The US State Department has confirmed that all Employment-Based Second Preference (EB-2) immigrant visas allocated to Indian applicants for fiscal year 2026 have been fully issued. This effectively means that no further EB-2 Green Cards will be granted to India-born applicants until the next fiscal cycle begins on October 1, 2026, when visa quotas reset.
EB-2 is a US immigration category for professionals holding advanced degrees or individuals with exceptional ability in fields such as science, business, and the arts.
The development follows earlier warnings from the State Department about rapidly increasing demand in high-skilled visa categories like EB-1 and EB-2. Officials had indicated that if country limits were reached before the end of the fiscal year, the categories could face “retrogression” or even become unavailable.
Why the quota matters
Under US immigration law, employment-based green cards are capped annually. The EB-2 category is limited to 28.6% of the total 140,000 employment-based visas issued each year, translating to roughly 40,000 visas globally.
In addition, a 7% per-country cap applies across employment-based and family-based categories. As a result, India typically receives only about 2,800 EB-2 green cards annually.
The latest visa bulletin placed India’s EB-2 Final Action Date at September 1, 2013, meaning only applicants with priority dates on or before this cutoff were eligible for approval. With the annual quota now exhausted, no further EB-2 approvals can be processed for the rest of the fiscal year.
What happens next
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may still accept applications and conduct interviews for eligible candidates. However, final approval cannot be issued until new visa numbers become available after October 1, 2026.
The State Department has now officially marked the EB-2 category for India as “unavailable” for the remainder of the fiscal year, pausing final green card issuance until the next quota cycle begins
