Visa Bulletin Explained: How to Read Your Row and Chart

Quick answer: The Visa Bulletin is a monthly chart published by the U.S. Department of State that tells you whether a green card number is available for your category right now. Find your chart (Family-Sponsored or Employment-Based), find your row (based on your category, like F2A or EB-2), find your column (your country of birth), and compare that date to your priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed, you're current and can move forward.

Key takeaways

• The Visa Bulletin comes out monthly from the U.S. Department of State and covers two charts: Family-Sponsored and Employment-Based preferences.
• Most months carry two tables per chart — "Final Action Dates" and "Dates for Filing" — and USCIS decides each month which one applicants can use for adjustment of status.
• Your priority date is usually the date USCIS or the Department of Labor received your initial petition, and it's printed on your I-797 receipt notice.
• China and India frequently have separate, later cutoff dates in employment-based categories because of high demand from those countries relative to per-country limits set by federal law.

What Is the Visa Bulletin, Exactly?

The Visa Bulletin is a monthly report that shows which immigrant visa applicants can move forward based on when their petition was filed. It's published by the U.S. Department of State, and it exists because Congress caps the number of green cards issued each year in most categories — there simply aren't enough numbers to go around every month, so the government uses this chart to manage the line.

Think of it like a very slow-moving queue. Millions of people are waiting for a fixed number of green cards issued annually, split across family and employment categories and further divided by country of birth. The bulletin tells you where the front of that line currently sits for your specific category and country.

If you've ever wondered why your cousin from the Philippines got their green card years before you, even though you filed the same year, the answer usually lives in this chart. Country of birth changes everything about how long the wait is.

How Do I Find My Row and Column?

You find your row by matching your visa category, then scan across to the column for your country of birth. The bulletin is published as a set of tables, not a single chart, so the first step is picking the right table entirely.

Here's the basic structure:

• Family-Sponsored Preferences — for relatives of U.S. citizens and green card holders, split into categories like F1 (adult sons/daughters of citizens), F2A (spouses/children of green card holders), F2B (adult children of green card holders), F3 (married sons/daughters of citizens), and F4 (siblings of citizens).
• Employment-Based Preferences — for work-sponsored green cards, split into EB-1 (priority workers), EB-2 (advanced degree/exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled workers and professionals), EB-4 (special immigrants), and EB-5 (investors).
• Country columns — most countries fall under "All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed," but China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines usually get their own columns because demand from those countries is so high.

Once you've picked the right table and found your row, look across to your country column. The date you see there is the cutoff — compare it to your priority date, which is the date your qualifying petition (like an I-130 or I-140) was originally filed.

If your priority date is earlier than the cutoff date shown, a visa number is considered available to you. If it's later, you're still waiting.

Why Are There Two Tables for Every Chart?

Because the Department of State publishes both a "Final Action Dates" table and a "Dates for Filing" table, and they serve different purposes. This trips up almost everyone the first time they look at the bulletin.

• Final Action Dates — this is the date USCIS uses to actually approve your green card application and issue the visa number. This is the one that matters for final approval.
• Dates for Filing — this is a more generous, earlier cutoff that sometimes lets you submit your adjustment of status application (and get your work permit and travel document) before a visa number is technically available.

Here's the part that confuses people: you don't get to choose which table applies to you. Each month, USCIS announces on its website which table applicants for adjustment of status should use for that month — sometimes Final Action Dates, sometimes Dates for Filing. Consular processing cases, by contrast, generally follow the Final Action Dates chart as instructed by the Department of State.

Don't skip this: Always check the current month's USCIS announcement before assuming which table applies to your I-485 filing. Using the wrong table can mean submitting an application before you're actually eligible, or missing a window when you could have filed.

What Does "Current" Actually Mean on the Chart?

"Current" means there's no backlog at all — every priority date in that category and country is considered current, so you don't need to wait for a specific date to pass. You'll see the letter "C" in place of a date on the chart when this applies.

The opposite situation is marked "U," which means unavailable — no visa numbers are being issued in that category and column that month, even for the earliest priority dates. This is less common but does happen, particularly late in the federal fiscal year when annual limits are close to being reached.

A quick example: say you're the beneficiary of an EB-2 petition filed by your employer, and your priority date is March 2023. If the Final Action Dates chart shows "Current" for your country in the EB-2 row that month, you can move forward. If it instead shows a cutoff date of January 2023, you'd need to wait — your March 2023 date is later than January 2023, so you're not yet eligible.

Why Do Some Countries Have Longer Waits Than Others?

China and India often face significantly longer waits in employment-based categories because of a federal rule limiting how many green cards can go to people born in any single country each year. This is called per-country limits, and it's set by the Immigration and Nationality Act — it caps each country at roughly the same percentage of total visas available, regardless of how many applicants that country has.

That rule sounds fair on paper, but it creates a real bottleneck for countries that send a large number of employment-based applicants, especially India, given the volume of H-1B workers who later pursue employment-based green cards. Someone from a country with fewer applicants in a category might see a current chart, while someone from India in the exact same EB-2 category with the exact same job might wait years longer.

This is exactly why someone on the H-1B to green card path often spends more time waiting on the visa bulletin than on any single USCIS form — we walked through that full timeline in H-1B to Green Card: The Complete Roadmap, Step by Step. If you're at that adjustment of status stage right now, it's worth reviewing what I-485 Checklist: Every Supporting Document covers, since you'll want your paperwork ready the moment your date becomes current.

How Do I Know When My Date Will Become Current?

You won't know for certain, but you can track the trend by comparing the same row across several months of bulletins. The Department of State moves dates forward or backward based on demand, visa usage, and how many numbers remain for the fiscal year, so there's no fixed formula — but watching the pattern gives you a reasonable sense of direction.

A few things worth tracking each month:

• Note whether your row moved forward, stayed still, or retrogressed (moved backward) compared to last month.
• Check both tables (Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing) even if only one currently applies to you, since USCIS can switch which one it uses.
• Watch for statements from the Department of State about visa number availability late in the fiscal year (which runs October through September), since categories can become "unavailable" temporarily when annual caps are close to being hit.
• Confirm your priority date matches what's on your official USCIS receipt notice — errors here are more common than people expect.

Because the bulletin changes every month and the stakes of missing a window are high, this is one area where automated tracking genuinely helps. The MyCheck App publishes monthly visa bulletin analysis alongside real-time USCIS case status alerts, so you're not left cross-referencing charts by hand every 30 days. We also broke down a recent example in detail in The September 2026 Visa Bulletin: What to Do When It Drops, if you want to see this process applied to an actual monthly release.

Quick Checklist: Reading Your Bulletin Row Correctly

• Locate your correct chart first — Family-Sponsored or Employment-Based — before looking at any dates.
• Identify your specific category (F2A, EB-2, EB-3, etc.) based on your petition type.
• Find your country of birth column, not your country of current residence.
• Check the USCIS website for which table (Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing) applies to adjustment of status this month.
• Compare your priority date, found on your I-797 receipt notice, against the listed cutoff date.
• Recheck monthly, since dates can move forward, stay flat, or retrogress without warning.

Reading the Visa Bulletin correctly the first time saves you from two common mistakes: filing too early because you misread which table applies, or missing your window because you assumed last month's date still stood. Neither mistake is fatal, but both cost time you don't get back in an already long process.

If you're new to the broader vocabulary around all this — priority dates, adjustment of status, chargeability — it can help to first get comfortable with foundational terms like the ones covered in The Difference Between a Green Card and a Visa. Understanding the destination makes the monthly chart-reading feel less abstract.

Once you know how to read your row, the real work is just staying consistent about checking it — and knowing what to do the moment it moves in your favor. That's the part most people underestimate.

Ready to stop cross-referencing PDFs every month? MyCheck tracks your USCIS case status in real time and layers in monthly visa bulletin analysis, so you always know exactly where your case stands and what's coming next.

Related articles

• The September 2026 Visa Bulletin: What to Do When It Drops
• H-1B to Green Card: The Complete Roadmap, Step by Step
• I-485 Checklist: Every Supporting Document