Visa retrogression: when the cutoff date goes backwards
A date that was current last month can fall years behind this month; here is why, and what the full archive says about how often and how far it happens.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and past error
How often has this date gone backwards?
Retrogressions, December 2001 to October 2026
19
| Largest single step back | 53 months |
| In the bulletin of | February 2006 |
Visa retrogression is the State Department moving a Visa Bulletin cutoff to an earlier date than the month before, or taking a category that was current and giving it a date again. USCIS describes it plainly: it happens when more people apply in a category than there are visas for that month, generally because the annual limit for the category or the country has been used up or is about to be. Our reading of every bulletin since December 2001 counts 168 retrogressions of the Final Action Date across the 20 cases in the table on this page. EB-2 India went backwards most often, 19 times; the deepest single drop was F3 Mexico in August 2006, about 153 months in one bulletin. Of the drops that were later made up, 102 of 160 were recovered within 12 bulletins, which matches USCIS’s note that a new fiscal year usually, but not always, brings dates back.
What the word means
A Visa Bulletin cutoff usually moves forward or stays put. Retrogression is the other direction: the bulletin prints an earlier date than the month before, or a category that was “C” gets a date again. The USCIS page on visa availability gives the reason in two sentences: more people apply in a category than there are visas for that month, generally because the annual limit for the category or country has been reached or is expected to be. It adds that when the new fiscal year starts on October 1, the new supply usually, but not always, returns the cutoffs to where they were.
The bulletin says the same thing from the inside. It sets each Final Action Date at the priority date of the first applicant who could not be reached within the numbers available, and it describes what happens when it becomes necessary during the monthly allocation process to retrogress a date.
Every retrogression since 2001, case by case
We counted a retrogression each time the Final Action Date in a bulletin was earlier than the last published date before it, treating “C” as the first day of the bulletin month and skipping months marked unavailable. Recovery is the number of bulletins until the date was back at or past its level before the drop.
| Case | Retrogressions | Largest drop | In the bulletin of | Median bulletins to recover | Not yet recovered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 All other countries | 8 | 44 months | June 2002 | 4 | 0 |
| F2A All other countries | 7 | 35 months | August 2023 | 8 | 0 |
| F2B All other countries | 1 | 26 months | January 2011 | 29 | 0 |
| F3 All other countries | 2 | 17 months | January 2011 | 22 | 0 |
| F4 All other countries | 3 | 28 months | September 2017 | 17 | 0 |
| F1 Mexico | 8 | 142 months | July 2005 | 9 | 0 |
| F2A Mexico | 7 | 59 months | January 2011 | 8 | 0 |
| F3 Mexico | 10 | 153 months | August 2006 | 6 | 0 |
| F4 Philippines | 2 | 39 months | December 2010 | 46 | 0 |
| EB-1 All other countries | 3 | 26 months | August 2018 | 2 | 0 |
| EB-1 India | 10 | 121 months | August 2023 | 4 | 1 |
| EB-2 All other countries | 10 | 67 months | September 2018 | 2 | 1 |
| EB-2 China (mainland born) | 10 | 95 months | September 2015 | 20 | 0 |
| EB-2 India | 19 | 53 months | February 2006 | 7 | 2 |
| EB-3 All other countries | 15 | 59 months | September 2007 | 6 | 1 |
| EB-3 India | 14 | 74 months | October 2007 | 7 | 0 |
| EB-3 Philippines | 17 | 87 months | May 2015 | 6 | 0 |
| EB-3 Other Workers All other countries | 12 | 43 months | March 2005 | 7 | 2 |
| EB-4 All other countries | 5 | 41 months | April 2023 | 36 | 0 |
| EB-5 China (mainland born) | 5 | 77 months | June 2022 | 24 | 1 |
Three patterns stand out. First, how often a line goes backwards says little about how long it is: F2B All other countries had only 1 retrogression, while EB-2 India had 19. Second, the largest drops are counted in years, not months: F3 Mexico lost about 153 months in August 2006. Third, most drops are temporary. Across the table, 102 of the 160 drops that were later made up came back within 12 bulletins, but 8 have not come back at all.
Three drops, three shapes
The table hides very different stories. The worldwide EB-2 line was Current (C) in August 2018, fell to January 1, 2013 in the September bulletin, and was Current (C) again in October: a one-month pause at the end of a fiscal year, gone as soon as the new numbers arrived. F2A for the rest of the world is the opposite shape. It was Current (C) in March 2023, received a date in April, and in August 2023 dropped to October 8, 2017; it took 8 bulletins to climb back to its July level. EB-1 India shows the depth a single bulletin can reach: February 1, 2022 in July 2023, then January 1, 2012 in August, a decade erased, with a partial return to January 1, 2017 in October.
For a family waiting in one of those lines, the shape matters more than the count. A one-month pause costs a month. A drop that takes years to recover keeps the whole family waiting while its children keep getting older, and a teenager can approach 21 before the line moves again; that is the situation the CSPA calculator was built for.
Why it clusters around the fiscal year
The yearly supply of preference visas runs from October 1 to September 30. In the summer the State Department knows how many numbers are left and how many applicants are ready; if approvals at the current cutoff would run past the limit, it holds, retrogresses or makes the category unavailable until October. Of the 168 drops in the table, 104 were in bulletins for June through October, five months out of twelve.
Which fiscal year, and when is the next bulletin due?
Federal fiscal year
FY 2027
| Fiscal year runs | October 1, 2026 – September 30, 2027 |
| Next bulletin covers | November 2026 |
| Usually published | mid-October 2026 |
| New yearly numbers | just reset (October) |
The new year is not always a relief. The bulletin for October 2026 notes that some employment categories for the rest of the world retrogressed to keep issuance within the fiscal year 2027 quarterly and annual limits. The worldwide EB-2 Final Action Date moved about 20 months backward, to January 1, 2025, and the worldwide EB-3 date about 4 months backward. The State Department says it is monitoring the situation and will adjust as needed.
What it means if it hits your date
The quick check at the top of this page counts the drops for any category and country you pick, with the largest one and the bulletin it came in, so you can see the history of your own line before reading the forecast. Your priority date does not move. What changes is whether a visa number can be used for it this month. If your date was earlier than the Final Action Date and now is not, an interview or approval that was possible becomes impossible until the cutoff passes your date again. If you filed an I-485 under the Dates for Filing chart, the filing chart and the final chart may move differently; the guide to the two charts explains which one controls what. What a retrogression means for a pending application, a job change or travel plans is a question for a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ-accredited representative, who can read your notices.
Why our forecasts include the drops
A forecast built only on forward movement would always be too optimistic for cases like EB-2 India. Our method measures how long the cutoff has taken to advance by a given distance over the last ten years, retrogressions included, and reports a range rather than a date. It was tested on the same archive from October 2012 to October 2025, and the priority date calculator refuses to print a date where that test failed. The archive explorer shows every one of these drops month by month.