FY2026 Q2 · USCIS record
I-485 processing time for Employment-Based Applicants
4.9 mo
Median processing time
half of cases took longer
215,177
Still pending
in this category
44,696
Decided this quarter
approvals and denials
47,514
Filed this quarter
new petitions received
Which category your case is counted in
Every employment preference — EB-1 through EB-5 — is reported in one employment-based I-485 row.
USCIS does not publish a separate processing time for an employment-based applicant. It publishes I-485 as Employment, and that is the queue your petition sits in — so the figures above are that category's, not an estimate made for this page.
Also counted in the same category: an EB-1 applicant, an EB-2 applicant, an EB-3 applicant .
What comes after the petition
An I-485 can only be filed, and only approved, when a visa number is available for the priority date and country of chargeability. That queue is separate from the processing time below.
Reading the number
4.9 months is a median: half of the I-485 Employment petitions USCIS finished in FY2026 Q2 took longer than that, and half took less. It describes cases that were completed in the quarter, so it says nothing directly about a case filed today — a queue of 215,177 pending petitions sits ahead of a new filing.