The Supply-and-Demand Model of Visa Backlogs: Why Reliable Predictions Are Not Possible

01

A visa backlog is essentially a queue ordered by priority date

When demand in a category or from a country exceeds the annual supply, a queue forms in priority-date order. Two things affect how the queue advances: how many people enter it (new applicants and their family members), and how many visa numbers are available each year for people to leave it (statutory allocations, transfers between categories, and per-country limits).

Official guidance explains that waiting times depend on visa supply and demand, per-country limits, and the number of visas allocated to the category. These factors change each year, and anyone’s estimate is only a reference.

02

Review of the 2020 Community Formulas (Historical Discussion)

In early 2020, community documents used applicants born in mainland China as an example and offered rules of thumb such as “approximately 5+1.5x to 5+2x years from the PD (EB-1),” “approximately 8+3x years (EB-2/3),” and “approximately 30+5x years (EB-5),” where x was the difference, in years, between the priority date and 2020-01-01. These formulas were based on the Visa Bulletin cutoff dates at the time and extrapolations of growth in applicant numbers.

These formulas relied on several assumptions: unchanged annual new demand, unchanged per-country limits, an unchanged volume of transfers between categories, unchanged legislation, and unchanged administrative processing speeds. They reflect only the data and community assessments from 2020. This site retains them as a record of historical discussion, not as predictions for you individually or for current visa backlogs.

03

Why These Formulas Cannot Continue to Be Used

First, the supply of visa numbers changes: the law requires the annual employment-based allocation to include unused family-based numbers from the previous year, and the variation in a single year can be substantial. Second, family members use visa numbers: USCIS inventory data count only principal beneficiaries, not family members. Third, the same person may have multiple petitions, resulting in duplicate counting in the inventory. Fourth, the Visa Bulletin is revised monthly and may advance or retrogress.

This site therefore does not provide a figure for “how many years until your turn”; it only explains the mechanisms and records a snapshot of the USCIS-designated chart as of the date it is accessed.

04

Order-of-Magnitude Assessments and Personal Planning

A community view holds that “month-level estimates are inaccurate, but decade-level trends are reliable.” This approach to planning by order of magnitude is understandable, but trends can also be disrupted by legislation, administrative policy, and sudden changes in demand—for example, S.386 / H.R.1044, widely discussed in the community in 2020, ultimately did not become law. Planning should be based on the official bulletin for the current month, with room left for uncertainty.

05

Special Considerations for EB-4 and EB-5

Community documents state that “EB-4 generally has no visa backlog.” This is not an unchanging fact: EB-4 is also subject to its statutory 7.1% share and the Visa Bulletin, and whether a cutoff date applies depends on the bulletin for the month in question. EB-5 visa backlogs depend on demand and supply, and EB-5 also has separate reserved allocations; this site does not continue to use estimates such as “30+5x years.”