Visa Bulletin for April 2025

What the State Department said

Annual limit reached in the employment-based fourth preference (EB-4) category

The State Department, working in close collaboration with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has issued all available immigrant visas in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category, which includes visas made available to certain religious workers under the SR visa category, for fiscal year (FY) 2025 and the category was made unavailable on February 28, 2025. Since all available EB-4 visas for FY 2025 have been used, embassies and consulates may not issue visas in these categories for the remainder of the fiscal year. The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2026) on October 1, 2025. At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in this category to qualified applicants.

U.s. government employee special immigrant visas (SIVS)

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024, signed into law on December 22, 2023, may affect certain current and former employees of the U.S. Government abroad, as well as certain surviving spouses and children of deceased employees of the U.S. government abroad, applying for SIVs or adjustment of status, as described in section 101(a)(27)(D) of the INA. This does not affect certain Iraqis and Afghans applying for SQ and SI SIVs. Applicants should contact the consular section at which they filed their Form DS‑1884 for further information on the impact of that law on their case.