Good news for Indian Green Card applicants: EB-2 line moves forward 11 months; immigration attorney explains why this happened

The March 2026 visa bulletin brings good news for Indian Green Card applicants as the EB-2 category sees a forward movement by 11 months and the EB-1 by four months in the latest visa update. In the EB-1 category, China and India advance by four months to December 1, 2023. In the EB-2 category, all countries become current except India and China. While India moves 11 months to November 1, 2014, China is at January 1, 2022.

Immigration attorney Rahul Reddy called the forward movement an "abrupt and unexpected shift" and said for many, this movement is not just an incremental progress but a door opening that few believed would open so quickly.

'Something meaningful changed behind the scenes'

Reddy said that the forward movement makes it clear that the system is now acknowledging that the backlog had been unreasonable. "The sentiment is clear: This is not just date movement; this is the system acknowledging that the backlog has been stretched beyond reason. Filing dates do not move nearly a year forward unless USCIS and the Department of State see real visa number availability. This movement signals that something meaningful has changed behind the scenes," he said.

"An eleven-month jump in filing dates does not occur in isolation. It reflects structural realities built into US immigration law. When family-based immigrant visas go unused in a fiscal year, those numbers automatically spill over into the employment-based system. In recent years, family-based visa issuance has consistently fallen short due to consular backlogs and processing delays abroad. Those unused numbers do not vanish; they are redirected. When that happens, EB-2 India—because of the sheer size of its backlog—is often the first category to show visible movement. Simply put, “When extra visa numbers appear, India feels the impact first," Reddy explained.