With the U.S. Department of State set to release the August 2026 Visa Bulletin in the coming days, employment-based green card applicants — especially those born in India — should brace for another difficult month before relief potentially arrives on October 1.
The backdrop is a fiscal year winding down. EB-2 India has already reached its annual per-country limit under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which is why it has been listed as Unavailable in recent bulletins. When a category exhausts its numbers for the year, the State Department stops issuing visas in it until the new fiscal year begins. Barring an unexpected change, EB-2 India is widely expected to remain Unavailable through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2026, with a cutoff date returning when fresh numbers become available on October 1, 2026 (the start of FY2027).
The July 2026 bulletin underscored how tight supply has become. It marked the third consecutive month in which USCIS required applicants to use the more conservative Final Action Dates chart — rather than the earlier Dates for Filing chart — to determine adjustment-of-status eligibility. Movement across the employment categories has been mixed and modest: minor advancement in some India, China, and rest-of-world categories, alongside retrogression in others such as EB-1 India. The headline India EB-2 and EB-3 backlogs, however, remain years behind.
What does this mean in practice? Applicants whose priority dates are not current cannot file or have their adjustment applications approved until a visa number is available. Those already on file should keep their cases — and their supporting evidence, medical exams, and addresses — current so they are ready to act the moment numbers free up. Applicants nearing eligibility should watch the October bulletin closely, as the fiscal-year reset typically brings the years most meaningful forward movement.
The practical advice for now: confirm which chart USCIS is honoring for the month before filing, verify your priority date against the official bulletin, and plan around the likelihood that the biggest India-category movement will come with the new fiscal year rather than in August or September.
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Source: X (Twitter) @klugfirm