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USCIS visa bulletin August 2025 brings major relief for Indian applicants | All updates explained
The August 2025 Visa Bulletin reveals changes in employment-based immigrant visa availability, including EB-3 and EB-2 categories.
The US Department of State (USCIS) has released the August 2025 Visa Bulletin, with updates to the availability of employment-based immigrant visas, including slight shifts in the Final Action Dates that determine when green card applications can be approved.
USCIS will continue to use the Final Action Dates chart to decide who can proceed with Adjustment of Status (AOS) applications as usual. Now, in order for a green card to be approved, an applicant’s priority date must be earlier than the date listed in this chart for their category and country of chargeability.
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While many categories remain unchanged from the July 2025 bulletin, there are two updates:
EB-3 India has advanced slightly, moving from 22 April 2013, to 22 May 2013.
EB-2 for the Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines has retrogressed from 15 October 2023 to 1 September 2023.
EB-1 remains ‘Current’ for most countries, meaning applicants from the Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines can proceed with green card processing regardless of priority date. However, EB-1 India remains stuck at 15 February 2022, and China at 15 November 2022.
For the EB-2 category:
India holds steady at 1 January 2013.
China stays at 15 December 2020.
The Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines all now share the retrogressed date of 1 September 2023.
For the EB-3 category:
The Rest of the World and Mexico remain at 1 April 2023.
The Philippines continues on 8 February 2023.
China stays at 1 December 2020.
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No changes from the July bulletin were made to the Dates for Filing chart, which is used to determine when applicants can submit their AOS applications.
