Where the line is right now

USCIS designated the Final Action Dates chart for employment-based adjustment-of-status filings in September 2026. That designation changes month to month, and it determines which cutoff actually governs when you can file.

Has it moved backward?

The cutoff for India has moved backward 4 times since October 2015. When that happens, people who were eligible to file stop being eligible.

• July 2026 — moved backward from December 15, 2022 to October 15, 2022, a loss of 61 days.
• June 2026 — moved backward from April 1, 2023 to December 15, 2022, a loss of 107 days.
• August 2023 — moved backward from February 1, 2022 to January 1, 2012, a loss of 3,684 days.
• June 2019 — moved backward from February 22, 2017 to January 1, 2015, a loss of 783 days.

Who is in this line

This line is the first employment preference: extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational executives and managers. It does not go through a labor certification. The Indian community guides show where people born in India have settled in the U.S.

What a priority date actually is

Your priority date is the day USCIS accepted the immigrant petition, Form I-140. EB-1 does not go through a labor certification. It is your place in line, and it never changes.

Every month the State Department publishes a cutoff date for each category and country of birth. A visa number is available only under the Final Action chart, and only when the priority date is earlier than that cutoff. A Dates for Filing cutoff controls filing, not visa issuance. Because the law caps how many green cards any one country can receive per year, applicants born in high-demand countries wait far longer than the worldwide line for the exact same category.

Country of birth is what matters — not citizenship, not where you live now. That single fact is why two colleagues doing identical work at the same company can be years apart in the same queue.