Visa Bulletin for September 2025

What the State Department said

Availability of employment-based visas

There has been a steady increase in both USCIS and Department of State demand patterns for employment-based visas during the fiscal year. As a result, the Visa Office expects to reach FY-2025 category limits in most employment-based preference categories during August and September. If at any time an annual limit were reached, it would be necessary to immediately make the preference category “unavailable”, and no further requests for numbers would be honored.

Determination of the numerical limits on immigrants required under the terms of the immigration and nationality act (INA)

The State Department is required to make the determination of the worldwide numerical limitations, as outlined in Section 201(c) and (d) of the INA, on an annual basis. These calculations are based in part on data provided by U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding the number of immediate relative adjustments in the preceding year and the number of aliens paroled into the United States under Section 212(d)(5) in the second preceding year. Without this information, it is impossible to make an official determination of the annual limits. To avoid delays in processing while waiting for the USCIS data, the Visa Office (VO) bases allocations on reasonable estimates of the anticipated amount of visa numbers to be available under the annual limits, in accordance with Section 203(g) of the INA. On July 30th, USCIS provided the required data to the VO.

The Department of State has determined the Family and Employment preference numerical limits for FY-2025 in accordance with the terms of Section 201 of the INA. These numerical limitations for FY-2025 are as follows:

Worldwide Family-Sponsored preference limit: 226,000

Worldwide Employment-Based preference limit: 150,037

Under INA Section 202(a)(2), the per-country limit is fixed at 7% of the combined total family and employment annual limits. For FY-2025 the per-country limit is therefore 26,323. The dependent area annual limit is 2%, or 7,521. Note that these figures do not account for carryover provisions in accordance with INA 203(b)(5)(B). With these carryover visa numbers included, the per-country limit is 26,862 and the dependent area limit is 7,675.

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.