The Department of State released the March 2024 visa bulletin. The visa bulletin summarizes and provides an overview of the immigrant visas that will be available in March 2024. The State Department releases this information into two charts, the Final Action Dates and Date of Filing charts for Employment-Based and Family-Based immigrant visas. For Applicants physically in the UnitDaed States and filing for Adjustment of Status (AOS), the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) each month confirms which chart Applicants must use to file their applications. In March 2024, USCIS confirms Applicants may use Date of Filing for Family-Based applications while for Employment-Based cases, Applicants must use the Final Action Dates. Below, we break down the movement seen in the February 2024 visa bulletin.
Employment-Based (EB) Preference Categories
We continue to see modest advancement in certain categories in the March 2024 Employment-Based visa bulletin. As mentioned above, USCIS for the first time in this fiscal year announced it will accept EB AOS cases based on the Final Action Dates chart. In other words, to be eligible to apply for AOS application, foreign nationals must have a priority date that is earlier than the date listed under their preference category and country.
For the first preference category (EB-1, Priority Workers) for Applicants for the rest of the world excluding India and China, the dates will remain current allowing applicants to apply for immigrant visa or AOS applications right away. For EB-1 India, the dates advance by one month to October 1, 2020. For EB-2 China, the dates will advance by two weeks to July 15, 2022.
In the second preference category (EB-2, Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees, or Persons of Exceptional Ability category), we see slight movement for the rest of the world similar to the February 2024 visa bulletin. For the rest of the world, the dates will advance by modestly one week, to November 22, 2022. For India and China, the dates will remain the same as the January 2024 visa bulletin. For India EB-2, the cutoff dates will be March 1, 2012, and for China the cutoff dates will be January 1, 2020.
In the third preference category (EB-3, Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Other Workers), similar to EB-2, we see modest advancement for the rest of world excluding India and China. The dates for China remain unchanged from January 2024 visa bulletin at, September 1, 2020. For India, the dates remain the same as February 2025 visa bulletin at to July 1, 2012. For the rest of the world, the dates will also advance by one week, to September 8, 2022.
In the fourth preference category EB-4, Minister and Non-Minister Religious Workers, the dates advance by over six months for all countries across the world to December 1, 2019. Nevertheless, the Non-Minister Religious Worker Program will expire on March 8, 2024, without further Congress action. If there is no action taken by Congress to extend the program, the category will become “unavailable” as of March 8. As a result, as of March 8, the State Department won’t issue any immigrant visas or USCIS won’t approve any pending adjustment of status applications until Congress passes a reauthorization legislation.
In the fifth and last preference category (EB-5, Investors), we see significant advancement in the two categories that are not currently current. For the EB-5 Unreserved categories ((C5, T5, I5, and R5), the dates of India advance by a year and four months to April 1, 2022. For China, the dates will advance by over one year and one months, to January 1, 2017. For the rest of the world, the dates remain current. For EB-5 set-aside categories (Rural, High Unemployment, and Infrastructure) will also remain current for everyone.
Family-Based Preference Categories
In the Family-Based Preference category, in the March 2024 visa bulletin, we see some welcome advancement in most of the preference categories with USCIS accepting cases based on Date of Filing Chart.
In the F1, Unmarried Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens, call countries excluding Mexico and the Philippines, we see the dates advance by five weeks to February 8, 2015. For Mexico and the Philippines, the dates remain the same at, May 1, 2001, and March 1, 2012, respectively.
In the F2A, Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents category, we see some welcome advancement across the board. The dates for Mexico advance by over four months to June 15, 2020. For the rest of the world, similarly the dates advance by over four months and two weeks to June 22, 2020. In the F2B, Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21 years of age or older) of Permanent Residents, the dates advance for the world excluding Mexico and the Philippines. The dates advance by seven weeks to November 22, 2015.
In the F3, Married Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens, similarly we see advancement for the world excluding Mexico and the Philippines. The dates for the world advance by over five months to, October 1, 2009. Finally, in the F4, Brothers and Sisters of Adult U.S. Citizens, we see advancement for everyone. For the rest of the world and China by over two weeks to June 8, 2007. For F4 India, the dates advance by one months to December 15, 2005. Similar for Mexico the dates advance by one month to October 15, 2000. Lastly for the Philippines, the dates advance by eight months to June 15, 2003.
We continue to monitor and provide information on movements related to the monthly visa bulletin. If you have questions regarding your priority date, please feel free to contact us. We put our extensive experience and expertise to work for you to ensure you get the right advice.