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 China has moved backward 2 times since October 2015. When that happens, people who were eligible to file stop being eligible.

• September 2018 — moved backward from March 1, 2015 to January 1, 2013, a loss of 789 days.
• June 2016 — moved backward from September 1, 2012 to January 1, 2010, a loss of 974 days.

Who is in this line

This line is the second employment preference: people with advanced degrees and people of exceptional ability. A National Interest Waiver is in this line and does not require a labor certification. Other cases are employer-sponsored. The Chinese community guides show where people born in China have settled in the U.S.

What a priority date actually is

Your priority date is the day the Department of Labor accepted the labor certification. If no labor certification was required, as with a National Interest Waiver, it is the day USCIS accepted Form I-140. 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.