The US State Department has officially announced that all available Employment-Based Second Preference immigrant visas for India in fiscal year 2026 have been issued, marking the exhaustion of the EB-2 India category through September 30, 2026. According to reports from Business Standard, this means no further EB-2 visas can be granted to Indian-chargeable applicants until the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2026. The department confirmed that "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 freeze affects both applicants applying from inside the US through adjustment of status and those applying from outside the country through consular processing. The announcement has triggered fresh anxiety among skilled Indian workers, many of whom have already spent more than a decade in the queue.
The visa exhaustion occurs within the framework of strict legal limitations under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Specifically, INA 203(b)(2) provides that the annual limit for EB-2 visas is 28.6 percent of the worldwide employment limit, while INA 202(a)(2) establishes that natives of any single foreign state may not receive more than seven percent of the total of employment-based and family-sponsored visas. According to the latest data, India receives approximately 2,800 EB-2 Green Cards per year, calculated based on the 7% per country cap. The total number of employment-based Green Cards is 140,000 with EB-2 receiving 40,000 visas - representing about 28.6% of the worldwide allocation. EB-2 is an employment-based Green Card category meant for professionals with advanced degrees or people with exceptional abilities in fields such as science, business, or arts, making this exhaustion particularly impactful for high-skilled Indian professionals. Immigration experts have repeatedly argued that this cap disproportionately impacts Indian professionals because India dominates America's skilled worker visa pipeline, particularly in the H-1B program.
According to the latest visa bulletin, the EB-2 Final Action Date for India remains stuck at September 1, 2013, meaning that only applicants who filed their green card petitions on or before that date are currently eligible to receive a visa number. However, with the quota now exhausted, even those eligible applicants will have to wait until October 1, 2026. The department had to retrogress the Final Action Dates due to high demand for EB-1 and EB-2 visa categories, with the visa bulletin warning that 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. Now, the EB-2 category has been marked unavailable for the remainder of the fiscal year. The exhaustion was not entirely unexpected, as 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. The State Department has not issued a revised June Visa Bulletin, but if it remains unchanged, USCIS would accept India EB-2 adjustment of status filings that are current in the State Department Visa Bulletin for June, which is retrogressed by more than 10 months from the May Bulletin.
As reported by immigration firm Fragomen in an alert, USCIS should continue to accept adjustment of status filings that are current in the State Department Visa Bulletin for May, as the agency has done in prior years. If the June Visa Bulletin remains unchanged, it is anticipated that in June, USCIS would accept India EB-2 adjustment of status filings that are current in the State Department Visa Bulletin for June. Foreign nationals with scheduled adjustment of status interviews should plan to attend their interview, but also be aware that the USCIS officer may decide to reschedule the interview in light of the exhaustion of the EB-2 India quota. Even if interviews take place, cases won't be approved until a visa number becomes available again after October 1, 2026. The annual immigrant visa limits will reset with the start of the FY 2027 fiscal year on October 1, 2026, at which point USCIS will be able to resume approving adjustment of status cases and embassies and consulates will be able to resume issuing immigrant visas in the EB-2 India category. For many Indian professionals, this creates another painful extension in an already exhausting immigration wait, with the Indian Green Card backlog becoming one of the biggest immigration crises in the US legal migration system.
The underlying issue remains structural, with US employment-based green card allocations capped annually and no single country can receive more than a fixed percentage of total visas. Because Indian nationals dominate many high-skilled US work visa categories, the backlog for Indians has become disproportionately large over the years. Against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals in the EB-2 queue, the annual allocation of approximately 2,800 EB-2 green cards per year is an extraordinarily small number when demand is high, as it has been in recent months. According to Fragomen, unless Congress changes immigration quotas or country caps, these kinds of visa exhaustion events are likely to continue recurring, particularly in heavily oversubscribed categories such as EB-2 and EB-3 India. The crisis has its roots in America's immigration law itself, with the total worldwide cap for employment-based Green Cards standing at 140,000 annually, and the 7% per-country cap imposed by US immigration law creating significant challenges. Several bills seeking to eliminate or modify country caps have been introduced in the US Congress over the years, but political disagreements have repeatedly stalled reforms. Critics of the current system argue that America benefits enormously from Indian engineers, doctors, researchers, and technology workers, yet keeps many trapped in decades-long queues despite their contribution to the economy.
