Green Card Wait Calculator
Estimate your employment-based wait from 16 years of official Visa Bulletin data — with a back-tested, calibrated range.
Estimated wait if you file today
Where you stand in line
Why a range? India and China receive most of the spillover — green cards left unused by other categories or by the family-based limits roll down to them. Rare years like FY2021–22, when pandemic consular shutdowns left tens of thousands of family green cards unused, ran 5–10× a normal year; most years land near the low end. Whether that repeats is what separates the optimistic and pessimistic ends of the estimate.
If green cards kept being issued at the recent pace
The cutoff’s movement alone would suggest ~13.8 yr — but the line keeps growing. In recent years about 42,589 people joined the India EB-2 line each year, while only ~4,096–12,959 received green cards. The cutoff’s pace has already slowed about 22% over the last three years, and a recent priority date sits in the densest part of the line — which is why a pace projection understates the wait.
Solid = historical cutoff. Dashed = projected median; shaded = 80% range; dot = median crossing of your priority date.
Waits this long are impractical to sit out for most recent filers — a faster path like EB-1A, NIW, or O-1 is often the real option.
A faster category like EB-1A could shorten this. See EB-1A vs NIW · Schedule a consultation
How this works (and what it can't do)
We keep the full official Visa Bulletin record (every month since 2010) and project each category-and-country cutoff forward using a robust trend (Theil–Sen) for the center line and a back-tested band for the range.
For heavily backlogged categories (India/China EB-2/EB-3) we lead with a place-in-lineestimate instead: how many approved petitions are ahead of you (USCIS data) ÷ how many green cards your category and country actually receive each year (State Dept data). For a long backlog that’s far more honest than projecting the cutoff’s recent speed — which only reflects the thin front of the line and badly understates a recent priority date.
Why you can trust it: we tested 12 forecasting methods across 16 years of out-of-sample history. This one had the best accuracy and a properly calibrated 80% range — meaning when we say "80% range," the real outcome has historically landed inside it about that often. It beat the naive approach with statistical significance.
What it can't do: the Visa Bulletin is driven by demand and policy and can move backward (retrogress). Even the best method is off by a couple of years at long horizons — so we show a widening range, never a precise date. Use it to plan, not to rely on.
Educational estimate from the U.S. State Dept Visa Bulletin (travel.state.gov), as of 2026-05-29. Not legal advice — the Visa Bulletin is unpredictable and can retrogress; check the current bulletin and consult an attorney.
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Adjudicated 12,000+ visas at the U.S. Consulate, Mexico · Former U.S. Foreign Service Officer · J.D. William & Mary Law School
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