~3,720 | Mixed: professionals and skilled workers often adjust in the U.S.; Other Workers and nurses more often go through consulates |
| EB-4 | Special immigrants, including religious workers | ~13,200 (7.1%) | ~920 | Mixed |
| EB-5 | Investors | ~13,200 (7.1%) | ~920 | Significant consular share |
| Employment total | ~186,000 | |||
| Diversity Visa | Lottery winners | ~52,000 | ~3,640 | Almost entirely consulates |
Numbers aren’t used evenly through the year. By law, no more than 27% of the annual family, employment, or diversity limit can be used in any one of the first three quarters of the fiscal year, so the final quarter (July–September) is when remaining numbers are used up. EB-3 Other Workers are capped at 10,000 a year, and 32% of EB-5 numbers are reserved for rural, high-unemployment, and infrastructure projects.
*The per-country figures are 7% of each category. The law sets the 7% limit on a country’s combined family and employment numbers. For countries whose demand exceeds that total, currently India, mainland China, Mexico, and the Philippines, the State Department divides the country’s share across the categories, which works out to roughly 7% of each. Countries below the overall limit aren’t held to these per-category figures. In the employment categories, numbers that would otherwise go unused can also go to a country beyond its limit. The Diversity Visa has its own separate 7% per-country cap.
†75% of F2A numbers are exempt from the per-country limit, which is why F2A waits are much shorter than other categories for high-demand countries such as Mexico.
The takeaway: nearly all family preference and Diversity Visa numbers depend on consulates, as do a meaningful share of EB-3 and EB-5 numbers. When consulates slow down, those are the numbers at risk of going unused.
The per-country limits also explain the long waits for India and China in EB-2 and EB-3. Each country can get only about 3,700 green cards a year in each of those categories, and that count includes spouses and children, not just the main applicant. The limit applies to approvals, not filings. When the Visa Bulletin’s dates move forward, many more applicants can file their I-485s, but they then wait until a visa number is available for final approval.
Three restrictions, three different tracks
- The 39-country travel ban. Presidential Proclamation 10998, effective January 1, 2026, expanded an earlier 19-country ban to 39 countries, with full or partial visa suspensions. It has no expiration date and is reviewed every 180 days. It remains fully in effect.
- The 75-country “public charge” immigrant visa pause. Beginning January 21, 2026, the State Department stopped issuing immigrant visas to nationals of 75 countries over concerns about reliance on public benefits. A federal court struck this policy down on August 21. It is now on appeal.
- The worldwide immigrant visa interview freeze. On August 25, 2026, the State Department paused immigrant visa interview scheduling everywhere so consular officers could be retrained on public charge screening. This one affects every applicant who needs consular processing, from every country. There’s still no official restart date.
The court fight: CLINIC v. Rubio
The 75-country pause was built on a “public charge” rationale: the idea that applicants from these countries were likely to depend on government benefits after arriving. In Catholic Legal Immigration Network v. Rubio, Judge Jeannette A. Vargas of the Southern District of New York rejected that approach.
The court held that the law requires a public charge determination to be made about each applicant individually, based on that person’s own age, health, family status, financial resources, education, and skills. Where someone was born tells you nothing about whether that particular person will rely on public benefits. The Immigration and Nationality Act also separately prohibits discrimination based on nationality in issuing immigrant visas. By replacing individual assessments with a blanket rule tied to passports, the Secretary of State exceeded his legal authority.
The judge vacated the policy itself, rather than protecting only the named plaintiffs, and set aside every refusal based solely on it. The government has acknowledged that more than 43,000 applications fall into that group. It has appealed to the Second Circuit and asked that the ruling be paused in the meantime. Unless a stay is granted, the ruling remains in effect, and embassies have reportedly begun reprocessing affected cases.
Where the unused numbers go?
This is where the restrictions connect to the bulletin. Unused numbers don’t simply disappear, at least not always. They move in a set order.
Within the family categories: unused F4 numbers go to F1, unused F1 numbers go to F2, unused F1 and F2 numbers go to F3, and unused numbers from the first three go to F4.
Within the employment categories: unused EB-4 and EB-5 numbers go to EB-1, unused EB-1 numbers go to EB-2, and unused EB-2 numbers go to EB-3.
Between family and employment, the flow is lopsided. Family numbers left unused at the end of a fiscal year are added directly to the next year’s employment limit. This year’s employment limit rose to about 186,000 for exactly this reason, after roughly 46,000 family numbers went unused in FY2025.
The reverse rarely works. Unused employment numbers are technically added to the next year’s family calculation, but that formula also subtracts the previous year’s immediate-relative admissions, which are large, and it has a floor of 226,000. In most years the result lands at the floor regardless, so unused employment numbers are effectively lost.
Consulates have been largely frozen since August 25, during the final five weeks of the fiscal year. That timing matters: the July–September quarter is when the State Department normally uses up whatever numbers remain for the year, so a freeze in those final weeks hits at exactly the wrong moment.
The likely result is more unused family numbers in FY2026, which would enlarge the FY2027 employment pool. EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 applicants already in the U.S. with approved petitions, many of them H-1B workers, would be best positioned to use those numbers. The extra supply is shared across all five employment categories, though, and adjustment applicants now face closer discretionary review.
So why might the bulletin be late?
To set October’s dates, the State Department has to estimate supply and demand across every category, and right now it faces two major unknowns:
- whether 43,000 remanded cases will re-enter the pipeline or be frozen again by an appeals court;
- when the worldwide interview freeze will end and consulates will start using numbers again.
Either one would affect the math, and a court decision could come any day. That makes the litigation a plausible reason to hold off, though the State Department hasn’t confirmed it.
Has this happened before?
As of September 25, the October bulletin still hadn’t been published, making it the latest October release in at least the past several years. Even in 2020, when COVID had shut down consulates worldwide and the bulletin was widely described as delayed, it came out on September 24.
That 2020 precedent is encouraging for employment-based applicants. With consulates closed or operating at reduced capacity, large numbers of family visas went unused. Those numbers rolled into the next year’s employment limit, which reached about 261,500 in FY2021, nearly double the usual 140,000, and the October 2020 bulletin brought major forward movement in the employment categories. The circumstances today are not identical, but the mechanics are the same: when consulates can’t issue family visas, the leftover numbers flow to employment-based applicants the following year.
There’s no legal deadline for the Visa Bulletin. Neither the statute nor the regulations say when it must be published, and the mid-month release is simply longstanding practice. But USCIS regulations rely on the Bulletin to decide whether a green card applicant can file or be approved, so a late Bulletin leaves applicants unable to plan until it arrives.
How to read the October bulletin when it arrives?
Don’t over-read it. October always brings fresh annual limits, so some forward movement happens almost every year regardless of policy.
The better signal comes in the following months. If the State Department keeps advancing dates for people filing inside the U.S., consular issuance abroad is probably still suppressed. If that movement slows or reverses, interviews have likely resumed and consulates are absorbing the numbers again.
What you can do now?
- If your case is going through a consulate, strengthen your affidavit of support file: recent tax returns, current proof of income, and a joint sponsor if the numbers are thin. Expect closer public charge scrutiny once interviews resume.
- If you’re in the U.S. with a priority date close to the cutoff, start preparing your I-485 materials now so you can file quickly if October brings movement. Maintain your status carefully and document your positive equities, since adjustment applications are facing closer discretionary review.
- Watch the Second Circuit. Its ruling on the stay request could reshape the picture for tens of thousands of applicants, and possibly the bulletin itself.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.
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