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Will EB2 India reach July 2015 in Oct 2026?

The chances of EB2 India reaching July 2015 are 50%.

There is a spillover of about 50k expected from family based green cards to employment based ones in Oct 2026 but this is not guaranteed. The spillover may happen due to the Trump gov’s ban on immigrant visa issuance on several countries.

If the spillover happens, the dates for both EB2 and EB3 India will move forward by about 3 months each.

Our estimation is that they might move the DOF (Date of filing) chart to 1 Apr 2015 in Oct 2026 bulletin.

• Note that spillover is distributed among all EB 1-5 categories equally. Hence, if 50k is available, then each one of them will get about 10k extra green cards.
• Eb2 and EB3 combined will get about 20k and then India may not only get 50% of this 20k. This is because ROW (rest of world) also consumes the green cards.

Predictions for 2026-2027

Stay positive and hope for the best.

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You can also estimate dates based on your priority date.

If you have already filed your i485 but have not submitted the medicals, we strongly recommend interfiling the i693 form and improving your chances of getting a Green card earlier than others in the queue.

This app uses publicly available i140 data from USCIS and then mimics the per-month visa allocation based on various factors.

The employment spillovers happen in this order:

1. EB4 and EB5 extra green cards are given to EB1.
2. EB1’s unused GC numbers are given to EB2 ROW (The rest of the world).
3. EB2’s ROW is shared horizontally with backlogged countries like India and China. The most backlogged country gets the most GCs as per the best understanding.
4. EB3 ROW is supposed to get unused GC from EB2 which is almost impossible since EB2 India and China have huge backlogs.
5. EB3 does not spill over to anyone as per our understanding.

In a nutshell, this is the funnel for spillovers within employment-based categories:

• Unused EB4+EB5 ->
• EB1 ROW ->
• Unused EB1 ->
• EB2 ROW ->
• EB2 Backlogged (most backlogged first) ->
• EB3 ROW ->
• EB3 Backlogged (most backlogged first)

If you want to understand how this whole setup works, head over to the HappySchools blog which has explained spillover sharing details within EB categories in a really simple way.

Estimate My Green Card Date

You can estimate your green card date based on the same AI algorithm that we use for predicting visa bulletins.

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1. Visit the My Green Card Estimate App here.
2. Enter your country of birth and employment-based GC category. You can leave the options as default.
3. Click the ‘Estimate My GC Date‘ button and see the visa bulletin that may get you the Green card.

This is what the estimated values look like.

This will help you decide on filing EB2 to EB3 downgrade and collecting documents for filing i485 if you have a good chance of getting current soon.

You should be ready to file I-485 documents if the dates move forward quickly as the window might not stay open for long.

How to Get a Green Card Fast?

Unless the US Immigration law is changed, to remove country-based GC limits with a law like S386, there is no real possibility of any Indian joining the EB2 Green card queue, to get a Green card in his/her lifetime.

#1 US Citizen Child Sponsor

To circumvent this 150-year wait, your Adult US citizen child can sponsor you once he/she turns 21.

This will give you a Green card immediately as there is neither any yearly limit nor any priority date waiting for immediate relatives of US citizens.

#2 EB5 Filing

If you have the money, you should file the green card using the EB5 investor route.

The dates are current for Indians in EB5 rural and high employment (HUA) reserved categories. Filing the EB5 with 800k investment in rural or HUA will make you eligible for EAD, AP immediately and will also help lock your child’s age.