October Visa Bulletin Arrives: First Bulletin for the 2019 Fiscal Year

The October 2018 Visa Bulletin was dropped today. This is the most significant visa bulletin of the year since it represents the first visa bulletin for the new fiscal year (the federal fiscal year starts on October 1). Because 2019 visa allocations are available on October 1, there are significant jumps in each of the employment (and family) categories. The most significant movements in the employment categories are:

• For worldwide, EB-2, EB-3 and other works are now current. Counter-intuitively, EB-1 world-wide still is not current, but at April 1, 2017. This means the most highly skilled workers from most of the world, including those of extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers, and executives and managers, all must wait in a line, while those in lower skilled categories are eligible to get their green cards right after, or concurrent with, their green card application. I will try to explain why this can (but rarely does) happen in a future piece.

• For India:
  • EB-1 jumped from January 1, 2012 to June 1, 2016.
  • EB-2 jumped from January 1, 2007 to March 26, 2009.
  • EB-3 jumped from January 1, 2003 to January 1, 2009.

• For China
  • EB-1 jumped from January 1, 2012 to June 1, 2016.
  • EB-2 jumped from January 1, 2013 to April 1, 2015.
  • EB-3 jumped from November 1, 2014 to June 1, 2015.

The strangest development is the continued retrogression of EB-1 worldwide. The other changes were somewhat predicted, but still reflect a trend of increasing wait times even in the most privileged category of EB-1.

Here is a link to the full October Visa Bulletin.

If you have questions about the October Visa Bulletin, reach out to us by email or by phone, 303-872-6985.