The USCIS backlog, explained in its own numbers

At the close of FY2026 Q2 USCIS was holding 12,129,905 pending cases. That number gets quoted a lot and explained almost never, so here is what it is made of.

12,129,905

Total pending

every form USCIS counts in its total

45%

In the top five forms

of the whole pile

Forms with a queue

reported this quarter

1,597,832

Biggest single queue

I-130 (All Other Relative)

Five forms carry 45% of it. The backlog is not spread thinly across the immigration system — it is concentrated in a few queues, and those queues are mostly the ones where an approved case still has to wait for a visa number afterwards.

The fifteen biggest queues

I-130 (All Other Relative) 1,597,832 13.2%

39.4 months

I-589 1,414,955 11.7%

0 months

I-765 (All Other) 998,662 8.2%

4.5 months

I-130 (Immediate Relative) 761,638 6.3%

12.5 months

N-400 (Naturalization) 648,583 5.3%

7.4 months

I-765 (Adjustment Of Status) 584,851 4.8%

4.3 months

I-485 (Family) 579,684 4.8%

5.9 months

I-821 574,448 4.7%

12.6 months

I-90 558,086 4.6%

9.3 months

Waivers 542,885 4.5%

35.9 months

I-918 461,200 3.8%

15.2 months

I-131 (Advance Parole Document for Aliens) 375,024 3.1%

6.5 months

I-485 (Cuban) 341,232 2.8%

19.5 months

I-751 299,880 2.5%

25 months

I-360 297,394 2.5%

6.1 months

Pending cases, FY2026 Q2

Open a form