Analysis

Service centre or field office: which one is faster?

They do different jobs at different scales, and the comparison people reach for is the wrong one.

"Which service centre is faster" is one of the most-asked questions in immigration, and it usually gets answered with the wrong comparison — a service centre measured against a field office. They are not doing the same job.

104,446

Decided by service centres

FY2026 Q2

2,071,815

Held by service centres

pending at quarter end

167,803

Decided by field offices

same forms, same quarter

948,347

Held by field offices

pending at quarter end

Service centres adjudicate on paper at national scale. Field offices interview locally. On the forms USCIS breaks down by office this quarter, the service centres decided 104,446 cases and were holding 2,071,815 — against 948,347 held across every field office in the country.

The service centres, by what they are holding

Service centre Decided Pending
Vermont 18,479 465,141
California 24,605 449,714
Texas 22,801 392,496
Nebraska 16,513 379,739
Potomac 19,367 372,074
National Benefits Center 2,681 12,651

USCIS adjudications, FY2026 Q2

Source — USCIS quarterly data release, FY2026 Q2. Public domain.

Every figure above is read from the USCIS quarterly data release and rebuilt each time a new one is imported — this piece was last rebuilt 23 minutes ago. Nothing here is legal advice, and ImmigrationAll is not affiliated with USCIS or any government agency.