Visa Bulletin for November 2026

A monthly publication from the U.S. State Department showing which green card applicants in the family-sponsored and employment-based preference categories can move forward, based on their priority date, category and country of chargeability. There are yearly limits on these green cards and a per-country limit, so busy categories and countries have a cutoff date.

Final Action Dates show when a green card can actually be approved or an immigrant visa issued: your priority date must be earlier than the date listed. Dates for Filing are earlier-stage dates showing when you can submit your application documents. For people abroad, the National Visa Center uses Dates for Filing to invite documents.

USCIS announces each month whether adjustment of status applicants must use the Final Action Dates chart or may use the Dates for Filing chart, and it can differ between family and employment categories. Check USCIS's Adjustment of Status Filing Charts page each month before you file.

“C” means current: visa numbers are available for every applicant in that category and country, whatever their priority date. “U” means unauthorized: no visa numbers are available that month, whatever the priority date.

For family cases, it's usually the date USCIS received the Form I-130. For employment cases, it's usually the date the PERM labor certification was filed, or the date the I-140 was filed when no labor certification was needed. It's printed on your I-797 receipt or approval notice.

The State Department usually publishes the next month's bulletin around the middle of the current month, but there's no fixed date. We check every day and update this page, and alert emails go out the day a new bulletin is stored.

A cutoff date moving backwards. It happens when demand in a category is higher than the visas left for the year. A date that was current can stop being current until the cutoff moves forward again, often at the start of a new fiscal year in October.

No. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents of citizens who are 21 or older) aren't subject to these yearly limits, so the Visa Bulletin doesn't apply to them.