When will I get my Green Card? - Green Card Calculator for EB category

If you ever wondered "When will I get my Green Card?", here is the 'Green Card' calculator for Employment- Based category. As per recent data released by USCIS on May 26th, 2011 on EB I-485 inventory this is a calculation that tells an individal how many I-485 applicants are there before them in the queue under their filed preference category. Beyond this, calculations are extended to predict how many years will it take an individual to receive a green card from current date (as per GMT).

Last Edited for October Inventory - December 29, 2011

Data beyond July 2007

Data beyond July 2007 is segregated from PERM data with respective to 'Priority Date'. To segregate EB2 and EB3, PWD minimum salary was used as a basis instead of assumption of 50:50. Ratio 50:50 do not holds true for many countries. Please see table below, which outlines PERM distribution for EB2 and EB3 for different countries.

Spillover Estimation - System will recommend spillover that we expect to receive in coming years for each country and category . EB2-India & China - PERM distribution for different priority date in EB2 - India and China was calculated. This distribution will control how spillover will be distributed among EB2-IC as dates will progress for different Priority Dates. System would try to average the Spillover among EB2-India and China in such a way that number of years required to reach similar PDs are as close as possible. For each fiscal year, system assumes following spillover.

In general distribution of EB2-IC PERM Ratio for different PD year is as shown below. In general, waiting time for Indian nationals in EB2 and EB3 category looks terrible. Since density of applicants per month in EB2-India is so high, that in long run EB2-China will not receive majority of spillover (couple hundred or few thousands). Since EB2 will not be cleared for atleast next 5-6 years, spillover expeccted to EB3 category is minimum. EB3-India will get some indirect- spillover each year due to EB3 to EB2 upgrades or porting which will cause queue to clear faster than anticipated. Individuals with PD close to 2004 -2006 will see ample benefit of this every year. Apparently, if EB2-I will stop receiving spillover or receive minimum spillover in coming years, wait time for EB3-India and EB2-India will end up same. If you will note EB3-India has only 102k estimated demand vs. 165k for EB2-India for PD - March 2011. This whole ordeal is very depressing and visa recapture bill is only hope for EB community.

In addition, you can also put an assumption for a spillover that your category and country would receive every year and see how this changes the scenario. Please see assumptions below. Please ensure that you enter "User ENTERED" value exactly as shown in table below.

I-140 Conversion Rate

 This data is solely taken from published data on website - http://www.immigrationwatch.com/uscis-processing-statistics.html ,and is just tabulated and presented here in different format. We have updated our green calculator to include I-140 conversion rate based on this data, Green Calculator, thus will not assume 100% I-140 approval rate for approved PERMs . This conversion rate is only used for calculation for any cut-off dates which are beyond July 2007.  For any priority date which is after or on October of the particular year, calculator will use the percentage approval rate value from the next year, thus assuming PERM approval time of 90 days.

Tabulated list below also considered volume of applications received at NSC and TSC in order to arrive at average I-140 and I-485 approval percentage, and succesively used those values to calculate 'rolling successive percentage'. Green Card calculator will use 'rolling successive average' to arrive at reduced number of applicants before your priority date to calculate estimated wait time. System will recommend I-140 conversion rate for each priority date.

I-140 conversion rate is also an 'USER ENTERED' entry where you can input values in 'Percentage' only. For e.g. If you will assume percentage as '75', entered value should be '0.75' or '75%'.



Multiple PERM Factor
This is still ongoing effort and we are still looking into estimating reduction in demand due to multiple PERMs owned by an indiviudal and his/her spouse. Based on the poll that we have on our website, double filings within a family looks significant factor to estimate demand beyond July 2007 PD. As per our current poll status there are only 220 real PERMs out of 329 filed PERM that will contrubite to demand. This is around factor of 65%.  

System will recommend 'Multiple PERM factor' based on your country and category. Multiple PERM factor is also an 'USER ENTERED' entry where you can input values in 'Percentage' only.

PWMB - PWMB is taken care of in green card calculator. In general PWMB number for a PD month is added to the current inventory for the successive PD month. For e.g. if PWMB for EB3-ROW with PD Sep -2005 is '50' , this number is added in PD Oct-2005 inventory. This is done because that demand will not be realised until specific PD will become current. Please click this to see post that refers PWMB for EB3 category.

For EB2-India and China, PWMB is added to the following inventory assuming PD in coming visa bulletin will move in increments as stated in table below.EW - (Others) - In addition to other category it will aslo calculate number for applicants for EW (Others) category. Due to complication in calculation it cannot estimate wait time as of now. We will update it going forward.
It is assumed that 7% of the total annual EB Visa Numbers (140,000) are allocated to each of the four retrogressed countries while the remaining 72% visa numbers are available to the Rest of the World. Visa numbers allotment for EB4 and EB5 are considered separately.

F.A.Q. - Why GC calculator is estimating more wait time compared to last one?
a) Our OLD calculator was predicting PERM distribution of 50:50 between EB2 and EB3, which is not true for most of the categories. This ratio has changed when analyzing as per PWD data. General trend is posted above.

b) Earlier annual PERM data was NOT distributed as per Priority Date but was simply divided among each month assuming equal applications number. This is not true. Number of applications for each category is increased for PD 2008 and PD 2009 due to recent approvals of audit cases. Data now is strictly divided as per Priority date (with error of +/- 5 days). For each PERM approval family size is assumed 2.25. There may be many individuals with late PD 2010-PD 2011 who are single but by the time they will get green card, annual family size may increase.

c) Wait time has tremendously increased due to addition of People Who Missed the Boat (PWMB) during July 2007 fiasco. These numbers are significant for each country and category. See our earlier post regarding PWMB. For example numbers considering dependents are for EB3-ROW is 13000, and for EB2-I is 9500. These data are added to respective inventory and number of application prior 2007 has increased.

Factors a), b) and c) are major reason for seeing this whole big difference. But now GC calculator is real representation of wait time for PDs post July 2007.

d) Post PD 2007, when calculating some of the PERM approvals, some of the porting application may be repeated but again as most of us think upgrade demand is small, it should not be large factor.

Total Visa Available Annually - We assume that entire annual limit is available to each category as per statutory limit, but this may not be true as some of the countries do end up getting more than 7% visas than annual limit and other's less. In such case user can input number of visas , a country and a category is receiving as per current trend. Calculator assumes annual limit but this field is User ENTERED.

Consular Processing demand (CP) - System automatically assumes CP demand for different country and category. Users can also assume this demand as '0' or enter specific percentage (%). This field is User ENTERED.

PD becoming 'CURRENT' and "Green Card in Hand" time - System calculates time from today when you can expect to become current. In addition to this you can input current USCIS processing time to estimate "Green Card in hand" time. In general it is recommended that if your I-485 case is pre-adjudicated assume 1 month and if new filing assume 4-8 months. This field is User ENTERED.

Green Card Calculator was also fixed to remove some of the demand that is prior to current priority cut-off dates from the released inventory. One bug in the spillover calculation was also as pointed by one user.

Note : This calculator is estimating wait time assuming DOS will not make dates current for any category (unlikely). These are on average generic wait time, and actual time may vary on case to case basis.

FOR EB2-India and China - Please enter TOTAL Spillover EB2-IC will receive. System recommends Total Spillover based on above spillover assumptions.



Note: To be able to use this feature you must be running "Excel 2003 or later and Internet Explorer" or "Excel 2010 and Firefox". Works better with Internet Explorer.

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