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179-year wait for Green Card? Why nearly 1 million Indians are trapped in an immigration queue with no quick exit
In 2026, Indian professionals could endure a 179-year wait for US green cards in the EB-2 category, according to an analysis.
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An Indian professional entering the US employment-based green card queue in 2026 could face a potential 179-year wait in the EB-2 category, according to a new analysis, underscoring the scale of a backlog that has left nearly one million Indians waiting for permanent residence in the United States.
The estimate comes from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), which found that Indians account for about 79% of the estimated 1.26 million people waiting across the EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based green card categories. The analysis is based on the backlog as of December 2025 and current visa availability.
For an Indian national whose employment-based petition or labor certification application was filed in January 2026 or later, the potential wait could stretch to 179 years in EB-2 and 38 years in EB-3, according to the NFAP analysis.
The estimates are not guarantees of an individual's actual wait time and could change with visa availability, people leaving the queue or changes in US immigration law.
Nearly one million Indians in the queue
NFAP estimated that nearly one million Indians were waiting in the first three employment-based preference categories at the end of 2025.
The largest share was in EB-2, the category generally used by professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability, where the Indian backlog stood at an estimated 731,566 people. Another 213,414 Indians were waiting in EB-3, which covers professionals, skilled workers and other workers. The EB-1 backlog was estimated at 51,619.
The broader employment-based backlog across EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 reached an estimated 1,264,495 people, meaning Indian applicants accounted for nearly four out of every five people waiting in those categories.
Why is the wait so long?
The backlog is driven largely by limits built into US immigration law.
The employment-based immigration system has an annual limit of 140,000 immigrant visas, a figure set by Congress in 1990. That cap includes both the principal applicant and eligible family members, meaning spouses and children also use visa numbers.
A second constraint is the 7% per-country cap, which limits the share of employment-based immigrant visas available to nationals of any one country. For India, which has a large number of highly skilled professionals seeking permanent residence in the US, the cap has contributed to a queue that stretches far beyond those faced by applicants from many other countries.
The problem has persisted even as the US issued additional employment-based green cards in recent years. According to the NFAP analysis, about 980,460 employment-based green cards were issued between fiscal 2020 and 2024, roughly 280,000 more than the normal five-year allocation of 700,000. Those additional visa numbers were not enough to clear the accumulated backlog.
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What this means for Indian professionals
Many Indian nationals caught in the queue are already living and working in the US, often on H-1B visas, while waiting for their priority dates to become current.
The wait can begin even before an applicant formally enters the immigrant visa queue. NFAP noted that labor certification, required for many employment-based immigrants, can itself take years. As of August 2026, the analysis cited Department of Labor figures showing average PERM processing times of 403 days for analyst review and 290 days for audit review.
NFAP executive director Stuart Anderson said the lengthy waits create hardships for applicants and their families while also affecting the ability of US companies to attract and retain skilled workers.
Without changes to immigration law, NFAP projects that the employment-based backlog could grow beyond 2 million by 2040.
