Final Action Dates or Dates for Filing: which chart applies to you

Two charts, two different questions

The Visa Bulletin answers two questions for each preference category and each oversubscribed country. The Final Action Dates chart answers “can a visa be issued now?”. In the bulletin’s own words, numbers are authorized only for applicants whose priority date is earlier than the date listed; “C” means current and “U” means no numbers at all. The Dates for Filing chart answers “can the paperwork start?”. It was added in October 2015 and sits ahead of the first chart, sometimes by days, sometimes by years.

The two dates mean different things for people in different places. Outside the United States, the Dates for Filing chart tells the National Visa Center who may submit documents. Inside the country, it may let someone file Form I-485, but only if USCIS allows it that month. Approval, whether at a consulate or at a USCIS office, always waits for the Final Action Date.

How USCIS picks the chart each month

The bulletin itself does not tell adjustment applicants which chart to use; it points them to the USCIS Adjustment of Status Filing Charts page. USCIS explains its test there: when it judges that more visas are available than known applicants for the rest of the fiscal year, it says you may use the Dates for Filing chart; otherwise it says you must use the Final Action Dates chart. It expects to post that designation within a week of the bulletin’s publication, which is why the first days of a new bulletin can be confusing.

For October 2026, the page says family-sponsored applicants must use the Dates for Filing chart and employment-based applicants the Dates for Filing chart. We read it on October 1, 2026 and read it again with every new bulletin; the calculators on this site use that designation, never a guess.

How far apart the charts sit this month

The distance between the two dates is the size of the waiting room: people whose priority date falls between them can file but not yet be approved. Here is that distance for a few cases where it matters, from the October 2026 bulletin.

The widest gap in this list is EB-5 China (mainland born), about 51 months, and the narrowest is F1 All other countries, only 10 days. A gap of a few days, as in several worldwide family categories, means the filing chart buys almost nothing. A gap of a year or more means that thousands of people can have a pending I-485 long before a number exists for them.

Take an EB-2 applicant born in India whose priority date is June 9, 2014, halfway between the two Indian dates. This month the answer to “can I file?” is yes, because the Dates for Filing chart is designated and that date is earlier than January 15, 2015. The answer to “can I be approved?” is no, because the Final Action Date is still November 1, 2013. The same person on the same day gets two different answers, and both are correct.

The exception: when the Final Action Date is ahead

USCIS adds one rule that is easy to miss. If a category is current on the Final Action Dates chart, or its Final Action Date is later than its Date for Filing, applicants in that category may file with the Final Action Dates chart in that month, even when the designated chart is Dates for Filing. The site’s eligibility check applies it: it compares your priority date with both dates and keeps whichever is later.

It does not happen often. Across the 133 bulletins since October 2015, here are the months in which the Final Action Date sat later than the Date for Filing.

In each of those months the filing chart had not kept pace with the final cutoff, and an applicant who looked only at the designated chart would have thought the door was closed when it was open.

What a pending I-485 gives you while you wait

Filing under Dates for Filing is worth something only because of what a pending application opens up in practice: a work permit request on Form I-765 at the reduced fee for applicants with a pending I-485, a travel document on Form I-131, and for employment cases the job flexibility described in the portability guide. The cost is real too: the I-485 fee is paid up front, years before a possible approval in the longest queues. Whether to file in a given month is a decision for you and, ideally, a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ-accredited representative; this page only explains what each chart allows.

Consular cases follow a different rhythm

If the person immigrating lives abroad, USCIS’s designation does not apply. The Dates for Filing chart instead triggers the National Visa Center’s instructions to gather civil documents, pay fees and submit the immigrant visa application. The interview is scheduled only when the Final Action Date has passed the priority date, and consulates do not publish their scheduling times, so this site does not estimate them. The adjustment or consular processing guide compares the two routes.

Reading your own case

The quick check above takes a category, a country of chargeability and a priority date, then tells you which chart USCIS designates this month, both cutoffs, whether an I-485 can be filed now and whether approval is possible now. The priority date calculator goes further and estimates when the Final Action Date may reach you, with the error that method has shown in the past.