All available immigrant visas in the Employment-Based First Preference, Second Preference and Third Preference categories and the Other Workers (EW) subcategory for fiscal year (FY) 2025 have been issued.
US immigration laws provides foreigners holding employment-based immigrant visas such as EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 to become lawful permanent residents or green card holders in America.
The State Department, working in close collaboration with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has announced that issued all available immigrant visas in the EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 and EW categories have been issued for the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2025.
Employment-based Immigrant Visas
The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2026) on October 1, 2025. From October 1, 2025, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in these categories to qualified applicants.
First-preference category visas are for foreigners with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. The Second preference visa is for professionals holding advanced degrees. The EB-3 visa is for a skilled worker, professional, or other worker.
Maximum Limits
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) limits the number of employment-based preference immigrant visas that may be issued within a fiscal year.
Specifically, INA provides that the annual limit for EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 visas is 28.6 percent of the worldwide employment limit, of which up to 10,000 may be used for EW visas.
The worldwide annual employment-based preference immigrant quota is 150,037.
The fiscal year 2025 limit for family-sponsored preference immigrants determined in accordance with Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is 226,000.
The per-country limit for preference immigrants is set at 7% of the total annual family-sponsored and employment-based preference limits, i.e., 25,620. The dependent area limit is set at 2%, or 7,521.
With the carryover visa numbers included, the per-country limit is 26,862 and the dependent area limit is 7,675.
Since all available EB-3 and EW visas for FY 2025 have been used, embassies and consulates will not issue visas in these categories for the remainder of the fiscal year.