October 2026 Visa Bulletin Predictions: EB-2 India Set for Its Largest October Jump in Four Years

By Deepak Middha, NRItoUSA.com · Published August 19, 2026 · Updated with each State Department release · Press & data inquiries

Quick answer: EB-2 India retrogressed 10.5 months in June 2026. The State Department then stopped issuing EB-2 India visas on May 22, 2026, and the category showed Unavailable from the July 2026 bulletin — India’s annual visa numbers had run out. On October 1, FY2027 numbers reset, and DOS has said it is likely EB-2 India will advance to at least July 15, 2014 — while warning the outcome is conditional. Measured against last October’s date (April 1, 2013), that would be a +15.5 months, the largest October jump for EB-2 India in four years. The reset restores availability; it does not shrink the queue.

EB-2 India Final Action Date — the whole story in one chart

Where things stand now (September 2026)

Live from the September 2026 bulletin — this table updates with each monthly data refresh rather than being retyped.

The shutdown happened in two steps, and they are often conflated. DOS stopped issuing EB-2 India visas on May 22, 2026, when it announced that all FY2026 numbers for the category had been used — in its words, “India’s pro-rated EB-2 limit was reached and the category is unavailable for the remainder of FY 2026.” The bulletin only showed Unavailable from the July edition; the June bulletin still posted a Final Action Date. That is the Summer Cap Cliff (see glossary below): arithmetic, not a policy change — India’s EB-2 allotment was exhausted more than four months before the fiscal year ends on September 30.

EB-5 unreserved India hit the same wall in the same cycle and is expected to return to at least its June 2026 level in October. The EB-5 reserved set-asides (rural, high unemployment, infrastructure) were not affected — which is why EB-5 keeps coming up as a backlog escape route for Indian applicants.

Our October 2026 (FY2027) predictions

Only the EB-2 row rests on an on-the-record DOS statement. The EB-1 and EB-3 rows are inference from how past October resets behaved, which is a materially weaker basis — treat them accordingly. DOS guaranteed no specific date.

The October “Snapback,” verified: four years of data

Every cell below is taken directly from the official State Department bulletin for that month — EB-2 India, October editions (the first bulletin of each fiscal year):

Why the big jump? During FY2026, EB-2 India had already advanced to July 15, 2014 — reached in the April 2026 bulletin and held through May — before the June retrogression and July unavailability. The October reset restores the high-water mark rather than resuming from last October’s date — the Fiscal Year Reset Snapback.

The statutory math (INA §201–202): why “Unavailable” keeps happening

The worldwide employment-based limit has a statutory floor of 140,000 per fiscal year (INA §201(d)). EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 each receive 28.6% of it — 40,040 visas per category. The per-country ceiling (INA §202) is 7%, so at the floor:

The 7% figure is a ceiling applied through pro-rating, not a quota India is guaranteed — and per-country limits yield to the “otherwise unused” rule. India routinely receives well above the base: in FY2026 the EB pool was 186,000, putting India’s EB-2 floor near 3,700, and India in fact received an estimated ~9,300 EB-2 numbers — roughly three times the floor — and still exhausted the category two months early. The base math is why the queue moves in months per year, not years per year.

The supply squeeze journalists should watch

The total EB supply is the floor plus the previous year’s unused family-based numbers. That spillover swings hard year to year — it has not simply shrunk since the pandemic peak:

The backlog-to-quota ratio

The Cato Institute’s analysis of USCIS and State Department inventory data (David J. Bier) puts the total employment-based green card backlog at roughly 1.8 million people, of whom about 1.1 million are Indian nationals — principal applicants plus dependents, most of them in EB-2 and EB-3. Against an India allotment measured in single-digit thousands per year, Cato estimates a new EB-2 India applicant today faces a wait measured in decades, with a widely cited figure of 134 years at then-current rates, and projects that about 424,000 employment-based applicants will die waiting — more than 90% of them Indian.

Who could actually file an I-485 in October

This is the part most October coverage skips. The Final Action Date decides who gets approved; the Dates for Filing chart decides who gets to apply — and only in months USCIS says it will honour that chart. October is historically the month it most often does.

If both our predictions hold — Final Action returning to July 15, 2014 and Dates for Filing staying at January 15, 2015 — then EB-2 India splits into three groups:

That middle band is the group October actually changes something for, and it is the one worth preparing a package for now. Note what it stacks on: a predicted Final Action Date, a predicted filing chart, and a USCIS chart decision that is not announced until after the bulletin drops. Any of the three can move.

Our record on this call — checked in September

Predictions are cheap unless someone scores them, so here is ours, pre-committed and dated. When the October 2026 bulletin publishes (around September 8–15) we will fill in the right-hand column on this page rather than quietly editing the forecast.

The most likely way this call goes wrong is not the EB-2 row — DOS put that in writing. It is the FY2027 annual limit. FY2026’s 186,000 leaned on roughly 46,000 unused family numbers; a materially smaller spillover shrinks India’s pro-rated share and is exactly the condition DOS attached to its own guidance.

Three terms that explain everything (quotable glossary)

What this means for you

Priority date before July 15, 2014 (EB-2 India): your case can resume moving in October. If your I-485 is pending, watch for USCIS’s chart decision (below).

Waiting to file: whether you can file I-485 in October depends on which chart USCIS adopts.

Date years away: the honest math doesn’t change. See exactly where you stand with our Priority Date Checker, model the remaining wait with the Green Card Tracker, and if your EB-3 date would be current sooner, read the EB-2 to EB-3 downgrade analysis. Ongoing coverage: EB-2 India tracker, retrogression explained, and Final Action vs Dates for Filing. If your spouse was born outside India, check cross-chargeability before any category strategy.

When does the bulletin drop? Around September 8–15 at travel.state.gov. We publish same-day analysis — bookmark this page or the monthly update guide.

Frequently asked questions