A single date on a single form can determine whether your green card will take two years or twelve. That date is your priority date, and it is the number that the government uses to determine when your case progresses. Most applicants only find out what their date means once they begin to ask why their case has been delayed.

What a Priority Date Actually Is

Your priority date indicates your place in line for an immigrant visa. The origin of this date depends on the type of case:

• For family-sponsored green cards, the priority date is the day when USCIS receives a correctly filed Form I-130 from your relative.
• For employment-based green cards that require a labor certification, the priority date is when the Department of Labor approves your PERM application.
• If a labor certification is not required, the priority date will be the filing date of your Form I-140.

That date doesn’t change once it’s set. It follows you through the rest of the process, sometimes for years, and it’s the number every immigration attorney asks for first.

Why It Controls Your Timeline

Congress caps the number of green cards issued each year, and no single country can receive more than seven percent of the total. The State Department manages these issues through the monthly Visa Bulletin, which publishes two separate charts for each category. 

• The first chart, Final Action Dates, shows when a green card can be actually approved. 
• The second chart, Dates for Filing, shows when you can submit your application, even if approval is not yet possible.

USCIS decides each month which charts applicants may use to file Form I-485. That decision can change from month to month, so a filing strategy that worked in July may not work in September.

Where the September 2026 Visa Bulletin Stands

The September 2026 Visa Bulletin was the last of the fiscal year, and there was an uneven movement in it. Family-sponsored dates jumped sharply, with F2A advancing to nearly the current level for spouses and minor children of green card holders. For most countries, F3 and F4 moved forward by more than two years in a single month.

Employment-based categories barely moved at all. The final action dates for EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 remained unchanged from August. EB-2 remained unavailable for India for the remainder of the fiscal year, with EB-4 being the only exception, advancing by two months.

For September, USCIS requires family-sponsored applicants to file using the Dates for Filing chart, while employment-based applicants must use the stricter Final Action Dates chart. If you get that pairing backwards, your I-485 will be rejected for a technical reason that has nothing to do with the merits of your case.

Can You Keep an Earlier Priority Date?

Sometimes, if you already have an approved I-140 and your employer files a new petition for you later, you can usually keep the earlier priority date rather than start over. However, petitions denied for fraud, willful misrepresentation or built on an invalidated labor certification do not carry a priority date forward. 

Family-based cases do not work this way either. Switching between family preference categories, such as from F2B to F1 after marriage, usually resets the clock rather than preserves it. There are some narrow exceptions, so it’s worth checking before assuming the worst.

Where This Leaves You

A backlogged category is not a dead end. It is a waiting period with rules that you can plan around. Those rules have just changed for this fiscal year. If your priority date is near the current September chart or if you are not sure which chart applies to your case, do not wait for the October bulletin to find out. 

Contact CoxEsq, PC to review your priority date against the current charts before filing anything. Getting it right the first time makes the difference between an application moving forward and one being rejected by USCIS for months.