US State Department Warns EB-1 Green Cards for Indians May Run Out

The United States Department of State warned that the EB-1 employment-based green card category for applicants born in India may become unavailable before the end of the American financial year on September 30. High demand and the exhaustion of the annual quota could force a temporary pause in approvals for priority workers, including multinational executives and outstanding researchers, until new visa numbers become available on October 1.

This potential shutdown follows similar unavailability in the EB-2 and unreserved EB-5 categories for Indian nationals. The crisis is driven by a legal per-country ceiling that limits any single nation to 7% of total annual visas, creating massive backlogs for Indian professionals.

An analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy highlights the severity of these delays, reporting that nearly 1 million Indians are in the employment-based backlog as of December 2025, representing 79 percent of the total stockpile. The think tank projects that an Indian applicant filing in January 2026 could wait 179 years for an EB-2 visa and 38 years for an EB-3 visa. These delays are attributed to a 140,000 annual cap set by the United States Congress in 1990, which treats India and China the same as much smaller nations.