How to read U.S. Visa Bulletin easy: A Step-by-Step Guide(with Example)
The U.S. Visa Bulletin is a document that outlines the availability of immigrant visas for people who want to move to the United States. It can be confusing to read, so in this blog post, we will walk you through it step by step! We will also give you an example so that you can see how it works.
So what are the steps?
1 Know your priority date
You can find your priority date, in the Notice of Action I797 OR Approval Notice. Below is an example of where you could locate it. you can find your priority date (underlined in red), and lets us assume in this example it was Jan 2nd, 2021.
2 Check whether to use the Dates of Filing OR Final Action Dates Chart
Go to the USCIS website for “Adjustment of Status filing charts from the Visa Bulletin” by following the link
Once on the page, It is very important to note here whether to use the Dates for Filing Chart vs Final Action Dates Chart
In the below snippet you can see for September 2022 USCIS mentioned that:
- For Family-sponsored filing like F1, F2A, F2B, F3, F4 you need to use the Dates for Filing Chart
- For Employment based filing like EB1, EB2, EB3 etc. you must use the Final Action Dates chart
3 Go to the U.S. Visa Bulletin
You can do this in 2 ways:
A. Go to the U.S. Department of State(DOS) website direct for the Visa Bulletin by following the link
you should see something like this below, where the US DOS would show the current and/or the upcoming month’s visa Bulletin
B. OR Simply follow the link given by the USCIS itself under “Adjustment of Status filing charts from the Visa Bulletin” webpage.
4 Understanding the Visa Bulletin
Let’s assume you have applied for I140 under the EB2 category and have it approved and the priority date is Jan 2nd, 2021.
In this case, if we were in the month of September 2022 then we would need to follow the Final Action Dates chart for September 2022 according to USCIS for Employment-based preference filing.
See the snippet below how both the USCIS and US DOS are essentially giving the same information.
Now since you applied under the EB2 visa category, I would look at row “2nd” i.e. Employment Based 2nd(EB2). I would then look at the country of chargeability. For example, if you are from the Philippines it mentions “C” meaning “current” for the EB2 category. You should then be good to go ahead and apply I485 for Adjustment of Status.
Let us take another example, this time lets say you are from China, it mentions “01APR19” meaning unless my priority date is before 01APR19, I would not be able to apply and need to wait till it becomes Current “C” or the dates must pass your priority date of Jan 2nd, 2021.
The same would also apply to the Family-sponsored visa applications
Conclusion
I hope this blog post was helpful in explaining how to read the U.S. Visa Bulletin! If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments or reach out to me via contact page. Thanks for reading!
