Employment preference · FY2026
I-140 EB-1
Priority workers: people of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational executives and managers.
24,734
Petitions filed
FY2026
7,866
Approved
in the same year
27.0%
Denied, of decisions
2,902 denials
13,966
Pending
still awaiting a decision
How long an I-140 takes
USCIS reported a median processing time of 3.4 months for I-140 in FY2026 Q2 — for the form as a whole. The agency does not publish a separate processing time for EB-1, or for any other preference, so no page on this site claims one.
What it does publish per preference is the volume: how many petitions were filed, approved, denied and left pending, by fiscal year and by country of birth. That is everything below.
EB-1 does not require a labour certification, which is why it is filed directly and why its volumes move with policy rather than with the job market.
Year by year
Fiscal years, by the year the petition was received.
| Fiscal year | Filed | Approved | Denied | Denial share | Pending |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 (part year) | 24,734 | 7,866 | 2,902 | 27.0% | 13,966 |
| FY2025 | 51,370 | 26,572 | 8,877 | 25.0% | 15,921 |
| FY2024 | 41,396 | 29,303 | 5,293 | 15.3% | 6,800 |
| FY2023 | 37,493 | 30,923 | 5,319 | 14.7% | 1,251 |
| FY2022 | 25,953 | 21,759 | 3,942 | 15.3% | 252 |
| FY2021 | 22,021 | 18,471 | 3,428 | 15.7% | 122 |
| FY2020 | 21,376 | 17,418 | 3,888 | 18.2% | 70 |
| FY2019 | 24,130 | 19,309 | 4,755 | 19.8% | 66 |
| FY2018 | 28,478 | 23,098 | 5,265 | 18.6% | 115 |
| FY2017 | 32,066 | 27,117 | 4,765 | 14.9% | 184 |
| FY2016 | 28,726 | 25,070 | 3,443 | 12.1% | 213 |
| FY2015 | 24,758 | 21,810 | 2,737 | 11.2% | 211 |
| FY2014 | 22,848 | 19,840 | 2,764 | 12.2% | 244 |
A petition received in one year is often decided in a later one, so approvals and denials in a row do not add up to that row's filings. The most recent year is partial — it runs only to the end of the quarter this release covers.
What EB-1 approvals were granted under
FY2026 approvals. USCIS reports the sub-category only for petitions it approved, so there is no denial figure at this level.
EB-1 by country of birth
The five countries USCIS breaks this report down by, FY2026.