The U.S. State Department released the April Visa Bulletin Friday, showing advancement in key employment-based categories. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that in April it will use Final Action Dates to determine filing eligibility.

Final Action Dates Movement:

EB-1

• China EB-1 will advance 1½ months to Sept. 1, 2022.
• India EB-1 will advance five months to March 1, 2021.
• All other countries under EB-1 will remain current.

EB-2

• China EB-2 will advance one month to Feb. 1, 2020.
• India EB-2 will advance 1½ months to April 15, 2012.
• All other countries under EB-2 will advance almost two months to Jan. 15, 2023.

EB-3

• China EB-3 will remain at Sept. 1, 2020.
• India EB-3 will advance 1½ months to Aug. 15, 2012.
• All other countries under EB-3 will advance 2½ months to Nov. 22, 2022.

Final Action Dates for Employment-Based Preference Cases:

Additional Information: April will mark the second straight month that USCIS will use Final Action Dates to determine employment-based filing eligibility. The agency will continue to use Dates for Filing to determine family-based eligibility. The State Department included additional information regarding visa availability in the coming months in the April Visa Bulletin, stating that for employment-based categories, “Very little to no forward movement is expected in the coming months since the final action dates for many categories advanced for April 2024.” They also cautioned that the “final action date projections” indicate what is “likely to happen throughout Quarter Three and Quarter Four of FY24” and that readers “should never assume that recent trends in final action date movements are guaranteed for the future, or that retrogressions will not be required at some point to maintain number use within the applicable annual limits.”