EB-2 China: a queue slow enough to forecast

A decade of Octobers

October readings show the pace better than any single month. The Chinese EB-2 Final Action Date was February 15, 2012 in October 2016, July 1, 2018 in October 2021 and October 1, 2021 in October 2026. Over those ten years, the cutoff covered about 9.6 years of priority dates, close to one year of dates per calendar year, so the distance between the cutoff and today has barely shrunk. During fiscal year 2026 the date sat at September 1, 2021 from January through September before the October bulletin moved it.

The September 2015 drop

The archive holds 10 retrogressions for this line. The deepest came in September 2015, from December 15, 2013 to January 1, 2006, about 95 months; the next bulletin restored January 1, 2012. A September bulletin closes the fiscal year, and this one shows how far the last month can depart from the trend.

A forecast that passed

Our model was rebuilt every month from October 2012 to October 2025 using only bulletins known at the time. For Chinese EB-2 dates six months behind, the median error was 3 months with 72 % coverage; a year behind, 6 months and 65 %; two years behind, 11.5 months and 44 %, which is not good enough to publish, because the error is too large for that distance. Today, a priority date of October 1, 2022 gets a 20% to 80% range of June 2027 to November 2028, with a middle estimate of December 2027. It is a range from past behavior, not a promise.

Filing while the cutoff catches up

The Date for Filing, January 1, 2023, sits about 1.3 years ahead of the Final Action Date. In a month when USCIS designates that chart, a Chinese EB-2 applicant in the United States with a priority date before it can file Form I-485. Comparing with EB-3 China (January 8, 2022) is the usual next step, with the EB-2 to EB-3 calculator.

EB-2 in the October 2026 bulletin

Every October since 2002

How our forecast did for this case