Indian EB-2 Green Card Applicants Face Up To 179-Year Wait In US Backlog

Indian professionals filing an employment-based immigrant petition under the EB-2 category in January 2026 face an estimated waiting period of up to 179 years to receive a US green card, according to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy. The analysis revealed that Indian applicants confront severe delays across several employment classifications, with wait times extending to 38 years under EB-3 and five years under the EB-1 visa category.

In contrast, applicants from other countries experience significantly shorter wait times. Under the EB-2 category, individuals from China face an estimated waiting period of 25 years, while applicants from the Philippines wait approximately 110 days. In the EB-3 classification, Chinese applicants face a seven-year wait and candidates from the Philippines wait six years, compared to the 38-year delay faced by Indian nationals.

The backlog affects several visa categories that target distinct groups of foreign professionals. The EB-1 category is reserved for experts with extraordinary abilities in their respective fields, while EB-2 visas are allocated to advanced degree holders and individuals with exceptional abilities in the sciences, arts, or business. The EB-3 track includes skilled workers, professionals holding bachelor's degrees, and essential workers. Other tracks include EB-4 for special immigrants such as religious workers and US government personnel abroad, and EB-5 for immigrant investors contributing $800,000 in Targeted Employment Areas or $1,050,000 in non-TEA locations to generate at least 10 full-time jobs.

According to data from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, 36,069 Indian EB-2 petitions, 9,993 EB-3 applications, and 8,345 EB-1 applications were approved during 2025. Despite those approvals, the foundation reported that 7,31,566 EB-2 applications, 2,13,414 EB-3 petitions, and 51,619 EB-1 files remained trapped in the backlog as of December 2025.

The analysis identified statutory caps as the primary factor behind the delays. The annual worldwide ceiling of 1,40,000 employment-based permanent residency issuances, established by the US Congress in 1990, includes both principal applicants and their dependent family members, who routinely utilize half or more of the available quota. Furthermore, a statutory per-country limit restricts any single nation from receiving more than seven percent of the available visas, generally capping employment-based issuances from one nation at roughly 10,000 annually.

Under this per-country restriction, high-volume applicant countries such as India and China receive the same annual allocation as nations like Iceland and Luxembourg. The foundation stated that prolonged waits, typically endured while maintaining temporary H-1B status, impair the ability of US employers to attract and retain talent while imposing heavy hardships on families, noting that nearly one million individuals from India were waiting in the employment-based backlog as of late 2025.