October 2026 Visa Bulletin: EB-2 Retrogresses for Rest of World
The October 2026 Visa Bulletin opens fiscal year 2027 with a change that impacts most employment-based applicants: EB-2 is no longer Current for Rest of World. The category now carries a Final Action Date of January 1, 2025 and a Date for Filing of March 15, 2026. EB-3 Rest of World moved back as well, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has designated the Dates for Filing chart as the one that governs adjustment of status filings in October.
The Visa Bulletin is the Department of State’s monthly publication showing which green card applicants can move forward that month. Because employment-based green cards are limited each year, applicants wait in a line ordered by priority date, the date that fixes each person’s place. A category being Current means there is no cutoff and any priority date can advance. Rest of World is the group of countries without their own column in the Bulletin, meaning every country except China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines.