F1: the queue for a U.S. citizen’s unmarried son or daughter

Who stands in this line

F1 is for a grown child of a U.S. citizen, 21 or older and single. The typical case is a parent who naturalized after years as a resident and then petitioned for a son or daughter who stayed abroad or aged past 21 while waiting in another category. The beneficiary’s own unmarried children under 21 ride on the same petition. The priority date is the day USCIS received the Form I-130, and it is that date, not the approval, that is compared to the bulletin.

A cutoff that stalled, then ran

For most countries the cutoff was September 22, 2009 in October 2016 and December 1, 2014 in October 2021. It still read December 1, 2014 a year later: no progress at all for a full fiscal year. It then crept to November 8, 2016 by October 2025 and jumped to January 22, 2020 in the current bulletin, roughly 38 months of priority dates cleared in twelve months. The latest bulletin left it unchanged. Today’s line is about 6.7 years long. Since 2001 the worldwide F1 date has gone backwards 8 times, the largest step being about 44 months in June 2002.

Mexico and the Philippines wait apart

Because no country may take more than 7% of the preference visas in a year, heavy demand gives Mexico and the Philippines their own F1 column. A Mexican-born son is at September 8, 2008, a Filipino-born daughter at November 1, 2013. What matters is the beneficiary’s country of birth, not nationality or residence; the F1 Mexico page and F1 Philippines page follow those lines in detail. For Mexican-born children the F2B date (May 15, 2010) sits ahead of F1, so a resident parent’s naturalization can slow the case, which is what the opt-out in the F2B to F1 guide is for.

Events that move a case out of F1

• Marriage converts the petition to F3, today 63 months further back for most countries, at October 22, 2014.
• Divorce or a spouse’s death after an F3 conversion can bring the case back to F1 with the same priority date.
• Being under 21 is not F1 at all: a citizen’s unmarried child under 21 is an immediate relative with no queue.

Before the bulletin: USCIS time on the I-130

At the National Benefits Center, USCIS currently lists 52.5 to 55.5 months for this I-130 subtype (citizen for an unmarried son or daughter 21 or older). A long I-130 is rarely what delays an F1 case, because the visa number itself is years away; see I-130 processing times. Our back-test for a priority date two years behind the worldwide cutoff missed by a median of 13 months, with the range catching the real outcome 48 % of the time.

F1 in the October 2026 bulletin

Every October since 2002

How our forecast did for this case