Employment preference · FY2026
I-140 EB-3
Skilled workers, professionals with a bachelor's degree, and other (unskilled) workers.
37,339
Petitions filed
FY2026
26,535
Approved
in the same year
1.2%
Denied, of decisions
316 denials
10,488
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-3, 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-3 movement can run ahead of or behind EB-2 depending on the month and country of birth, which is why some applicants downgrade between them.
Year by year
Fiscal years, by the year the petition was received.
| Fiscal year | Filed | Approved | Denied | Denial share | Pending |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 (part year) | 37,339 | 26,535 | 316 | 1.2% | 10,488 |
| FY2025 | 77,332 | 55,940 | 1,202 | 2.1% | 20,190 |
| FY2024 | 73,200 | 63,820 | 1,344 | 2.1% | 8,036 |
| FY2023 | 58,797 | 56,873 | 1,414 | 2.4% | 510 |
| FY2022 | 54,842 | 52,608 | 1,933 | 3.5% | 301 |
| FY2021 | 86,175 | 83,016 | 2,603 | 3.0% | 556 |
| FY2020 | 40,547 | 37,875 | 2,306 | 5.7% | 366 |
| FY2019 | 46,052 | 41,452 | 4,304 | 9.4% | 296 |
| FY2018 | 39,033 | 34,602 | 4,116 | 10.6% | 315 |
| FY2017 | 37,066 | 31,871 | 4,071 | 11.3% | 1,124 |
| FY2016 | 36,336 | 31,573 | 3,411 | 9.8% | 1,352 |
| FY2015 | 19,372 | 17,286 | 1,765 | 9.3% | 321 |
| FY2014 | 14,953 | 13,625 | 1,094 | 7.4% | 234 |
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-3 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-3 by country of birth
The five countries USCIS breaks this report down by, FY2026.