Priority date in immigration - March 2026 - Lluis Law
Key Takeaways
- Lluis Law has published a March 2026 primer on U.S. immigration “priority dates,” pointing readers to the State Department’s Visa Bulletin and USCIS chart selection.
- Priority dates control when family- and employment-based green card cases can be approved; backlogs and “retrogression” still affect many categories.
- USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) may allow adjustment applicants to use either Final Action Dates (Chart A) or Dates for Filing (Chart B) each month—check USCIS’s monthly guidance.
- Family-based (F1–F4) and employment-based (EB-1–EB-5) applicants must compare their priority date to the Bulletin’s cutoff for their country of chargeability.
- If your priority date is earlier than the applicable cutoff, you may file or be approved; if not, you must wait until your date becomes current.
What’s in the March 2026 update
A new Lluis Law post explains how to read March 2026 priority dates and where applicants should look each month: the U.S. Department of State’s Visa Bulletin and USCIS’s adjustment-of-status (AOS) chart selection. The Visa Bulletin sets monthly cutoff dates for immigrant visas in family- and employment-based categories. Those cutoffs reflect annual numerical limits in the Immigration and Nationality Act—about 226,000 family-based visas and 140,000 employment-based visas—plus a 7% per-country cap. When demand outpaces supply, categories back up and the Bulletin may “retrogress,” moving cutoffs backward.
How priority dates work—and which chart to use
Your priority date is the place you hold in line. For family cases, it’s the I-130 filing (receipt) date. For most employment cases, it’s the date a PERM labor certification was filed; if no PERM is required, it’s the I-140 filing date. Each month, compare that date to the Visa Bulletin cutoffs for your category (e.g., F2A spouses of permanent residents; EB-2 advanced-degree professionals) and your country of chargeability (usually country of birth). The Bulletin has two charts: Final Action Dates (Chart A), which control approvals, and Dates for Filing (Chart B), which allow earlier filing of AOS packages. USCIS announces monthly which chart AOS applicants may use; consular applicants typically use Dates for Filing to begin National Visa Center (NVC) document collection.
What applicants should do now
For March 2026, the practical steps remain the same: verify whether USCIS is using Chart A or Chart B for AOS, check your category and country cutoff in the Visa Bulletin, and act if your priority date is earlier than the applicable cutoff. If you are current under Dates for Filing and USCIS permits Chart B, you may be able to file the I-485 (and work/travel benefits) even if the case cannot be approved until your Final Action Date becomes current. If retrogression has affected your category, maintain valid nonimmigrant status where possible, keep civil and financial documents updated for NVC or USCIS, and consult counsel about strategy (for example, interfiling between EB categories or monitoring for future movement). For many, the March 2026 Bulletin continues the long wait—especially in oversubscribed family and EB-2/EB-3 lines—making timely checks and readiness to file as soon as eligible essential.
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