EB-4 Religious Workers Visa Bulletin: certain religious workers, every cut-off since 2002

Every EB-4 Religious Workers retrogression since 2002

• All other countries: December 2022 (4.3 months), March 2023 (4.6 months), April 2023 (41.0 months), March 2025 (17.0 months)
• China (mainland-born): December 2022 (4.3 months), March 2023 (4.6 months), April 2023 (41.0 months), March 2025 (17.0 months)
• India: August 2016 (78.0 months), July 2017 (21.6 months), August 2018 (28.7 months), December 2022 (4.3 months), March 2023 (15.7 months), April 2023 (30.0 months), March 2025 (17.0 months)
• Mexico: July 2016 (77.0 months), December 2016 (15.6 months), July 2018 (8.4 months), July 2019 (27.0 months), March 2023 (45 days), April 2023 (23.0 months), March 2025 (17.0 months)
• Philippines: December 2022 (4.3 months), March 2023 (4.6 months), April 2023 (41.0 months), March 2025 (17.0 months)

Who can use EB-4 Religious Workers

EB-4 Religious Workers is the employment-based preference for non-minister religious workers (the program that needs regular reauthorisation by Congress). Its annual limit is at most 5,000 a year within EB-4. Most cases start with a PERM labor certification and Form I-140; the priority date is normally the PERM filing date, or the I-140 date where no labor certification is needed.

Your column is your country of chargeability, normally the country of birth. A green card in EB-4 Religious Workers becomes possible in the month the final action date for your column passes your priority date; until then the case waits at USCIS or the National Visa Center.

What the history says about the next months

A line's past speed is the best simple guide to its future, and the State Department itself plans with it. Over the last five years the EB-4 Religious Workers line for most countries cleared 1.5 mo/yr. Speeds change when demand changes – a surge of new petitions, a change in the law, unused numbers falling from another category in October – so treat any projection as a range, not a date.