What is the Priority Date for the EB-1?

The Priority Date of the EB-1 is, in practice, the date on which USCIS receives your petition. It works like a queue number: it marks your place in line within the employment-based immigration process.

Your place in that line matters because green card categories have a limited number of slots per period, also distributed by country of birth. When demand exceeds supply, a backlog forms, and you can only move to the final step (the green card) once your Priority Date becomes available, which is commonly described as the date going “current.”

A few points help clarify how this works:

• The Priority Date is set when the petition is filed and stays with you throughout the case.
• Queue movement is published periodically by the Department of State in what is known as the Visa Bulletin.
• The EB-1, being a high-priority category, tends to move faster than others, but this varies over time and by country.

Because the queue situation changes from time to time, the safest approach is to consult the latest Visa Bulletin and USCIS guidance to know exactly where your Priority Date stands at any given moment.

About the author

Victoria Harper

Editor-in-Chief

Meet the author

As a journalist and lead editor at Visto n’ Visa, Victoria helps ensure that immigration topics are covered in a clear, trustworthy, and easy-to-understand way. Her focus is on delivering useful, human, and relevant content for people exploring new paths abroad.