F2B Philippines: from a frozen date to a moving one

The longest pause on this line

For 44 bulletins in a row, from August 2021 to March 2025, the Philippine F2B cutoff read October 22, 2011. A son or daughter who turned 21 and was waiting through those years watched the same day printed every month while the worldwide F2B date kept advancing. When the line finally restarted it did so in steps, and the latest bulletin moved it 122 days forward, to October 1, 2013.

Ten years of distance

In October 2016 the cutoff was January 1, 2006. Today the queue is about 13.0 years long, counted from the priority date to the bulletin month, against about 7.1 years for the same category in the rest of the world. Retrogression has been rare here: 4 backward moves since 2001, the largest about 43 months in August 2006. That calm history is part of why the forecast holds up better than on the Mexican F2B line, where our main model fails at every distance tested.

Why this case can carry a forecast

Every month from October 2012 to October 2025 we asked the model where the date would go using only the bulletins known at that moment, then compared with what happened. Two years behind the cutoff the median miss was 10 months and the range caught the real date 47 % of the time; one year behind, 7 months and 48 %. The calculator above shows that window when your date sits at a tested distance.

The F1 question

If the parent naturalizes, the case becomes F1 with the same priority date. For the Philippines the two dates have run close to each other since 2020, so the switch is not a shortcut by default. Compare with F1 Philippines and read the F2B to F1 guide before counting on it. USCIS on visa availability.

F2B in the October 2026 bulletin

Every October since 2002

How our forecast did for this case