EB-2 India Is Unavailable Until October. Here's What It Means for Your Workforce Plan.

In the September 2026 Visa Bulletin, EB-2 India is marked "U." Unavailable. Not backlogged: unavailable.

India's pro-rated EB-2 limit was reached and the category has been closed for the remainder of FY2026. No adjustment applications can be filed or approved in the category this month. EB-5 unreserved for India is in the same position, exhausted as of June 5.

Annual limits reset October 1, 2026. But a fiscal-year reset does not fix a structural backlog, and the State Department has already warned that unreserved demand may force retrogression or unavailability again before FY2027 is out.

The year that reversed

FY2026 was two different years for employment-based immigration.

Through spring, movement was expansionary. EB-2 Worldwide advanced from December 2023 to Current by April 2026 and stayed there. EB-3 Worldwide moved roughly seventeen months. EB-1 India advanced about fourteen months, reaching parity with China.

Then it turned. EB-1 India retrogressed in June (April 2023 back to December 2022) and again in July, to October 15, 2022. Net of where it started the fiscal year, EB-1 India lost about five and a half months. EB-2 India, after advancing to July 2014 in April, retrogressed to September 2013 in June and went unavailable in July.

China moved modestly and steadily. EB-2 China has sat at September 1, 2021 for nine consecutive months. Dates for Filing for India froze in April and have not moved since.

The rule change most employers missed

Since June 2026, USCIS has required use of the Final Action Dates chart for employment-based adjustment filings, reversing prior use of Dates for Filing.

This is not a technicality. It is why EB-2 India applicants cannot file this month even though the Dates for Filing chart shows a January 15, 2015 cutoff. Under the prior practice, that chart would have governed and filings would be open. Under current practice, "U" in the Final Action column closes the door.

Anyone advising your employees from the Dates for Filing chart is giving them the wrong answer.

What this does to the downgrade calculus

EB-3 India remains open at a January 1, 2014 final action date, earlier than EB-2 India was even before it went unavailable.

That makes the EB-2-to-EB-3 downgrade live again for a significant population. The mechanics are familiar: file a second I-140 in EB-3 on the same approved PERM, retaining the original priority date, and pursue whichever category moves.

But the analysis has changed in one important respect. The downgrade is no longer a low-cost hedge. Since August 5, 2026, USCIS officers may deny a petition outright without first issuing a Request for Evidence, and the standard twelve-week RFE response period has been eliminated. A thin downgrade petition filed as a hedge can now produce a denial rather than a request. Build the second I-140 to be approvable on the record as filed.

PERM is where the real time goes

For anyone not yet in the queue, the front end is the constraint. As of DOL's late-August posting:

Roughly nine to ten months in analyst review, on top of three to five months for the prevailing wage determination, before recruitment is even complete. Call it eighteen months from decision to approved PERM in an ordinary case.

Volume is holding: 55,361 applications received in the first half of FY2026, essentially flat year over year, with 92.8% of determinations certified and 147,884 pending as of March 31.

One caution on a figure that is circulating incorrectly. DOL's pending-case breakdown shows "Audit 0.0%," and this is being repeated as a PERM audit rate. It is not. That figure is the share of the pending queue currently sitting in audit status, not the rate at which applications are selected for audit. DOL has not published a FY2026 audit selection rate. Do not plan against a zero.

The two things worth watching

Prevailing wages may rise substantially. DOL's proposed rule would move the four wage tiers from roughly the 17th, 34th, 50th and 67th percentiles to the 34th, 52nd, 70th and 88th, amending 20 C.F.R. § 656.40 for PERM and § 655.731 for H-1B. Comments closed May 26, 2026; no final rule has issued. If finalized, this raises the cost of every sponsored role and interacts directly with the wage-weighted H-1B lottery.

Schedule A remains exactly as it was in 2004. Despite a December 2023 request for information on modernization, 20 C.F.R. § 656.5 is unchanged: physical therapists, professional nurses, and aliens of exceptional ability in the sciences or arts. No rulemaking followed, and no Schedule A item appears on the current regulatory agenda. If your workforce plan assumed a Schedule A expansion for shortage occupations, it should not.

What to do

1. Reset expectations with your Indian national population now. EB-2 is closed this month; October brings partial relief, not resolution. Have this conversation before employees hear it elsewhere.
2. Advise from the Final Action Dates chart. Confirm which chart governs each month rather than assuming.
3. Re-run the EB-3 downgrade analysis for EB-2 India employees, and file the second I-140 as a fully documented petition, not a hedge.
4. Audit EAD renewal timing across every pending adjustment applicant. With automatic extensions eliminated and validity cut to eighteen months, a long queue now carries recurring work authorization risk. This is the most likely place your green card backlog becomes an operational problem.
5. Start PERM eighteen months before you need the approval, not twelve.
6. Model your sponsorship costs against the proposed wage increases, so a final rule is a budget update rather than a surprise.