What is "priority date"?A priority date is the date on which a family based immigrant visa petition is filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or - in the case of an employment based petition supported by labor certification - the date on which labor certification is approved.
Applicants registered for immigration in the family based preference category are subject to the annual numerical limitation on immigrants admitted into the United States and are required to wait for the availability of a visa number before final action can be taken on the application. Whenever there are more qualified applicants for a category than there are available numbers, the category will be considered oversubscribed and immigrant visas will be issued in the chronological order in which the petition was filed.
It is not possible to begin the administrative processing of an application until the priority date becomes current.
Which priority dates are current and what Diversity Visa numbers are available?For further information on progress of priority dates please click here.
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