Employment preference · FY2026
I-140 EB-2
Professionals holding an advanced degree, people of exceptional ability, and national interest waiver petitions.
48,398
Petitions filed
FY2026
22,780
Approved
in the same year
4.1%
Denied, of decisions
972 denials
24,646
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-2, 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-2 is the most oversubscribed employment category for India and China. For those countries the visa queue after approval, not this petition, is what determines the wait.
Year by year
Fiscal years, by the year the petition was received.
| Fiscal year | Filed | Approved | Denied | Denial share | Pending |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 (part year) | 48,398 | 22,780 | 972 | 4.1% | 24,646 |
| FY2025 | 116,183 | 61,011 | 12,907 | 17.5% | 42,265 |
| FY2024 | 114,020 | 77,517 | 16,518 | 17.6% | 19,985 |
| FY2023 | 93,146 | 81,274 | 10,251 | 11.2% | 1,621 |
| FY2022 | 84,474 | 77,952 | 6,009 | 7.2% | 513 |
| FY2021 | 70,596 | 65,852 | 4,273 | 6.1% | 471 |
| FY2020 | 67,605 | 63,305 | 3,993 | 5.9% | 307 |
| FY2019 | 78,232 | 73,286 | 4,656 | 6.0% | 290 |
| FY2018 | 69,987 | 65,746 | 4,042 | 5.8% | 199 |
| FY2017 | 70,239 | 65,774 | 4,244 | 6.1% | 221 |
| FY2016 | 82,528 | 77,442 | 4,800 | 5.8% | 286 |
| FY2015 | 58,774 | 54,877 | 3,712 | 6.3% | 185 |
| FY2014 | 49,194 | 45,855 | 3,139 | 6.4% | 200 |
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-2 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-2 by country of birth
The five countries USCIS breaks this report down by, FY2026.