The U.S. Department of State has announced that annual visa limits for fiscal year (FY) 2024 have been reached for the following employment-based categories: EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, EW (other workers), EB-4, and EB-5 unreserved.
Quick Hits
- Numerical visa limits have been reached for EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, EW, EB-4, and EB-5 unreserved categories for FY 2024, which ends on September 30, 2024.
- No further immigrant visas or green cards will be issued for these visa categories for the remainder of September 2024.
- USCIS will continue to accept adjustment of status applications in accordance with the Adjustment of Status Final Action Dates Chart from the September 2024 Visa Bulletin, but will not approve any cases for these specific visa categories for the remainder of FY 2024.
Each year, the availability of immigrant numbers for employment-based preference immigrants is calculated based on Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). For FY 2024, the numerical limit for employment-based preference immigrants is 160,791. Once the numerical limit is reached for a given preference category, the category becomes unavailable and no further permanent resident cards (green cards) will be issued for the preference category for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The State Department continues to see high demand for employment-based green card applications.
The annual numerical limit for employment-based immigrants will reset on October 1, 2024, the start of the federal government’s next fiscal year, at which point U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may resume approving applications for permanent residency, and embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in all categories.
Key Takeaways
The issuance of all available visas in a preference category at the end of the federal government’s fiscal year indicates that USCIS and the State Department are maximizing agency ability to approve these applications. In recent years, federal agencies have come under scrutiny for failing to issue all available permanent residency slots in a fiscal year. The State Department and USCIS generally announce in October the total number of employment-based slots available for the federal government’s new fiscal year.
