Current Priority Date for EB-1 in 2026

Right now, a green card could be sitting there with your name on it, and you would never know it. That is the hard part of the current priority date for EB-1. It decides your whole future, yet almost nobody explains it in plain words, so you refresh the bulletin every month with your heart in your throat, reading a chart that feels built to confuse you. Here is what no one tells you straight. The current priority date for EB-1 may already be current for you, and you could be days from filing instead of years from waiting.

This page ends the guessing. You will see where your date stands, why some people wait decades while others walk straight through, and the exact moves to make now, before the line shifts again.

Read Also: EB-1 Extraordinary Ability Examples: 10 Breakthrough Cases

A quick refresher on who EB-1 is for

EB-1 is the first-preference employment green card, meant for people at the top of their field. It has three tracks:

• EB-1A — for people with extraordinary ability in science, art, education, business, or athletics. You do not need an employer or a job offer. You can file for yourself.
• EB-1B — for outstanding professors and researchers with an international record. You need an employer.
• EB-1C — for multinational managers and executives moving into a U.S. branch of the same company. You need an employer.

All three skip the labor certification step, which is one reason EB-1 moves faster than EB-2 or EB-3 for most people. You can read the full criteria on the USCIS EB-1 page.

What the priority date for EB-1 really means

Think of your priority date as a timestamped spot in a line. The day the government receives your petition, you get a place in that line, and the date is your marker. For EB-1, that date is the day your I-140 immigrant petition is filed with USCIS.

There is not one line. There is a separate line for each employment category, and inside each category, a separate line for each country of birth. So an EB-1 applicant born in Nigeria stands in a different line from an EB-1 applicant born in India. Each line moves at its own speed.

The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin every month. It shows how far each line has moved. When the date in the bulletin reaches or passes your priority date, your turn has come. Lawyers call this being “current.” A green card is available, and you can take the next step.

Current Priority Date for EB-1, month by month

Here is where EB-1 sits as of the August 2026 Visa Bulletin:

• Most countries: current. If you were born anywhere other than India or China, EB-1 has no line for you. Your date is current the day you file.
• China: the Final Action Date is July 1, 2023.
• India: the Final Action Date is October 15, 2022.

One warning worth your attention. The State Department has said EB-1 for India may become unavailable in the coming weeks if demand keeps up. “Unavailable” means the line stops and no green cards get issued in that category until the new fiscal year opens in October. If you are India-born with a date near the cutoff, this hits your timing directly.

These numbers change every month, so always check the latest bulletin before you act. The pattern, though, holds: for most of the world EB-1 is open, and for India and China you wait.

Why most EB-1 applicants are current, and two countries are not

EB-1 is the top employment category. So why do India and China wait years while everyone else walks straight through?

The reason is the per-country cap. Each year the U.S. issues about 40,000 EB-1 green cards. No single country can take more than 7% of the year’s employment green cards, no matter its population or how many people applied. India and China send far more applicants than that cap allows, so their lines back up. Every other country stays under the cap, so those applicants stay current.

This is the part most articles skip. Sitting in the “best” category does not protect you from the country cap. Where you were born decides your wait more than which category you qualify for.

There is a second layer to it. When a category does not use all its green cards, the leftovers can roll over to backlogged countries later in the year. That is part of why India and China dates jump some months and freeze in others. The movement is not random, but it is hard to predict, so a date that looks safe today can shift by the next bulletin.

How to check your own EB-1 date

Here is the process, start to finish.

1. Find your priority date. Look at your I-140 receipt notice (Form I-797). The date listed is your spot in line.
2. Find your country. This is your country of birth, not your citizenship. There is one exception, covered below.
3. Open the current bulletin. Go to the employment-based charts.
4. Find the EB-1 row and your country’s column. The cell shows a date.
5. Compare. If your priority date is earlier than the date in the cell, you are current. If it is later, you wait for next month.

An example. Say you are EB-1, born in China, with a priority date of March 2023. The August 2026 cutoff for China is July 1, 2023. March 2023 comes before July 2023, so you are current and can move forward. If your date were December 2023, you would keep waiting.

A second example. You are EB-1, born in India, with a priority date of June 2023. The August 2026 cutoff for India is October 15, 2022. June 2023 comes after that, so you are not current yet, and you wait. If the India date goes unavailable, the line pauses until October, when the new fiscal year resets the count.

The two charts, and which one counts for you

The bulletin shows two charts, and people mix them up.

• Final Action Dates: the real finish line. When your date is current here, the government can approve your green card.
• Dates for Filing: an earlier point. It sometimes lets you submit your application paperwork before the green card itself is ready.

Each month, USCIS decides which chart people inside the U.S. can use to file for adjustment of status, and it posts the answer on its filing charts page. For August 2026, USCIS told employment-based applicants to use the Final Action Dates chart. So if you are filing an EB-1 adjustment this month, the Final Action numbers above are the ones that apply to you.

If you are outside the U.S. and going through a consulate, the Final Action Dates chart always governs. The Dates for Filing chart never controls your interview abroad.

Can you keep your priority date if you switch?

Yes, in most cases. Once you have an approved I-140, that priority date is usually yours to keep. If you later move to a different employer or file a new petition in another employment category, you can often carry the old date with you. So an India-born applicant with an approved EB-2 petition who then qualifies for EB-1 can bring the earlier date along, rather than starting at the back of the line.

There are limits. If the first petition was withdrawn early or revoked for fraud, you can lose the date. This is one of the strongest reasons to get an approved I-140 on file as soon as you can, even if your category is backlogged. The date you lock in now can save you years later. Confirm the details for your case with an advisor before you rely on it.

What could happen next?

Priority dates move in both directions. They jump forward when visas free up. They also freeze or move backward, which is called retrogression, when too many people apply.

Right now the risk sits with India. The August bulletin flagged that EB-1 India may go unavailable before the fiscal year ends on September 30. EB-2 India is already unavailable for the rest of this fiscal year. For India-born applicants, that raises a real question: keep waiting in EB-2, or take EB-1 as the faster door? Which leads to what you can actually do.

What you should be doing right now

Your move depends on where you stand.

If your date is current:

1. Act fast. A current date is not a promise it stays current. File your adjustment of status if you are in the U.S., or push your consular case forward without delay.
2. Get your documents ready before the window opens so you are not scrambling when it does.

If your date is not current:

1. Keep your petition approved and your records clean. Your locked-in priority date stays yours, even if you change jobs in many cases.
2. Look at cross-chargeability. Your country of birth sets your line, but if you are married and your spouse was born in a country with a shorter line, you may be able to use their country instead. An India-born applicant married to a Nigeria-born spouse could move into the faster line, and both move together. Raise this with an advisor any time spouses were born in different countries.
3. If you are India-born and stuck in EB-2, check if you qualify for EB-1. EB-1A, EB-1B, and EB-1C can move faster and skip labor certification.

If you hold an O-1 visa:

You already work in the U.S. on a visa built for people at the top of their field. Many O-1 holders meet the EB-1A standard too, because both look for the same kind of evidence: awards, published work, high pay, a leading role. If you are on an O-1 and have not looked at EB-1A, you may sit closer to a green card than you think.

Where Veripass comes in

Reading the bulletin is the easy part. Building a case that gets approved, and timing it around a moving date, is where most people lose ground. That is the work Veripass does for you.

First, a proper eligibility review. We look at your record — your role, your achievements, your evidence — and tell you straight if EB-1 fits, or if another path serves you better. No guessing, no wishful thinking. You get a clear read on your case and your odds.

Then, if EB-1 is right, we prepare and file the full case: the I-140 petition, the strategy for which EB-1 track suits you, and the evidence package that carries the most weight. We build for founders, executives, and skilled professionals aiming for the U.S., and we time your filing to the current EB-1 priority date so you move when it counts.

This matters most for the two groups under pressure right now. India-born applicants weighing EB-1 against a stalled EB-2 need a fast, honest read on which door is open. O-1 holders who could qualify for EB-1A but have not moved are leaving time on the table. In both cases, a misreading of the bulletin costs you months you cannot get back.

See where you stand before the next bulletin moves the line.

Join the free Veripass webinar. We walk through who qualifies, how to read your priority date, and the steps to file, then we take your questions live. It is the fastest way to get clear on your options without guessing, and you leave knowing your next move.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Priority dates change monthly; confirm the current figures in the official Visa Bulletin before acting.