How many approved petitions are waiting for a visa number, employment-based and family-based, by category and country of birth.
Primary beneficiaries only; dependents excluded. One person may appear more than once.
Counting dependents, the 71,779 principals above need roughly 159,000 visas (2.2 persons per principal, DHS FY2024 weighted by China's category mix).
China-born applicants received 29,140 employment-based green cards that year, so clearing today's queue alone would take about 5.5 years — assuming no one else joins it and issuance holds steady. Neither assumption is true; the figure is a floor, not a forecast.
June 2026, principals only
Rows are country of birth. The EB-5 column swings sharply between snapshots with no explanation from USCIS.
| Country | EB-1 Priority Workers | EB-2 Advanced Degree | EB-3 Professional and Skilled | EB-3 Other Workers | EB-4 Certain Special Immigrants | EB-4 Certain Religious Workers | EB-5 Investor Unreserved | EB-5 Investor Set Aside | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All countries | 31,962 | 391,296 | 147,492 | 57,743 | 216,678 | 1,938 | 9,553 | 0 | 856,662 |
| China | 14,101 | 34,936 | 11,070 | 916 | 1,093 | 114 | 9,549 | 0 | 71,779 |
| India | 17,861 | 356,360 | 106,214 | 228 | 10,870 | 236 | 4 | 0 | 491,773 |
| Mexico | 0 | 0 | 757 | 7,283 | 15,959 | 131 | 0 | 0 | 24,130 |
| Philippines | 0 | 0 | 19,147 | 5,627 | 189 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 25,026 |
| Rest of the World | 0 | 0 | 10,304 | 43,689 | 188,567 | 1,394 | 0 | 0 | 243,954 |
Generated 2026-09-19; updated each quarter.
The other half of the same USCIS quarterly data: approved I-130 petitions by category and country of birth.
88% of China's family-based queue is F4, siblings of U.S. citizens. F2A has nearly emptied because the category went current, and spouses of U.S. citizens never appear here at all.
A falling line can mean the category went current, not that the backlog cleared.
Jun 2026, principals only
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are not subject to numerical limits and do not appear here.
| Country | F1 | F2A | F2B | F3 | F4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All countries | 55,152 | 2,290 | 106,102 | 91,299 | 693,022 | 947,865 |
| China | 257 | 107 | 2,815 | 1,390 | 33,751 | 38,320 |
| India | 319 | 78 | 1,342 | 2,848 | 61,476 | 66,063 |
| Mexico | 22,527 | 256 | 20,046 | 40,728 | 269,201 | 352,758 |
| Philippines | 5,754 | 28 | 17,609 | 10,855 | 9,573 | 43,819 |
| Rest of the World | 26,295 | 1,821 | 64,290 | 35,478 | 319,021 | 446,905 |
