The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has published the December 2022 bulletin which reflects an increased demand across multiple categories. As warned in last month’s bulletin, the December bulletin implements a world-wide cut-off for the EB-2 category.

DOS also warns in its December bulletin that due to increased demand and number use in the EB-1 category, combined with decreased visa number availability for FY-2023 in comparison to FY-2022, we may see the establishment of final action date and application date cut-offs for China and India in the coming months.

USCIS has announced that it will use the Date for Filing chart in December 2022. Within the EB-2 category, except for China and India, all countries are subject to a final action date of Nov. 1, 2022 and an application filing date of Dec. 1, 2022. EB-2 India faces a retrogression in its final action date with a cut-off of Oct. 8, 2011 and the final action date for EB-2 China remains the same as last month with a cut-off of June 8, 2019.

EB-3 final action dates and application filing dates remain current on both final action and application filing date charts for all countries except China and India, which face cut-off dates in 2018 and 2012 respectively.

EB-5 dates remain current on both charts for all classifications, with the exception of Indian- and Mainland-Chinese-born nationals associated with unreserved classifications including C5, T5, I5, and R5. These nationals face the same dates in December as those included on the November bulletin. Specifically, the application dates for Indian-born nationals in this classification is Dec. 8, 2019, while the final action date remains at Nov. 8, 2019. Mainland-Chinese-born nationals in this classification continue to face an application date of Jan. 1, 2016, while the final action date remains at March 22, 2015.

The December bulletin also identifies that preliminary consolidated number use by DOS and USCIS for all of FY-2022 shows there were approximately 57,000 unused family-sponsored visa numbers. Thus the estimated employment-based annual limit will be for FY-2023 will be 197,000.