As of August 29, 2024, several employment-based visa categories will have no further immigrant visas or green cards available through September 30, 2024, the end of the fiscal year. The categories already known to have no visa numbers available for the rest of the fiscal year are: the EB-1, EB-3, EW (other workers), EB-4, and EB-5 (unreserved) preference categories. This means that by law, no further immigrant visas or green cards will be issued for these categories for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2024.

This development is was anticipated by those keeping an eye on the number of visas that have been issued. The Department of State, which monitors visa usage in light of the annual numerical limitations set by law, had warned that due to high demand for visa numbers in the employment-based categories, it might be necessary “to immediately make [a] preference category ‘unavailable,’ and no further requests for numbers would be honored.”

Based on this warning, experts predict that the EB-2 category will also become unavailable in the very near future.

As noted, when numbers become unavailable, no further visas/green cards in the relevant preference categories will be issued for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2024. USCIS has confirmed that it will continue to accept adjustment of status applications for the remainder of the month in accordance with the September 2024 Visa Bulletin and the Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin, but will not approve any cases this month. Typically, when visa numbers are fully utilized, DOS will not publish a new Visa Bulletin for the month.

Per DOS, “[t]he annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2025) on October 1, 2024. At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in these categories to qualified applicants.” The same will apply for USCIS as well.

EB-1 visas became unavailable as of August 27, 2024. EB-3 and EW visas became unavailable as of August 16, 2024. EB-4 visas became unavailable as of August 29, 2024. EB-5 Unreserved visas became unavailable as of August 16, 2024.