How Many Green Cards Are Issued Each Year?
Every cutoff date in the Visa Bulletin is downstream of one number: how many immigrant visas exist this year. Here is where that number comes from and who gets to use it.
Quick Answer
How many green cards are issued each year is set by statute, not by USCIS capacity: US law guarantees a minimum of 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas per fiscal year (INA §201(d)), and the real figure is usually higher because family-sponsored numbers left unused in the prior year fall up into the employment categories. The pool was 186,000 in FY2026. That single number — not policy, not processing speed — is what sets every cutoff date in the Visa Bulletin.
Key takeaways
- The supply resets on October 1, the first day of the federal fiscal year. That is why categories that ran out of numbers can reappear with a date in the October bulletin.
- Each category's share is fixed by statute: 28.6% each to EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3, 7.1% each to EB-4 and EB-5.
- The 7% per-country limit is a floor, not a quota. India receives far more than 7% of EB-2 in a normal year.
- Unused numbers spill down — EB-1 leftovers go to EB-2, and EB-1+EB-2 leftovers go to EB-3. This is why EB-3 sometimes moves ahead of EB-2.
- Nobody, including the State Department, knows next year's pool in advance, because it depends on how many family numbers went unused.
Where the annual number comes from
Two figures are set in statute and do not change without an act of Congress:
| Category | Statutory floor | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Employment-based | 140,000 | INA §201(d)(1)(A) |
| Family-sponsored | 226,000 | INA §201(c) |
The employment floor is a minimum, not a cap. INA §201(d) adds to it any family-sponsored numbers that went unused in the previous fiscal year. That "fall-up" is what makes the real pool move year to year — 140,000 statutory floor plus roughly 46,000 in unused family-sponsored numbers falling up from FY2025.
In a nutshell
This is the single most misunderstood thing about the green card queue. People assume the backlog persists because USCIS is slow. It persists because the supply is capped by law and demand from a few countries exceeds it by an order of magnitude. Faster adjudication would not add a single visa number.
How the pool splits between EB categories
INA §203(b) divides the employment-based pool into fixed percentages. At the 140,000 statutory floor:
| Category | Statutory share | Worldwide numbers | Per-country floor (7%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EB-1 (priority workers) | 28.6% | 40,040 | 2,802 |
| EB-2 (advanced degree / exceptional ability) | 28.6% | 40,040 | 2,802 |
| EB-3 (skilled workers / professionals) | 28.6% | 40,040 | 2,802 |
| EB-4 (special immigrants) | 7.1% | 9,940 | 695 |
| EB-5 (investors) | 7.1% | 9,940 | 695 |
Those per-country figures are the ones worth pausing on. At the floor, a single country's guaranteed EB-2 allotment is about 2,802 visas — against an Indian EB-2 queue measured in the hundreds of thousands. That arithmetic, and nothing else, is the EB-2 India backlog.
The 7% per-country limit is a floor, not a quota
The per country limit for green cards — INA §202(a)(2) — caps any one country at 7% of the year's total. Read carelessly, that sounds like India can never receive more than ~2,802 EB-2 numbers. It can, and it does.
The reason is INA §202(a)(5): when numbers in a category would otherwise go unused, they may be issued to nationals of oversubscribed countries without regard to the 7% limit. In practice most countries never come close to using their share, so the leftovers flow to India and China. India routinely receives several times its 7% floor in EB-2 and EB-3.
Common mistakes
- This cuts both ways. Because India's allocation depends on other countries' leftovers, it is not predictable and not guaranteed. A year in which worldwide demand rises is a year in which India's share falls — without any rule changing.
Green card spillover: how unused numbers move between categories
Green card spillover is the mechanism that moves immigrant visa numbers from a category that cannot use them to one that can. It happens twice over, at two different levels, and confusing the two is the usual source of bad predictions:
- Family to employment, across years. Family-sponsored numbers left unused
in one fiscal year are added to the *following* year's employment-based pool under INA §201(d). This is what lifted the FY2026 pool to 186,000 from the 140,000 floor.
- Between EB categories, within the same year. INA §203(b) redistributes
numbers a category does not require. The direction is not symmetrical:
- EB-1 (priority workers) — Receives numbers not required for EB-4 and EB-5 — unused numbers in those categories flow UP, not down.
- EB-2 (advanced degree / exceptional ability) — Receives numbers not required for EB-1 in the same year.
- EB-3 (skilled workers / professionals) — Receives numbers not required for EB-1 and EB-2 in the same year.
- EB-4 (special immigrants) — Nothing spills into EB-4; its own unused numbers flow up to EB-1.
- EB-5 (investors) — Unused reserved set-aside numbers roll into the following year's same set-aside before falling to unreserved; unused EB-5 numbers otherwise flow up to EB-1.
Read the direction carefully: unused EB-4 and EB-5 numbers flow *up* to EB-1, while EB-1 leftovers flow *down* to EB-2, and EB-1 plus EB-2 leftovers flow down to EB-3. Nothing flows into EB-4.
That asymmetry has a practical consequence. When EB-1 demand is light, EB-2 gets the surplus and its date jumps. When EB-2 is oversubscribed and EB-3 is not, EB-3 can advance past EB-2 — which is what makes an EB-2 to EB-3 downgrade worth considering in some years.
Common mistakes
- Spillover is why no one can promise a cutoff date. India's actual allocation
- depends on how many numbers *other* countries and *other* categories leave on the
- table, and that is not known until the year is under way.
Green card recapture: the numbers that were never used
Spillover only redistributes numbers within the year they exist. Numbers that no category uses by September 30 are lost permanently — they do not roll into the next year's pool.
Recapture is the proposal to recover those lapsed numbers from past years and return them to the queue. Estimates of the total run into the hundreds of thousands, accumulated largely in years when processing capacity, not demand, was the constraint. Recapture requires an act of Congress; it has been attached to several bills and has not passed.
Why it matters for the India queue: recapture is the only realistic mechanism that would shorten the backlog *without* changing the 7% per-country limit, because it adds supply rather than reallocating it. Nothing in the monthly Visa Bulletin can do this — the bulletin distributes the numbers that exist.
EB-5 reserved vs unreserved set-asides
The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 split EB-5 into reserved and unreserved numbers. The reserved share is set aside for specific investment types; at the statutory floor:
| Set-aside | Reserved share | Numbers |
|---|---|---|
| Rural | 20% of EB-5 | 1,988 |
| High Unemployment | 10% of EB-5 | 994 |
| Infrastructure | 2% of EB-5 | 199 |
The remaining 68% is the unreserved EB-5 category — the one the Visa Bulletin's EB-5 row refers to, and the one with an India backlog.
The practical difference for an investor: reserved numbers unused in a year roll into the *same* set-aside the following year before they fall to unreserved. That carry-forward keeps the reserved pools under-subscribed, which is why the rural and high-unemployment rows commonly stay Current while unreserved EB-5 India does not. Investors choosing a project on timing grounds are, in effect, choosing which of these two queues to join.
What actually happens on October 1
The fiscal year turns over and the full annual supply becomes available at once. Concretely:
- Categories that exhausted their numbers mid-year and went to "U" (Unavailable) get numbers again and normally reappear with a posted date.
- The State Department sets the new cutoffs based on projected demand for the whole year, not on clearing the backlog.
- A date can still come back lower than where it stood before the category ran dry, if demand analysis warrants it.
- USCIS separately announces which filing chart applies — see Final Action Dates vs Dates for Filing.
Why next year's number is not knowable yet
The pool depends on family-sponsored numbers unused in the year that just ended, and that count is not final until the year closes. The State Department publishes the operative annual limit in the Visa Bulletin after the fiscal year opens.
Separately, the actual visas issued per country and category come from the annual Report of the Visa Office, which lags the fiscal year by months. Any figure claiming what India "received" in a year that has not been reported is an estimate, and should be labelled one.
Pro tips
- When you read a prediction — including ours — check whether it distinguishes the statutory floor (knowable), the year's pool (published after October 1), and issuance totals (published much later). A forecast that blurs the three is guessing. Our October 2026 FY2027 analysis keeps them separate and scores itself against what DOS actually published.
What this means for you
- Your cutoff date moves because of supply, not because of anything in your case. A stalled date is not a problem with your petition.
- October is the month to watch. More movement happens at the fiscal-year boundary than in any other single bulletin.
- Track where you actually sit with the priority date checker and the green card tracker.
- If your date retrogresses or goes Unavailable, nothing happens to a pending I-485 — see retrogression explained.
#### How many employment-based green cards are issued each year? At least 140,000 per fiscal year by statute, plus family-sponsored numbers unused in the prior year. The FY2026 pool was 186,000.
#### What is the 7% per-country limit? INA §202(a)(2) limits any single country to 7% of the year's immigrant visa numbers. It is a floor that guarantees small countries access, not a ceiling India actually hits — INA §202(a)(5) lets otherwise-unused numbers go to oversubscribed countries.
#### Why does the Visa Bulletin change on October 1? October 1 starts the federal fiscal year and a fresh annual supply of visa numbers. Categories that exhausted their allocation become available again.
#### Does a bigger annual limit clear the India backlog? No. The Indian EB-2 and EB-3 queues are large enough that even a substantially larger annual pool would take decades to clear at current per-country rules. Only a change to the per-country limit or a large one-time recapture would materially shorten it.
#### Do unused green cards carry over to the next year? Employment-based numbers generally do not carry over — unused numbers are lost at year end, except that unused family numbers fall up into employment for the following year, and unused EB-5 reserved numbers roll into the same set-aside. This is why the "wasted visas" debate exists.
#### What is green card recapture? A proposal to recover immigrant visa numbers that went unused in past fiscal years and return them to the queue. Unused numbers are otherwise lost at year end. Recapture needs an act of Congress and has not passed.
#### Where does the State Department publish the annual limit? In the Visa Bulletin itself, after the fiscal year opens. The statutory floors are in INA §201; the category shares are in INA §203(b).
Check your priority date against the visa bulletin
Use the Priority Date Checker to compare your EB category, country, and priority date against the current visa bulletin data.
Open Priority Date Checker →Deepak Middha, CA, Series 65Founder & Author
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