EB-1 priority workers: the cutoff, the exceptions and the real clock

Three petitions under one preference

EB-1 is the first employment preference, and USCIS times three kinds of Form I-140 inside it: extraordinary ability (E11), outstanding professors and researchers (E12), and multinational executives or managers (E13). By statute the group receives 28.6% of the yearly employment-based level, plus any numbers the fourth and fifth preferences leave unused, as paragraph 5 of the October 2026 bulletin restates. Whatever EB-1 does not use then falls to EB-2, so a quiet first preference is good news for the queues below it.

A cutoff that is usually Current

For applicants charged to the rest of the world, the Final Action Date was Current in 269 of the 293 published readings since December 2001, and it reads Current (C) this month. The exceptions are worth knowing. The column has gone backwards 3 times. In August 2018 it fell to May 1, 2016 in a single bulletin, a step of about 26 months; it still stood at April 1, 2017 in October 2018 and April 22, 2018 in October 2019, and read Current (C) again in October 2020. A priority worker born outside India and China should not assume the box stays open in every September, when the fiscal year runs out of numbers.

India and China queue separately

The 7% per-country cap bites even here. Since October 2015, the Indian column has carried its own date in 66 % of bulletins and the Chinese one in 65 %. Today the Final Action Dates are February 1, 2023 for India and July 1, 2023 for China, with the same Date for Filing, July 1, 2024, on both lines. USCIS currently accepts the Dates for Filing chart for employment cases, so an applicant born in either country whose priority date is earlier than that date may submit Form I-485 now and wait for approval. Each line has its own page: EB-1 India and EB-1 China.

Where an EB-1 case really spends its time

With the main column open, the wait is mostly USCIS processing. The September 2026 release gives 32.5 to 35.5 months for an E11 petition, 15 to 18.5 for E12 and 27.5 to 29.5 for E13, all at Service Center Operations. An employment-based I-485 then runs 9.5 to 19 months at the Field Office Directorate, and the national average in the report to Congress for August 2026 was 11.8 months. The I-140 fee is $715 on paper or $665 online under the G-1055 edition of 10/07/26, before the Asylum Program Fee.

Our back-test has little to grade on this line: from October 2012 to October 2025 there were only 21 months in which a date six months behind the cutoff could be followed to the end. The calculator therefore reports Current or the distance to the cutoff, and no forecast. Whether a career fits E11, E12 or E13 is a legal question for a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ-accredited representative.

EB-1 in the October 2026 bulletin

Every October since 2002

How our forecast did for this case