Guwahati: Indian professionals seeking permanent residency in the United States could face another setback as the country’s EB-1 employment-based green card category may run out of available visa numbers before the end of September.
The US State Department, in its September 2026 Visa Bulletin, warned that strong demand for EB-1 visas among Indian applicants could exhaust the country’s allocated numbers before the end of the US fiscal year on September 30.
The department said the EB-1 category for India could be made “unavailable” in the coming weeks if the country’s pro-rated annual allocation is reached.
The EB-1 category covers priority workers, including individuals with extraordinary ability in fields such as science, education, business and the arts, outstanding professors and researchers, as well as certain multinational executives and managers.
For September, the final action date for Indian applicants under EB-1 is October 15, 2022. Applicants generally need a priority date earlier than this cutoff for their cases to be eligible for final action, subject to other requirements.
The warning comes as Indian applicants are already facing significant backlogs in other employment-based categories.
The EB-2 category for India is currently listed as unavailable, meaning no visa numbers are authorised for issuance in that category during September. Meanwhile, the EB-3 category remains heavily backlogged, with India’s final action date set at January 1, 2014.
The US employment-based immigration system is subject to annual numerical limits. For fiscal year 2026, the worldwide employment-based preference limit is 186,317 visas, while the statutory per-country limit is generally 7% of the combined family-sponsored and employment-based preference limits.
The State Department said visa categories can become unavailable before the end of a fiscal year if annual, category or country-specific limits are reached.
The potential exhaustion of EB-1 numbers would not mean that the category has been permanently closed for Indians. Rather, visa numbers could become temporarily unavailable until the start of the next fiscal year, when a fresh allocation becomes available.
The State Department said it would continue monitoring demand and make adjustments where necessary.
For Indian applicants, the development adds to concerns over lengthy waits for employment-based permanent residency, particularly in EB-2 and EB-3, where backlogs have already persisted for years.