In October, the Department of State (DOS) asked the National Visa Center (NVC) to report the totals of applicants on the waiting list in the various numerically-limited immigrant categories. Applications for adjustment of status which are pending at USCIS offices are not included in the tabulation of the immigrant waiting list data which is provided below. As such, the following figures only reflect petitions which the DOS has received and do not include the significant number of applications held with the USCIS offices.
The following figures have been compiled from the NVC report submitted to the Department on November 1, 2016, and show the number of immigrant visa applicants on the wait list in the various categories subject to numerical limit. All figures reflect persons registered under each respective numerical limitation, for example, the totals represent not only principal applicants, but also their derivative spouses and children.
Family Sponsored Preferences
Category & Number as of November 1, 2016
Family first: 310,884
Family second total: 700,212
2A Spouses/Children: 276,839
2B Adult Sons/Daughters: 423,373
Family third: 781,810
Family fourth: 2,466,667
TOTAL: 4,259,573
Employment-based Preferences
Category & Number as of November 1, 2016
Employment first: 3,801
Employment second: 14,370
Employment third total: 64,325
Skilled workers: 55,521
Other workers: 8,804
Employment fourth total: 354
Employment fifth total: 24,629
TOTAL: 107,479
GRAND TOTAL: 4,367,052
Immigrant Waiting List by Country
Immigrant visa issuances during fiscal year 2017 will be limited to no more than 226,000 in the family-sponsored preferences and 140,000 in the employment-based preferences. (Visas for immediate relatives, i.e. spouses, unmarried children under the age of 21 years, and parents of U.S. citizens are not subject to numerical limitation, however.)
The 12 countries with the highest number of waiting list registrants in fiscal year 2017 are listed below. Together these represent 78% of the total. This list includes all countries with at least 50,000 persons on the waiting list. There is a seven-person per-country limit, which visa issuances to any single country may not exceed. This limit serves to avoid potential monopolization of virtually all the annual limitation by applicants from only a few countries. That limitation is not a quota to which any particular country is entitled, however. For fiscal year 2017 the per-country limit will be 25,260.
Country & number of applicants
Mexico: 1,309,282
Philippines: 387,323
India: 331,423
Vietnam: 266,297
China-mainland born: 252,497
Dominican Republic: 199,055
Bangladesh: 179,504
Pakistan: 127,768
Haiti: 115,580
Cuba: 106,351
El Salvador: 78,947
Jamaica: 54,398
All others: 958,627
WORLDWIDE TOTAL: 4,367,052
Family-sponsored Immigrant Waiting List by Country
The 10 countries with the highest number of family-sponsored waiting list registrants are listed below; together these represent 74.8% of the total. This list includes all countries with at least 106,000 persons on the waiting list. (The per-country limit in sets an annual maximum on the amount of Family preference visas which may be issued to applicants from any one country; the fiscal year 2017 per-country limit will be 15,820.)
Family-sponsored Preferences
Country & Total
Mexico: 1,308,000
Philippines: 362,233
India: 299,121
Vietnam: 265,496
China-mainland born: 221,665
Dominican Republic: 198,993
Bangladesh: 179,434
Pakistan: 127,386
Haiti: 115,563
Cuba: 106,347
All Others: 1,075,335
WORLDWIDE TOTAL: 4,259,573
Employment-based Immigrant Waiting List by Country
The five countries with the highest number of employment-based waiting list registrants are listed below; together these represent 87.5% of the total. This list includes all countries with at least 1,200 persons on the waiting list. (The per-country limit in INA 202 sets an annual maximum on the amount of employment preference visas which may be issued to applicants from any one country; the FY 2017 per-country limit will be 9,800.)
Employment-based Preferences
Country & Total
India: 32,302
China-mainland born: 30,832
Philippines: 25,090
Korea, South: 4,501
Mexico: 1,282
All Others: 13,472
WORLDWIDE TOTAL: 107,479
To read the full 15-page list, please click here.
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