How to Read Visa Allocations and Statistics: I-140 Approvals Do Not Equal the Number of Green Card Recipients

01

Three Commonly Confused Types of Numbers

The first is the statutory annual cap: generally about 226,000 for family-sponsored preference categories and about 140,000 for employment-based preference categories. The second is the number of immigrant petition approvals, such as the number of I-140 approvals. The third is the number of people who actually obtain lawful permanent resident status, such as the figures reported by category code in the Department of Homeland Security yearbook.

I-140 approval establishes only that the petition qualifies under the category; the applicant must still wait for visa availability and obtain approval through Form I-485 or consular processing. A principal applicant may also have a spouse and children as derivative applicants. Thus, approval counts neither equal nor can be directly converted into the number of green card recipients.

02

Code Statistics Do Not Establish Whether a Pathway Is Currently Open

The annual figures on this website’s code pages come from official yearbook tables. The official figures are rounded to the nearest 10 and are only approximations. A code’s appearance in a particular year’s table shows only that people obtained status under that code in that year; it does not establish that new applications can still be filed today. A code’s disappearance likewise does not mean that the status of people who already hold it has been revoked.

03

Practical Guidance for Reading the Numbers

To determine whether you can file, consult that month’s Visa Bulletin and the chart designated by USCIS for that month. To understand how many people obtain status in a category, consult statistics on actual grants of status. Do not use approval counts circulating in the community, predictions, or assumptions to calculate your own timeline.