Blog by Pasricha & Patel, LLC

USCIS Sets July 2025 Adjustment of Status Filing Charts for the Visa Bulletin

Categories: Employment-Based Visas , Family-Based Visas , Immigration , USCIS , Visa Bulletin

Sheetal A. Patel of Pasricha & Patel, LLC, explains the adjustment of status filing charts for the Visa Bulletin.

https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates/when-to-file-your-adjustment-of-status-application-for-family-sponsored-or-employment-based-114

With the U.S. Department of State (“DOS”)’s publication of its July 2025 visa bulletin, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has decided to continue to use the Final Action Dates for Employment-Based Adjustment of Status Applications (Chart A). Meanwhile, USCIS has decided to continue to follow the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications table (Chart B). Please refer to the sections below for specific discussions about the visa availability date movements and trends under both the employment-based immigrant visa petitions, as well as the family-based immigrant visa petitions. In the meantime, EB-4 preference category remains ‘unavailable’, and will remain that way for the rest of fiscal year 2025. Finally, the EB-5 preference category will remain in retrogression for Indian nationals in the June 2025 visa bulletin due to overwhelming demand.

Employment-based Immigrant Visa Categories:

  • As has been the case for the last few years, USCIS and the Department of State are doing their best to manage the demand and usage of employment visa numbers, while fully recognizing that there is overwhelming demand, which resulted in the visa numbers in this category being exhausted and used up in late August to early September of 2024 in the last fiscal year.

USCIS is keeping the use of the Final Action Dates for Employment-Based Adjustment of Status Applications (chart A) and accepting applications in all employment-based categories based on actual visa availability. This continues to be clear indication to those applicants who have been waiting for quite some time to see hardly any meaningful movements in the visa categories. It means the USCIS will need time to catch up first and process all the I-485 adjustment of status applications that were filed with USCIS in the most recent few months. In fact, for the month of July, there is hardly any visa movement for any of the preference categories for India. That means specifically, EB-1 India’s filing date remains unchanged on February 15, 2022. At the same time, China’s EB-1 date did progress by one (1) week to November 15, 2022. There was some minor movements in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories in July 2025 for both countries, but mainly for China. Specifically, EB-2 India’s visa availability remains steady on January 1, 2013, and as for EB-3, it moved ahead to April 22, 2013. China’s EB-2 actually moved ahead by one (1) week to December 15, 2020 (note: it was on December 1, 2020 in the June 2025 visa bulletin), and China’s EB-3 also moved ahead to December 1, 2020.

  • Employment-based first preference category (EB-1) (in the Final Action Dates table):
    • There are no movements in the EB-1 cutoff dates for July 2025. For India, the visa availability date remains on February 15, 2022.
    • China’s visa cutoff date did move ahead to November 15, 2022.
    • Meanwhile, for ‘World’, and Mexico, and Philippines, EB-1 continues to be Current/Available.
  • Employment-based second preference category (EB-2)(in the Final Action Dates table):
    • The visa availability date for EB-2 for India stays on the same date on January 1, 2013. It is still not clear if there will be any more significant or even minor movements in the next few months of FY 2025 visa bulletin though. But any forward movement in this category will certainly be welcome news. This certainly is a category that needs further monitoring.
    • For China’s visa preference category: the visa availability date actually advanced to December 15, 2020. It was on December 1, 2020 in the previous June 2025 visa bulletin.
    • There was no movement in the EB-2 visa category for all countries. In fact, it had previously moved significantly to October 15, 2023 in the June 2025 visa bulletin). For Mexico, EB-2 remained on October 15, 2023. And for the Philippines, it also remained on October 15, 2023.

As already mentioned above, due to the strong demand for employment-based visas overall this past fiscal year 2024, Department of State will continue to do its best to try to hold the line in visa number usage, even well into FY 2025. That appears to be the reason why the USCIS has chosen to use the Final Action Dates table. It is not clear if there will be any further major movements in these next few months. This is an area that certainly needs continual monitoring.

  • Employment-based third preference category (EB-3) (in the Final Action Dates table):
    • EB-3 India’s visa availability date moved ahead by one (1) week: April 22, 2013.
    • EB-3 China’s visa availability date did move slightly forward to December 1, 2020. It was on November 22, 2020 in the June 2025 visa bulletin. So, this category’s visa numbers seemed to have plateaued after initial optimism that there would be steady movement forward in this fiscal year 2025. But so far, it does not appear to be the case.
    • EB-3 world’s visa availability date also moved slightly ahead to February 8, 2023. The same date of February 8, 2023 is shown for Mexico and Philippines too.
    • In the EB-3 Other Workers (EW) category, there is slight forward movement for Rest of the World countries. It moved to July 8, 2021. India moved slightly ahead to April 22, 2013. remains on April 15, 2013. China’s date stayed on April 1, 2017. Mexico’s visa availability date also moved slightly ahead to July 8, 2021. There was also movement for the Philippines, as it moved slightly ahead to July 8, 2021.
    • As the Department of State has been warning this for the past year, due to high demands for all visa numbers from all regions of the world, the Department of State will continue to exercise maximum control to manage the visa number usage, even in the middle months of FY 2025. This is a situation that needs to be monitored carefully by Department of State, and they will make any necessary adjustments as needed in the coming months.
  • Employment-based fourth preference category (EB-4):
    • On February 28, 2025, U.S. Department of State did announce that due to overwhelming demand and use throughout the first half of fiscal year 2025, it has exhausted all the visa numbers in this preference category and for the rest of the year, and there would be no visas that can be issued in these categories for the remainder of the fiscal year 2025. The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2026) on October 1, 2025. So, this is certainly a drastic measure to take, but it does appear that the Department of State and the USCIS had no other choice here.
  • Employment-based fifth preference category (EB-5) (referring to the Final Action Date chart):
    • There is great demand and numbers usage by applicants in India and China. In fact, the Department of State has decided that for the July 2025 visa bulletin, the EB-5 date for Indian nationals remains retrogressed by six (6) months, to May 1, 2019. It remains on the same date for the June 2025 visa bulletin. Earlier, in the much earlier April 2025 visa bulletin, EB-5 India’s visa available date was November 1, 2019.
    • Meanwhile, for China, its EB-5 date also remained on January 22, 2014.
    • For the other countries, and the rest of the world, the visa continues to be available for the nationals from those countries and regions.
    • Department of State also warns that because of the overwhelming demand in this EB-5 visa category in general, there may become necessary to establish a final action date for applicants chargeable to all other countries, especially if the demand continues to grow at a rapid pace that it may become oversubscribed. Department of States note that this situation must be carefully monitored for the upcoming months.
    • On the EB-5 immigrant investor visa category, a reminder once again to readers that DOS’s visa bulletin for EB-5 preference category has also been updated to reflect the new provisions of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act (RIA).
    • It now has two (2) pools of visa numbers within the EB-5 category. One is reserved for certain set-aside categories (Rural, High Unemployment, and Infrastructure projects), while the remaining available numbers remain ‘unreserved’.
    • Finally, in the Final Action Dates chart for EB5 Set Asides (which covers Rural, and High Unemployment, and Infrastructure areas) for Chinese born and Indian born applicants as well as applicants from around the world continue to remain ‘Current’.

Family-based Immigrant Visa Categories (with discussions also touching on the Final Action Dates table):

  • A reminder that DOS continues to use the Dates for Filing for Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications chart.
  • But in connection with the actual Final Action Dates table which is the actual visa availability date table to look at, and starting in June 2023, due to the steady usage of the F2A – Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents – DOS had to set a final action date for this category in order to maintain steady availability of this particular visa category for the upcoming months.
  • So, in the Final Action Date for F-1 (unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens)– India, the date moved ahead by about 1 ½ months to July 15, 2016. It was on June 8, 2016 in the June 2025 visa bulletin.
  • As for F-2A - India for July 2025 visa bulletin, it moved quite significantly by eight months to September 1, 2022. Other countries also advanced in the July 2025 visa bulletin: China is on September 1, 2022, along with the rest of the world and the Philippines. Mexico also moved ahead to February 1, 2022.
  • In the July 2025 Final Acton Dates for Family-Sponsored Preference Cases, the various regions have visa availability dates of varying cutoff dates.
  • As early as back in the August 2023 visa bulletin, the DOS had also explained that the F2B – Unmarried Son and Daughters (21 years of age or older) of Permanent Resident, is experiencing steady usage throughout the FY2023 and “it may become necessary to retrogress the final action dates for Rest of World countries, India, and China in the coming months to keep number use within the FY-2023 annual limit.” So far, that has not happened yet.
  • In fact, for the latest July 2025 visa bulletin, U.S. Department of State has maintained dates in F2B as follows:
    • India moved ahead to October 15, 2016.
    • China also moved ahead to October 15, 2016.
    • The rest of the world also moved ahead to October 15, 2016.
    • Mexico advanced significantly – by one year to January 1, 2007 and the Philippines moved ahead to April 15, 2012.
  • There were movements in the F-3 dates though (Married Sons and Daughters of U.S. citizens):
    • India – August 1, 2011
    • China – August 1, 2011
    • The rest of the world moved to August 1, 2011.
    • Mexico also moved ahead to February 1, 2001.
    • The Philippines moved ahead to December 1, 2003.
  • In the F-4 (brother and sister of U.S. citizen) category, dates doe advance after experiencing the last major movements in May 2025.
    • India – moved ahead to July 8, 2006
    • China – remains on January 1, 2008
    • The rest of the world remains on January 1, 2008
    • Mexico remains on March 15, 2001
    • The Philippines moved ahead to July 1, 2006

Even in the middle part of Fiscal Year 2025, the U.S. Department of State is still doing its best to try and keep the various employment-based visa numbers in steady movement and to not have the visa numbers be used up too quickly. But with still high demand for these visas, Department of State will continue to be cautious in how it sets its monthly visa number goals.

It will be interesting to see if India will see any further steady movements in the EB-3 category in the coming months, because it did move in July, even with slight movement to April 22, 2013, and it is not certain if the Department of State will have enough leeway to move ahead with more visa movement advancements for the remaining months of fiscal year 2025. But it will also be important to keep track of how USCIS decides to either use Dates of Filing or Final Action Dates table as we move further into FY 2025 and through the upcoming few months.

For this key reason, we do encourage readers to check in this space regularly for any further updates.

Pasricha & Patel’s Immigration Department has extensive experience in handling business and personal immigration matters. Our team is happy to speak with you on your specific issue.

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