EB-4 — All other countries, China (mainland-born), India and Philippines
In the August 2026 Visa Bulletin, EB-4 for All other countries has a Final Action Dates cut-off of 15 October 2022 and no Dates for Filing chart published this bulletin. The Final Action cut-off has been advancing, so the page shows its measured pace and what that pace would imply for a given priority date — as an estimate, never a prediction. This page carries the full published history State printed for this combination: 292 Final Action Dates bulletins back to December 2001, and 130 Dates for Filing bulletins back to October 2015 — every cut-off, every month it moved, and the exact text State printed in each cell. It reports what was published; it is not legal advice. State printed the same cut-offs for China (mainland-born), India and Philippines as for All other countries in this category, so they share one published queue and one page rather than repeating the same figures 4 times. They differed in only 8 published months out of 292, and every one of those months is listed on this page with both figures.
Source bulletin August 2026 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs — Visa Bulletin. A work of the U.S. Government, in the public domain (17 U.S.C. §105). Every figure below is the one State printed, kept with its exact source text.
The August 2026 cut-offs
State publishes two charts for EB-4, and they are not interchangeable. Both are shown here as printed. This page covers All other countries, China (mainland-born), India and Philippines because State printed the same figures for each of them — see which columns this page covers.
- Final Action Dates
15 October 2022
When a visa can actually be issued. From the August 2026 bulletin · State printed this cell as 15OCT22
- Dates for Filing
Not published
Not part of the August 2026 bulletin's published source.
This is not legal advice This page republishes cut-off dates exactly as the State Department published them. It cannot tell you what will happen to your case, and being current in a chart is not the same as a visa being issued. Cut-off dates routinely stall, and they can move backward without warning. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed immigration attorney.
Final Action Dates
The chart that decides whether a visa can be issued. State has published a Final Action Dates figure for EB-4 / All other countries in 292 bulletins since December 2001.
Final Action Dates: when would a priority date be reached?
The cut-off to compare against The Final Action Dates cut-off in the August 2026 bulletin is 15 October 2022. A priority date earlier than that has been reached.
Enter a priority date to compare it against the August 2026 cut-off of 15 October 2022.
Any estimate here is an estimate Estimate only. It projects the cut-off forward at its average pace over the trailing published bulletins and assumes that pace holds. It is not a prediction and not a guarantee: cut-off dates routinely stall, and they can move BACKWARD (retrogress) without warning. Not legal advice.
How fast has this cut-off actually moved?
| Window | Bulletins used | Total movement | Average per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 3 bulletins May 2026 – August 2026 | 3 of 3 carried a measurable move | 92 days forward | about 30.7 days forward |
| Last 6 bulletins February 2026 – August 2026 | 6 of 6 carried a measurable move | 652 days forward | about 108.7 days forward |
| Last 12 bulletins August 2025 – August 2026 | 10 of 12 carried a measurable move | 836 days forward | about 83.6 days forward |
This table describes what already happened; it is not a forecast and it is not what any estimate on this page is computed from. A pace can be zero, or negative when the cut-off has been moving backward, and some windows have nothing measurable in them at all — a category that spent the window Current or Unavailable has no distance to average. A category State has stopped moving can also keep showing a pace from a window that closed years ago, which describes that window and nothing since.
Every published cut-off is on the line above; the table below lists every month it moved.
- Published cut-off date
- Retrogression — the cut-off moved backward (3)
- C — Current: no backlog. Not a date, so it is not on the line
- U — Unavailable: no visas issued. Not a date either
- No bulletin in the public record — the line stops rather than crossing it
| Bulletin | From | To | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 15 September 2022 | 15 October 2022 | Advanced30 days |
| July 2026 | 15 July 2022 | 15 September 2022 | Advanced62 days |
| April 2026 | 15 July 2021 | 15 July 2022 | Advanced365 days |
| March 2026 | 1 January 2021 | 15 July 2021 | Advanced195 days |
| January 2026 | 1 September 2020 | 1 January 2021 | Advanced122 days |
| December 2025 | 1 July 2020 | 1 September 2020 | Advanced62 days |
| October 2025 | Unavailable | 1 July 2020 | Became available again |
| April 2025 | 1 August 2019 | Unavailable | Became Unavailable |
| March 2025 | 1 January 2021 | 1 August 2019 | Retrogressed519 days |
| July 2024 | 1 November 2020 | 1 January 2021 | Advanced61 days |
| April 2024 | 1 December 2019 | 1 November 2020 | Advanced336 days |
| March 2024 | 15 May 2019 | 1 December 2019 | Advanced200 days |
| January 2024 | 1 January 2019 | 15 May 2019 | Advanced134 days |
| October 2023 | 1 September 2018 | 1 January 2019 | Advanced122 days |
| April 2023 | 1 February 2022 | 1 September 2018 | Retrogressed1,249 days |
| March 2023 | 22 June 2022 | 1 February 2022 | Retrogressed141 days |
| December 2022 | Current | 22 June 2022 | Retrogressed from Current |
| October 2019 | Unavailable | Current | Unavailable to Current |
| September 2019 | Current | Unavailable | Current to Unavailable |
| October 2007 | 1 January 2007 | Current | Became Current |
| September 2007 | Unavailable | 1 January 2007 | Became available again |
| August 2007 | Current | Unavailable | Current to Unavailable |
Dates for Filing
State did not publish a Dates for Filing figure for EB-4 / All other countries in the August 2026 bulletin — this month's source ( preference) carries only one of the two charts. This chart's published history will return once a bulletin carrying it is available again.
Which columns this page covers
State prints a separate column only for countries whose demand exceeds the per-country limit. For EB-4 it printed the same cut-offs for All other countries, China (mainland-born), India and Philippines, so they are one published queue and are kept on one page rather than repeated as 4 near-identical ones.
- All other countries — 292 bulletins on record from December 2001 · never differed from All other countries in any published month
- China (mainland-born) — 255 bulletins on record from January 2005 · never differed from All other countries in any published month
- India — 285 bulletins on record from December 2001 · differed from All other countries in 8 published months, listed below
- Philippines — 292 bulletins on record from December 2001 · never differed from All other countries in any published month
| Bulletin | Column | Chart | All other countries | That column |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2016 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 01JAN10 |
| September 2016 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 01JAN10 |
| July 2017 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 15AUG15 |
| August 2017 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 15SEP15 |
| September 2017 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 22OCT15 |
| August 2018 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 08FEB16 |
| September 2018 | India | Final Action Dates | C | 15FEB16 |
| March 2023 | India | Final Action Dates | 01FEB22 | 01MAR21 |
How to read this page
What a priority date is
A priority date is the date that fixes your place in the queue for an immigrant visa number. For most family-sponsored categories it is the date the petition was filed; for employment-based categories that require labour certification, it is the date that certification was filed. It is printed on the I-797 receipt or approval notice. Your priority date does not move — the cut-off moves toward it.
Congress caps how many immigrant visas may be issued each year, both in total per category and per country of chargeability. When more people want a category than the cap allows, a queue forms, and State publishes a cut-off date each month: the priority date it has reached. If your priority date is earlier than the cut-off, your turn has come in that chart.
Chargeability, and why some countries have their own column
Chargeability is normally your country of birth — not your citizenship or where you live. A country gets its own column in the bulletin only when demand from applicants chargeable to it exceeds the per-country limit; in the August 2026 bulletin those are China (mainland-born), India, Mexico and the Philippines. Everyone else is counted together in the column State prints as "All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed", which is not a global average and not a worldwide figure.
The two charts are not interchangeable
Final Action Dates is when a visa can actually be issued or a green card approved. Dates for Filing is when the application may be submitted; it is usually the earlier and more optimistic of the two, and being past it does not mean a visa can be issued. Which chart U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will accept for adjustment-of-status filings is announced by USCIS each month and is not decided by State or by this site. The Dates for Filing chart was introduced in October 2015 and does not exist for any earlier bulletin.
What Current and Unavailable mean
Current (printed C) means there is no backlog at all: every priority date in the category is being acted on. Unavailable (printed U) means no visas are being issued in the category at all that month — usually because the annual limit has been reached. Neither is a date, and neither can be compared to one, so this site never plots them on a date axis and never projects from them.
Retrogression: the cut-off can move backward
A cut-off is not a promise and does not only move forward. When more people apply than the annual limit allows — often after a period of rapid advancement draws in filings — State pulls the cut-off back to an earlier date. This is called retrogression, and it can undo years of progress in a single bulletin. It has happened 359 times across the whole published record this site holds. The largest on record is F3 for Mexico in August 2006, which moved back 12.79 years in one month. Retrogressions on this page are marked on the chart with a ▼ mark and listed in the movement tables with a ↓ glyph — never by colour alone.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the EB-4 priority date cut-off for All other countries in the August 2026 Visa Bulletin?
- The Final Action Dates cut-off is 15 October 2022. State printed that cell as "15OCT22". A priority date earlier than 15 October 2022 has been reached in the Final Action Dates chart. The Dates for Filing chart is not part of this bulletin's published source this month (see Source and method, below); this page will show it again once a bulletin carrying it is available.
- What is the difference between Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing for EB-4?
- They answer different questions and they are not interchangeable. Final Action Dates is when a visa can actually be issued or a green card approved. Dates for Filing is when the application may be submitted — it is usually the earlier and more optimistic of the two, and being past it does not mean a visa can be issued. This month's source publishes only the Final Action Dates chart for this combination, so only that figure is shown above. Which chart U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services accepts for adjustment-of-status filings is announced by USCIS each month and is not decided by this site. The Dates for Filing chart did not exist before October 2015.
- What is a priority date?
- A priority date is the date that fixes your place in the queue for a visa number. For most family-sponsored and employment-based categories it is the date the petition was filed with the government (for employment categories requiring labour certification, it is the date that certification was filed). It is printed on the I-797 receipt or approval notice. The Visa Bulletin publishes a cut-off date each month for each category and country of chargeability; if your priority date is earlier than the cut-off, your turn has come in that chart. Your priority date never changes on its own — the cut-off moves toward it.
- Has the EB-4 Final Action Dates cut-off for All other countries ever moved backward?
- Yes. Moving backward is called retrogression, and it happens when more people apply in a category than the annual limit allows, forcing State to pull the cut-off back to an earlier date. The Final Action Dates chart for this combination has retrogressed 7 times in the published record. The largest was in April 2023, when the cut-off moved back from 1 February 2022 to 1 September 2018 — 1,249 days, or about 3.4 years, in a single bulletin.
- When will a priority date in EB-4 become current for All other countries?
- Nobody can tell you that, and this site does not claim to. What can be measured is the pace: over the trailing published bulletins the Final Action Dates cut-off has advanced by an average of about 83.6 days per bulletin. The tool on this page projects the published cut-off of 15 October 2022 forward at that pace to estimate which bulletin would reach a given priority date. That is an estimate and assumes the pace holds. It is not a prediction and not a guarantee: cut-off dates routinely stall, and they can move backward without warning. This is not legal advice.
- Where does this EB-4 history come from, and how far back does it go?
- Every figure is the one the U.S. Department of State printed in its monthly Visa Bulletin, kept alongside the exact cell text it came from. This page carries 292 Final Action Dates bulletins back to December 2001. The Dates for Filing chart is not part of this bulletin's published source this month. The Visa Bulletin is a work of the U.S. Government and is in the public domain (17 U.S.C. section 105). 5 months are absent from the public record in that span (March 2009, September 2009, October 2009, November 2009, October 2012); they are shown as a break in the chart and are never filled in from a neighbouring month.
Source and method
Every figure on this page is read from the U.S. Department of State's monthly Visa Bulletin — the August 2026 edition for the current cut-offs, and each bulletin's own edition for the history. The Visa Bulletin is a work of the U.S. Government prepared by federal employees in the course of their duties, and is therefore in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. §105. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of State or any government agency.
This page carries 292 published cut-off cells and 22 recorded changes across the chart published for it this bulletin. Each cell is stored with the exact text State printed for it (the 15OCT22 shown above is the source's own), so every figure here is traceable back to the bulletin it came from.
5 months in the December 2001 to August 2026 span are absent from the public record — March 2009, September 2009, October 2009, November 2009, October 2012. They are recorded as gaps and shown as breaks in the charts above, never filled in from a neighbouring month.
Data version visa-bulletin-derived-v1 · 292 bulletins, December 2001 to August 2026 · Next monthly bulletin. The State Department publishes one bulletin per month, typically mid-month for the following month; past bulletins are immutable once published.