EB-2 visa FY2026 limit exhausted for Indians: US issues all green cards in the category weeks early

Indian applicants waiting for an EB-2 green card have hit a wall. The US State Department confirmed recently that all available Employment-Based Second Preference immigrant visas for India in fiscal year 2026 have been issued. This means that no further EB-2 visas can be granted to Indian-chargeable applicants until the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2026.

"Since all available EB-2 visas for applicants chargeable to India in FY 2026 have been used, embassies and consulates may not issue visas in these cases for the remainder of the fiscal year," the State Department said. "The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2027) on October 1, 2026. At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in this category to qualified applicants."

ALSO READ: Not all H-1B holders must...: Relief for Indians with H-1B visa; USCIS clarifies confusion over rule update

Why does the quota run out so quickly

The Immigration and Nationality Act caps the total number of employment-based green cards at 140,000 per year. The EB-2 category receives 28.6% of that total, approximately 40,000 visas annually worldwide. But a separate per-country cap limits any single nation to no more than 7% of the combined employment-based and family-sponsored visa total. For India, that works out to roughly 2,800 EB-2 green cards per year.

Against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals in the EB-2 queue, that is an extraordinarily small annual allocation, and when demand is high, as it has been in recent months, the quota runs out well before the fiscal year ends.

What this means in practice

The current EB-2 Final Action Date for India stands at September 1, 2013, meaning only applicants who filed their green card petitions on or before that date are currently eligible to receive a visa number. With the quota now exhausted, even those eligible applicants will have to wait until October 1.

DON'T MISS: EB-5 visa nears grandfathering deadline: File before Sept 30 or you may have to pay $140,000 more; What Indians should know

USCIS may continue accepting adjustment of status filings for eligible cases. However, interviews are likely to be deferred, and even if they proceed, cases will not be approved until a visa number becomes available in the new fiscal year.

The exhaustion was not entirely unexpected. The previous visa bulletin had already signalled the direction of travel, warning that high demand in the EB-1 and EB-2 categories had forced a retrogression of Final Action Dates. "Further retrogressions, or making the categories 'unavailable,' may be necessary in the coming months if India's pro-rated limits in the EB-1 or EB-2 categories are reached before the fiscal year ends," the bulletin had said.

The EB-2 category for India is officially marked as unavailable for the remainder of FY2026, a significant setback for Indian professionals hoping to advance their green card cases before the fiscal year closes.