Priority dates and the visa bulletin: how to actually read Chart A and Chart B

01

Which categories have an annual numerical limit

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) sets how many immigrant visas the State Department may issue each year. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are not subject to a numerical limit and therefore are always "current"; immediate relatives include a citizen's spouse, unmarried children under 21, parents (if the citizen is at least 21), and qualifying widow(er)s of citizens.

Family preference categories are generally capped at 226,000 per year, and employment preference categories at 140,000 per year (the law allows these to exceed that figure in specific circumstances when unused numbers carry over from the prior year). When demand in a category or country exceeds supply, a queue forms.

02

Priority date: your place in the queue

The State Department allocates numbers by priority date. You can find your priority date on the Form I-797 notice for the petition filed on your behalf. For family categories the priority date is generally the date Form I-130 was filed; for employment categories requiring labor certification, the date the Department of Labor received the labor certification application is used by both USCIS and the State Department as the priority date.

Wait times depend on three things: visa supply and demand in that category, per-country limits, and the number of visa numbers allocated to that preference category.

03

Two charts: Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing

The State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin publishes two charts: the Application Final Action Dates chart (often called Chart A, which governs when a case can finally be approved/a visa issued) and the Dates for Filing chart (often called Chart B, which signals when documents can be prepared for filing).

For adjustment of status, USCIS specifies each month, on its "Adjustment of Status Filing Charts" page, which chart to use; if nothing else is specified, Final Action Dates must be used. When this site read that page on 2026-10-10, it stated that for October 2026 both family and employment preference categories use the Dates for Filing chart. This is only a snapshot as of the date read and may change the following month; always check the current official page.

04

When Chart B is used: correcting "only opens in the first half of the fiscal year"

A 2020 community document claimed that "Chart B only opens in the first half of the fiscal year and basically never advances." That is not the official rule: USCIS makes a determination each month, and if more visas are projected to be available in the fiscal year than there are known applicants, it designates the Dates for Filing chart as usable; otherwise it uses Final Action Dates. Neither the law nor the USCIS page states a rule limiting this to the first half of the fiscal year — whether it is used is announced month by month.

USCIS also states that if a category is "current" on Chart A, or Chart A's date is later than Chart B's date, applicants may also file using Chart A. Whether Chart B's dates themselves advance depends on the State Department's monthly estimate of supply and demand; the community's point that "unused family-category numbers roll over to the employment category the following year, causing dates to advance" does have a statutory basis (8 U.S.C. § 1151(d)), but the actual magnitude can only be seen in that month's bulletin.

The community also notes that once Chart B is no longer designated for domestic filing, Chart B's dates no longer apply to filing Form I-485 domestically, while consular processing abroad continues to proceed on the State Department's own schedule. This distinction matches USCIS's practice of designating a chart only for adjustment of status.

05

Why this site does not forecast the visa bulletin

The Visa Bulletin is revised monthly, and both advancement and retrogression are possible. This site only explains the mechanism; it makes no promises about how many years it will take for a priority date to become current, nor does it treat community experience or historical trends as facts. The State Department’s Visa Bulletin page denied automated access during this retrieval, so this article’s explanation of the two charts is based on USCIS pages.