An employment based green card is US permanent residence granted based on work—a job offer, a specialised skill, an investment, or a record of achievement. The route splits into five preference categories, EB-1 through EB-5, and each has its own eligibility test, its own slice of the annual quota, and its own queue. This guide explains what each category requires, how a case moves through the process, and where the waits stood in September 2026. It sits beneath our wider guide to the US green card, which also covers the family, lottery and humanitarian routes.
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Key takeaways
- An employment-based green card is US permanent residence granted through work. It runs through five preference categories, EB-1 to EB-5.
- The worldwide employment-based limit for the 2026 fiscal year was 186,317 — not the 140,000 figure still quoted almost everywhere. Unused family numbers fall across.
- EB-2 and EB-3 require a PERM labour certification from the Department of Labor. EB-1, EB-4, EB-5 and the EB-2 national interest waiver do not.
- EB-5 minimums are $1,050,000, or $800,000 in a targeted employment area or a qualifying infrastructure project. Both rise on 1 January 2027.
- No country may take more than 7% of the annual preference total. In September 2026 that left EB-2 India and unreserved EB-5 India unavailable.
- The EB-5 rural, high-unemployment and infrastructure set-asides were current for every country in September 2026 — the fastest queue in the system.
What an employment-based green card is
The most important distinction is between immigrant and non-immigrant status. An H-1B visa lets someone work in the United States for a fixed period on a specific employer’s petition. An employment-based green card makes them a lawful permanent resident: they can change employers, leave and re-enter, and after a qualifying period apply for citizenship.
The two are not alternatives so much as consecutive steps. Most people who obtain an employment-based green card through EB-2 or EB-3 are already in the country on a work visa when the process starts, and stay on it for years while the queue moves. Whether someone qualifies at all is a separate question from how long they wait — our guide to US green card eligibility covers the first, and this one covers the second.
The employment-based green card is one of five broad routes to permanent residence. The others — family sponsorship, the diversity lottery, investment (itself an employment-based category), and humanitarian protection — are set out in the family-based green card guide and the main pillar above.
The five employment-based green card categories at a glance
Every employment-based green card case runs through exactly one of the five preferences below. The choice is not free: it depends on the applicant’s qualifications and the job, and it determines both the paperwork and the wait.
Table 1: The five employment-based green card categories at a glance
| Category | Who it is for | PERM required | Self-petition possible | Final action date, Sept 2026 — most countries | Final action date, Sept 2026 — India |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EB-1 | Extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, multinational managers and executives | No | EB-1A only | Current | 15 Oct 2022 |
| EB-2 | Advanced degree, or exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business | Yes, unless a national interest waiver is granted | With a NIW only | Current | Unavailable |
| EB-3 | Professionals, skilled workers and other workers | Yes | No | 1 Sep 2024 | 1 Jan 2014 |
| EB-4 | Certain special immigrants, including some religious workers | No | No | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 |
| EB-5 | Investors creating at least ten full-time US jobs | No | Yes | Current (unreserved and set-asides) | Unavailable (unreserved); current (set-asides) |
| Final action dates from the September 2026 Visa Bulletin, US Department of State. All dates reset for the new fiscal year on 1 October 2026. | |||||
EB-1: the first employment-based green card preference
EB-1 is reserved for people at the top of their field, and for senior staff moved inside a multinational company. It takes the largest single share of the annual quota alongside EB-2 and EB-3, and no labour certification is required for any of its three sub-categories.
EB-1A — extraordinary ability
For individuals with sustained national or international acclaim in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics. EB-1A is a self-petition: no employer or job offer is needed, provided the applicant intends to continue working in the field. Applicants must meet at least three of ten regulatory criteria and then satisfy a separate final merits assessment — meeting three is necessary but not sufficient. We compare it directly with the national interest waiver in EB-1A vs EB-2 NIW.
EB-1B — outstanding professors and researchers
For academics with international recognition and, in most cases, at least three years of research or teaching experience. An employer must petition, and the offer must be for a tenured, tenure-track or comparable permanent research role.
EB-1C — multinational managers and executives
For managers and executives transferred by a qualifying multinational employer, having worked abroad for that employer for at least one of the preceding three years. This is the natural next step for many L-1A holders, and the route O-1 visa holders in executive roles often take.
EB-2: advanced degrees, exceptional ability and the national interest waiver
EB-2 is the employment-based green card category most often reached for by professionals already working in the United States. It covers positions that require an advanced degree — a master’s or higher, or a bachelor’s plus five years of progressive experience — and people of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business.
By default, EB-2 requires a PERM labour certification: the employer must test the US labour market first. The national interest waiver is the exception, not the rule. Where an applicant can show, under the three-prong Dhanasar test, that their work has substantial merit and national importance, that they are well positioned to advance it, and that waiving the job-offer requirement benefits the United States on balance, the labour certification and the employer sponsorship both fall away and the applicant self-petitions.
This distinction is often stated backwards. PERM is required for EB-2 unless a waiver is granted — not waived unless PERM is required.
EB-3: professionals, skilled workers and other workers
EB-3 is the broadest category by eligibility and splits into three subgroups, which matters because they do not share a queue.
- Professionals — positions requiring a US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent, where the applicant is a member of the profession.
- Skilled workers — positions requiring at least two years of training or experience, and not temporary or seasonal.
- Other workers — positions requiring less than two years of training or experience. This subgroup is capped at 5,000 visas a year, reduced by 116 for the 2026 fiscal year under NACARA, and consequently runs years behind the rest of EB-3.
All three need a PERM labour certification. Together with EB-2, this is where most employer-sponsored employment-based green card cases sit, and the route most people mean when they talk about moving from an H-1B to a green card.
EB-4: special immigrants
EB-4 is the one employment-based green card preference defined by who the applicant is rather than what they do. It is a collection of narrowly defined groups rather than a skills category: certain religious workers, current and former US government employees abroad, some broadcasters, and several court-dependent and international-organisation categories. No labour certification applies.
The non-minister religious worker subcategory depends on a sunset provision that Congress allowed to lapse and then renewed more than once, so its availability has shifted from year to year. In the September 2026 Visa Bulletin, Certain Religious Workers carried the same 15 December 2022 final action date as EB-4 generally.
EB-5: the employment-based green card for investors
EB-5 is the only employment-based green card route that turns on capital rather than a job. It grants permanent residence to a foreign investor who puts capital into a new commercial enterprise that creates at least ten full-time jobs. Two points are routinely reported wrongly, and both matter.
First, the amounts. Since the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, the minimum is $1,050,000, or $800,000 where the investment is in a targeted employment area — a rural area or one with unemployment at least 150% of the national rate — or in a qualifying infrastructure project. Both figures are set by statute and confirmed in the USCIS Policy Manual, and both increase on 1 January 2027 and every five years after that.
Second, the jobs. The requirement is ten full-time positions for qualifying US workers, which includes lawful permanent residents and other work-authorised immigrants — not ten positions for US citizens.
The Act also reserved a share of EB-5 numbers for rural projects, high-unemployment areas and infrastructure. Because demand has not yet caught up with those reservations, the set-aside queues were current for every country in September 2026 while the unreserved queue was not. Our EB-5 investor programme guide covers the structure, the regional centre model and the conditional residence period in full.
Table 2: EB-5 minimum investment and visa set-asides
| Investment route | Minimum investment | Share of annual EB-5 numbers reserved | Final action date, Sept 2026 — most countries | Final action date, Sept 2026 — India |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard — not in a targeted employment area | US$1,050,000 | None (unreserved) | Current | Unavailable |
| Targeted employment area — rural | US$800,000 | 20% | Current | Current |
| Targeted employment area — high unemployment | US$800,000 | 10% | Current | Current |
| Qualifying infrastructure project | US$800,000 | 2% | Current | Current |
| Amounts set by INA 203(b)(5)(C) as amended by the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022, and confirmed in the USCIS Policy Manual. Both rise on 1 January 2027 and every five years thereafter. Set-aside percentages are shares of the annual EB-5 allocation. Dates from the September 2026 Visa Bulletin. | ||||
How many employment-based green cards are issued each year
The employment-based green card quota is smaller than demand and larger than most reporting suggests. The figure quoted almost everywhere is 140,000. That is the statutory floor, not the number actually available. Family-sponsored numbers that go unused in one year fall across into the employment-based limit the next, and the real total is published each year in the Visa Bulletin. For the 2026 fiscal year the worldwide employment-based limit was 186,317.
The limit is then divided by statutory percentage among the five preferences, and cut across by a per-country ceiling: no single country may take more than 7% of the combined family and employment preference totals. That ceiling, not the size of the quota, is what produces the decade-long waits for applicants chargeable to India — the subject of the long-running reform effort covered in our guide to the S.386 bill.
Table 3: Employment-based green card numbers, fiscal year 2026
| Item | Number |
|---|---|
| Worldwide employment-based preference limit | 186,317 |
| Statutory floor commonly quoted in error | 140,000 |
| EB-1 share (28.6% of the worldwide limit) | approx. 53,287 |
| EB-2 share (28.6%, plus EB-1 numbers not used) | approx. 53,287 |
| EB-3 share (28.6%, plus EB-1 and EB-2 numbers not used) | approx. 53,287 |
| Of which: EB-3 other workers | 4,884 |
| EB-4 share (7.1%) | approx. 13,229 |
| EB-5 share (7.1%) | approx. 13,229 |
| Per-country ceiling (7% of combined family and employment preference totals) | 28,862 |
| Dependent area ceiling (2%) | 8,247 |
| Worldwide limit, per-country ceiling and dependent area ceiling from the September 2026 Visa Bulletin. Preference shares are the statutory percentages applied to that limit, rounded to the nearest whole number. Other workers is the 5,000 statutory cap less the 116 NACARA reduction for fiscal year 2026. | |
The three stages of an employment-based green card case
A sponsored employment-based green card moves through three stages. Self-petition routes skip the first.
Stage one — PERM labour certification
The employer obtains a prevailing wage determination, runs a prescribed recruitment campaign, and files Form ETA-9089 with the Department of Labor to certify that no able, willing, qualified and available US worker was found. There is no government filing fee. The filing date becomes the applicant’s priority date — their place in the queue — so this stage sets the clock for everything that follows. The programme rules are published on the Department of Labor’s permanent labour certification pages.
Stage two — Form I-140
The immigrant petition for a foreign worker, filed with USCIS, establishes that the applicant qualifies for the category claimed and, where relevant, that the employer can pay the offered wage. The base filing fee is $715. Premium processing is available in every employment-based category.
Stage three — adjustment of status or consular processing
Once a visa number is available, the applicant either files Form I-485 to adjust status inside the United States — base fee $1,440 — or completes consular processing at a US post abroad. Only at this stage does permanent residence actually issue, and for applicants from oversubscribed countries the gap between stage two and stage three can run to a decade.
Priority dates and where the employment-based green card queues stand
Nothing shapes an employment-based green card timeline more than the priority date. A priority date is the applicant’s position in line: the date PERM was filed, or the date the I-140 was filed where no PERM applies. Each month the State Department publishes a Visa Bulletin with two sets of dates — final action dates, which govern when a green card can be approved, and dates for filing, which govern when the last-stage application can be submitted.
A category shown as C is current: anyone with an approved petition may proceed. A date means only applicants whose priority date falls before it may proceed. U means unavailable — no numbers at all for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Table 4: Employment-based green card final action dates, September 2026
| Category | All chargeability areas | China (mainland-born) | India | Mexico | Philippines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EB-1 | Current | 1 Jul 2023 | 15 Oct 2022 | Current | Current |
| EB-2 | Current | 1 Sep 2021 | Unavailable | Current | Current |
| EB-3 professionals and skilled workers | 1 Sep 2024 | 1 Jan 2022 | 1 Jan 2014 | 1 Sep 2024 | 1 Aug 2023 |
| EB-3 other workers | 1 Apr 2022 | 1 May 2019 | 1 Jan 2014 | 1 Apr 2022 | 1 Dec 2021 |
| EB-4 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 |
| EB-4 certain religious workers | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 | 15 Dec 2022 |
| EB-5 unreserved | Current | 1 Dec 2016 | Unavailable | Current | Current |
| EB-5 set-aside: rural | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
| EB-5 set-aside: high unemployment | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
| EB-5 set-aside: infrastructure | Current | Current | Current | Current | Current |
| Source: September 2026 Visa Bulletin, US Department of State. Current means a visa number is available to every applicant with an approved petition. Unavailable means no numbers remain for the fiscal year. All figures reset on 1 October 2026. | |||||
Two entries in that table deserve attention. EB-2 India and unreserved EB-5 India were both unavailable in September 2026, having exhausted their numbers before the year ended. Both reopen on 1 October, when the new fiscal year’s numbers are released — the annual reset that makes September the worst month in the calendar to judge the state of the queues.
Which employment-based green card routes skip PERM
A labour certification adds a year or more before the substantive petition is even filed, so the routes that avoid it are worth knowing.
- EB-1A, EB-1B and EB-1C — no labour certification in any of the three.
- EB-2 with a national interest waiver — the waiver removes both PERM and the job offer.
- EB-4 — not applicable to special immigrant categories.
- EB-5 — the investor creates jobs rather than filling one.
Of these, EB-1A and the EB-2 national interest waiver are the only two employment-based green card routes that allow a true self-petition, with no employer involved at any point. Which of the two fits a given profile is a close call, and we work through it in EB-1A vs EB-2 NIW.
What changed for employment-based green card applicants in 2026
Three developments affecting employment-based green card applicants are worth tracking, at very different stages of maturity.
Adjustment of status is being adjudicated more restrictively. A USCIS policy memorandum issued in May 2026 directs officers to treat adjustment of status as a discretionary form of relief rather than a near-automatic outcome for applicants who meet the statutory tests, which means positive discretionary factors now need to be evidenced rather than assumed. Applicants in dual-intent categories are less exposed than others, but not exempt.
A PERM overhaul has been signalled, but not made. The Department of Labor has indicated through its regulatory agenda that it intends to modernise the labour certification programme. No proposed rule has been published and nothing has changed in practice; employers should plan against the current rules.
The India queues moved backwards. EB-2 India and unreserved EB-5 India both reached their per-country limits during the 2026 fiscal year and became unavailable before it closed. The EB-5 set-asides remained current throughout, which is why they have drawn increasing interest from applicants who would otherwise sit in the EB-2 queue.
Frequently asked questions about the employment-based green card.
How long does an employment-based green card take?
An employment-based green card timeline depends almost entirely on country of birth and category. For applicants not chargeable to India, China, Mexico or the Philippines, EB-1 and EB-2 were current in September 2026, so the timeline is essentially processing time — often 18 months to three years across all three stages. For applicants chargeable to India, EB-3 stood at January 2014 and EB-2 was unavailable, which means waits measured in decades rather than years.
Can I apply for an employment-based green card without an employer?
Yes, through two routes. EB-1A requires sustained acclaim in your field, and the EB-2 national interest waiver requires that your work is of national importance and that waiving the job offer benefits the United States. EB-5 also needs no employer, but requires an investment of $800,000 or $1,050,000.
What is the difference between a priority date and a final action date?
The priority date is yours — the date your PERM or I-140 was filed. The final action date is published monthly by the State Department for each category and country. When your priority date is earlier than the published final action date, your case can be approved.
Does an approved I-140 mean I have a green card?
No. An approved I-140 confirms you qualify for the category. Permanent residence issues only at the third stage, when a visa number is available and Form I-485 or consular processing is completed. The approved I-140 does carry real benefits in the meantime, including the ability to hold H-1B status beyond the usual six-year limit.
Can I change jobs during an employment-based green card process?
Often, but the timing matters. Changing employers before the I-140 is approved usually means restarting, though the priority date can generally be preserved. After the I-485 has been pending for 180 days, a change to a same-or-similar occupation is permitted under the portability provisions.
How many employment-based green cards go to each country?
There is no per-country employment-based green card allocation as such. There is a ceiling: no country may receive more than 7% of the combined family-sponsored and employment-based preference totals, which came to 28,862 visas in the 2026 fiscal year. Countries below the ceiling face no restriction, which is why most of the world sees current categories while India and China wait.
Is the EB-5 investment amount going up?
Yes. The $800,000 and $1,050,000 minimums are adjusted for inflation on 1 January 2027 and every five years after that. The adjusted amounts have not been published yet, so any figure quoted for 2027 today is a projection, not a rule.
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