Every month when the visa bulletin comes out, the most common line on the forums is: "Why didn't it move again?"
The short answer: not moving is the norm. We went through every bulletin from the past three years in our own visa bulletin database, and 57% of "category × month" combinations did not move at all. In other words, in more than half of all months, the date you see when you open the bulletin is exactly the same as last month's. That is completely normal. Your category is not being singled out.
The data: how many months don't move
Scope: September 2023 to September 2026, 36 bulletins, Chart A (Final Action Dates).
In the table below, categories starting with EB are employment-based (EB-2 is the second preference, advanced-degree professionals), and categories starting with F are family-based (F4 is the fourth preference, brothers and sisters of US citizens).
| Category | Months with no movement | Advanced | Retrogressed | Share with no movement | Longest streak with no movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EB-1 China | 22 | 14 | 0 | 61% | 8 months |
| EB-2 China | 22 | 14 | 0 | 61% | 8 months |
| EB-3 China | 19 | 16 | 1 | 53% | 8 months |
| EB-2 India | 16 | 16 | 1 | 48% | 5 months |
| EB-3 India | 15 | 21 | 0 | 42% | 4 months |
| F1 | 23 | 13 | 0 | 64% | 5 months |
| F2A | 21 | 15 | 0 | 58% | 7 months |
| F2B | 21 | 15 | 0 | 58% | 5 months |
| F3 | 20 | 16 | 0 | 56% | 5 months |
| F4 | 24 | 12 | 0 | 67% | 9 months |
Of 357 "category × month" observations in total, 203 showed no movement at all.
F4 once went 9 months in a row without moving a single day. And as of September 2026, EB-2 China has gone 8 straight months without moving. If this is your category, your frustration is well founded: this is indeed one of the longest stalls of the past three years.
Why dates don't move
To understand this, you need to know how cutoff dates are set. The State Department spells this out in its own public documents; it is not outside speculation:
"If the monthly target is 3,000 and we have demand for 8,000 applicants, then we would need to establish a cut-off date so that only 3,000 numbers would be allocated. In this case, the cut-off would be the priority date of the 3,001st applicant."
In other words: the visa bulletin is not a "progress bar"; it is counting off a line.
Line up everyone who is waiting by priority date from earliest to latest, count off as many numbers as can be issued this month, and the priority date of the person where the count stops is the cutoff date.
So what "no movement" means becomes clear: there are enough people in line around the current cutoff date that this month's numbers haven't gotten past that day yet.
Here's a concrete example. Say EB-2 China's cutoff date is stuck at September 1, 2021, and an especially large number of people filed between September 1 and September 8, 2021. The cutoff date won't move forward until that whole group has been worked through. Until then, no matter how many months go by, you will keep seeing the same date.
This also explains something counterintuitive: a date that isn't moving doesn't mean nobody is getting green cards. Quite the opposite: no movement often means numbers are being issued at a steady clip, just to people who are all packed into the same short stretch of dates.
When dates do move, how far do they go?
Not moving is the norm, but once dates move, the jumps can be big:
| Category | Median move when it moves | Largest single-month move in the past three years |
|---|---|---|
| EB-1 China | 31 days | 136 days |
| EB-2 China | 46 days | 146 days |
| EB-3 China | 31 days | 223 days |
| F1 | 116 days | 403 days |
| F2A | 167 days | 567 days |
| F2B | 52 days | 598 days |
| F3 | 69 days | 890 days |
| F4 | 54 days | 781 days |
So the real rhythm of the visa bulletin isn't "steady progress every month." It's long stretches of standing still, then a sudden big jump.
If you watch one month at a time, you're almost guaranteed to be disappointed. To judge your progress, look at the total over a year, not whether it moved this month.
Some good news: retrogression is actually rare
A lot of people worry about retrogression. But in the same 357 observations, retrogression happened only 2 times.
Not moving and retrogressing are two completely different things:
- No movement: the norm, 57% of the time. Numbers are being issued in order; they just haven't gotten past the current date yet.
- Retrogression: rare. It usually happens when the State Department finds a category is being used up too fast and has to hit the brakes, and it is usually flagged in advance in the bulletin.
What you really need to watch for isn't "no movement this month," but language in the body of the bulletin such as "may make it necessary to retrogress." That is the warning sign of retrogression, and it will be spelled out.
When dates are more likely to move
The visa bulletin follows the fiscal year, which starts on October 1 and ends on September 30. That cycle sets the pace for the whole year:
- October to December (start of the fiscal year): A new year's numbers have just been released and supply is at its most generous, so this is a window when dates are more likely to advance.
- Mid-year: The State Department watches demand while issuing numbers and usually stays conservative. This is when the share of "no movement" months is highest.
- August to September (end of the fiscal year): Numbers that go unused are lost, so you see two extremes: either a big advance to use up the remaining numbers, or a category runs out early and becomes "U" (unauthorized: no visa numbers available).
So if "my date has been stuck for six months" happens mid-year, that's basically normal. It's only worth a closer look if the date hasn't moved for an entire fiscal year.
So what should I do?
- Look by the year, not the month. A month with no movement is the most likely outcome; the total days advanced over a year is what reflects real progress.
- Look at the gap between the two charts. The distance between Chart A (Final Action Dates) and Chart B (Dates for Filing) is the State Department's own expectation for the next 8 to 12 months. When the two charts are close together, it thinks the category won't move much in the near term.
- Read the text of the bulletin, not just the tables. Retrogression and exhausted numbers are both flagged in the text first, usually weeks before the numbers change.
- If your priority date is already before the cutoff, get your documents ready as soon as possible. Big jumps often come without warning, and numbers are settled by fiscal year.
Not moving is agonizing, but it isn't bad news in itself. It's simply what this queuing system looks like most of the time when it's working normally. Real bad news comes in a different form: retrogression, or a category turning U. For both of those, the bulletin will tell you.
Data sources
- Career Engine's own visa bulletin database: November 2015 to September 2026, 131 bulletins
- Period analyzed in this article: September 2023 to September 2026, 36 bulletins, Chart A
- The State Department's official procedural description of its immigrant visa numerical control system (July 2025 edition)
- The text of the State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin
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