In a significant procedural shift that could affect thousands of employment-based green card applicants, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that beginning with the May 2026 Visa Bulletin, it will require the use of Final Action Dates (Chart A) — rather than the more favorable Dates for Filing chart (Chart B) — for all employment-based adjustment of status (AOS) filings.
The most significant development in the May 2026 Visa Bulletin is the shift by USCIS to require the use of Final Action Dates for employment-based adjustment of status filings, rather than the more favorable Dates for Filing chart that had been in use in prior months.
This is the first month in more than six months that USCIS has chosen to impose the Final Action chart for EB dates.
The immediate consequence:
for May 2026, USCIS will only accept employment-based adjustment of status applications based on the Final Action Dates (Chart A), making April 30, 2026 the last day to file using Chart B eligibility.
What Changed — and Why It Matters
Each month, USCIS designates which of two charts applicants must use when filing Form I-485, the application to adjust status to permanent residence.
USCIS compares the supply of available visa numbers against the demand. If supply exceeds demand for a given preference group, USCIS allows applicants to file under the more generous Dates for Filing chart. If demand exceeds supply, applicants must use the stricter Final Action Dates chart.
For the past 18 months the agency had allowed applicants to use the more generous "Dates for Filing" chart whenever it was more advantageous.
That era has now ended for employment-based categories.
The reason behind the switch appears to stem from a surge of filings triggered by April's historic forward movement.
In April 2026, the Visa Bulletin brought historic forward movement — particularly for India EB-2, which advanced by 303 days. USCIS honored the Dates for Filing chart for employment-based categories, allowing a surge of applicants to file their I-485 applications. That surge created increased filed demand that now threatens to exhaust annual visa number limits before the fiscal year ends on September 30, 2026.
May 2026 Final Action Dates at a Glance
The May Visa Bulletin shows employment-based Final Action Dates largely frozen from April's levels:
- EB-1:
- EB-2:
- EB-3:
- EB-5 Unreserved:
For applicants born outside of India, China, and the Philippines, the news is favorable on its face —
EB-2 is current on the Final Action Dates chart for all countries except China and India. Applicants from all other countries have no priority date cutoff this month and can move forward immediately.
The April 30 Deadline: A Closing Window
The chart switch creates an urgent deadline for applicants caught between the two charts.
April 30, 2026, is the last day to file using Chart B eligibility. Applicants who are eligible under Chart B but not current under Final Action Dates must file by April 30 or risk losing filing eligibility for the foreseeable future.
Human-resources teams that rushed to prepare AOS packets based on March and April filing dates may now find those cases ineligible; they will have to hold the packages or pivot to consular processing.
The impact is especially acute for Indian and Chinese nationals.
If you are an EB-2 India applicant with a priority date between July 15, 2014 and January 15, 2015, you are no longer able to file I-485 this month even though your priority date was arguably eligible under the Filing Dates chart.
Retrogression Warning: Why Acting Now Is Essential
The Department of State has included an explicit warning in the May bulletin that should not be overlooked.
The May Visa Bulletin carries over last month's note attributing the recent broad advancement in most cutoff dates to the decrease in consular immigrant visa issuance rates, which in turn is due to various actions taken by the Trump administration, including the nationality-based travel ban affecting nationals of almost 40 countries and the immigrant visa processing pause affecting nationals of 75 countries.
Critically,
the May Visa Bulletin continues to warn that if demand for immigrant visa numbers increases and/or the government revises its restrictive immigrant visa actions, it may be necessary to retrogress some of these dates later in the fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2026.
History underscores this risk.
The last time EB-2 ROW went current was November 2022. It took three years and four months to return.
In November 2022, EB-2 ROW was current on both Visa Bulletin charts. Within weeks, cutoff dates appeared. By May 2023, the Final Action Date had retrogressed sharply to February 15, 2022.
Practical Steps for Affected Applicants
Immigration practitioners are urging clients to take immediate action. Here is what applicants should focus on:
1. Compare your priority date to the correct chart.
USCIS has announced on its own Visa Bulletin web page that the agency will accept adjustment of status applications based on the Final Action Dates chart in May. To be eligible, foreign nationals must have a priority date that is earlier than the applicable Final Action Date for their preference category and country.
2. File before April 30 if eligible under Chart B but not Chart A. The closing of the Dates for Filing window could lock out applicants for months — or longer.
If the Dates for Filing chart reopens for employment-based categories, the earliest realistic opportunity would be with the October 2026 bulletin — the start of the new fiscal year.
3. Preserve your documentation.
Immigration counsel recommend preserving medical exams (Form I-693) and supporting evidence so cases can be filed quickly when dates advance again.
4. Consider the benefits of filing during a "current" window. Filing an I-485 application while your category is current locks in important benefits.
You can continue to work under an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and travel under Advance Parole while your case waits for final action once dates become current again.
5. Monitor monthly bulletins closely.
Looking ahead, applicants should expect minimal forward movement in employment-based categories through June and July as USCIS and the State Department take a cautious approach to the remaining annual quota. Retrogression in oversubscribed categories remains a real possibility before the fiscal year closes on September 30, 2026.
The Bigger Picture
The May 2026 Visa Bulletin reflects a familiar tension in the U.S. immigration system: favorable windows open quickly and can close just as fast.
April 2026 delivered the biggest single-month advances of FY-2026 — EB-2 ROW went current, EB-2 India jumped 303 days, EB-4/SR jumped a full year, and EB-3 ROW advanced 244 days.
Now,
after April's historic advances, the State Department has hit the brakes. Nearly every employment-based Final Action Date that jumped in April is now frozen.
This may reflect the fact that USCIS is now receiving a satisfactory volume of AOS filings, and no longer needs to stimulate such filings.
For the hundreds of thousands of applicants in the employment-based green card pipeline, the message is clear: favorable dates are never guaranteed, and hesitation carries real costs.
All eligible persons are encouraged to file their AOS applications as soon as possible, since it is possible that cut-off date retrogression may occur later in the year, especially as immigrant visa numbers will be used in significant numbers as the year progresses.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Applicants should consult with a qualified immigration attorney to evaluate their specific circumstances.