United States · Visa Bulletin
October 2026 Visa Bulletin: what the State Department actually said, and what is forecast
The October 2026 Visa Bulletin is not published yet. The July bulletin said an October advance was likely for EB-2 India and EB-5 unreserved India, and named the months whose dates it would reach; it also made both statements conditional on demand and the FY 2027 limit. Here are those exact dates, the conditions attached, why October 1 resets the numbers, and where the widely shared October 2026 Visa Bulletin predictions stop being official.
Published .
Reported and checked by Walter Armani. Last checked August 20, 2026. Research and verification follow the QueueCheck editorial standards. How we verify information
Two commitments, and a lot of modelling
Most October coverage is forecasting. Two things are not, and both come from the July 2026 bulletin rather than a later one. It said it is likely that in October the EB-2 India final action date will advance to at least the date announced in the May 2026 bulletin, and that EB-5 unreserved India will likely reach at least the June 2026 level. Those months are on this site, so the dates behind the statements can be read rather than guessed: May 2026 put EB-2 India at July 15, 2014, and June 2026 put EB-5 unreserved India at May 1, 2022. Read the rest of each sentence too, because the Department attached two conditions to both: demand from Indian applicants, and the FY 2027 annual limit. Everything else circulating about October, including the EB-3 worldwide numbers people are sharing, is a forecast.
Who is watching the fiscal-year reset
Employment-based applicants watching for the fiscal-year reset, EB-2 and EB-5 applicants chargeable to India whose categories are currently unavailable, EB-3 worldwide applicants reading forecasts of a large jump, and anyone searching October 2026 Visa Bulletin predictions who wants the official part separated from the modelling.
What the August bulletin says about October
- The October 2026 Visa Bulletin was not published as of August 22, 2026. October bulletins are usually posted in the first half of September. The September bulletin has since been published and is transcribed on this site.
- September's published charts are the last read on Fiscal Year 2026 demand before the reset. Employment-based final action dates barely moved from August: EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, other workers and EB-5 unreserved all held exactly, and only EB-4 and certain religious workers advanced, from October 15 to December 15, 2022.
- The September bulletin adds a warning August did not carry. Alongside its notes on EB-1 India and EB-2, a new section states that demand in the EB-5 unreserved category may require retrogressing its final action date or making it unavailable before the fiscal year ends.
- The July 2026 bulletin, not August's, is where the October expectation comes from. Its section F says of EB-2 India that it is likely that in October the final action date will advance to at least the final action date announced in the May 2026 Visa Bulletin, and its section I says the same of EB-5 unreserved India against the June 2026 bulletin.
- Both sentences carry their own condition in the same breath: the date is dependent on the demand for those numbers by Indian applicants and on the FY 2027 annual limit on employment-based preference visas. That is a stated likelihood with two named dependencies, not a commitment.
- Neither the August nor the September bulletin repeats either statement. The most recent published document says nothing at all about October.
- Read against QueueCheck's transcriptions of those months, the May 2026 EB-2 India final action date was July 15, 2014, and the June 2026 EB-5 unreserved India date was May 1, 2022.
- October 1, 2026 begins Fiscal Year 2027, when annual employment-based limits reset. Numbers unused in Fiscal Year 2026 do not carry into an applicant's favour after September 30.
- Fiscal Year 2026 carried an employment-based limit of about 186,000 rather than the 140,000 statutory floor, because roughly 46,000 unused family-sponsored numbers fell across, which is the mechanism people expect to repeat.
- The August bulletin carries two warnings of its own. High demand and number use chargeable to India in EB-1 may necessitate making that category unavailable in the coming weeks if India's pro-rated limit is reached before the fiscal year ends, and demand in EB-2 may make it necessary to retrogress the final action date or make the category unavailable to hold number use within the FY 2026 annual limit.
How a cutoff is actually set
Final action dates are set by comparing available numbers against documentarily qualified demand reported to the Department, not by dividing a quota. A category can advance slowly despite plentiful numbers if previously unreported demand appears.
Unavailable, printed as U, means no numbers may be allocated in that category and chargeability area. It is not a refusal, and a pending case stays pending.
A per-country ceiling of seven percent applies within the annual limit, which is why India and China move differently from the rest of the world even in a generous year.
The Visa Bulletin publishes two charts each month, and USCIS separately announces which one adjustment applicants may use. Both announcements are needed before a filing decision.
August 2026 final action dates, and the two things the Department said about October
August 2026 bulletin transcribed from the published document; September 2026 published and transcribed since; October bulletin unpublished as of August 22, 2026
Every figure in this table is transcribed from a published Visa Bulletin. The October column records only what the Department itself has said, which is why most rows are blank there. Forecasts are discussed in the text and deliberately kept out of this table.
EB-2 India, October floor
15 Jul 2014
The May 2026 date the July bulletin refers back to.
EB-5 unreserved India, October floor
1 May 2022
The June 2026 level the July bulletin refers back to.
FY 2026 employment limit
about 186,000
Against a 140,000 statutory floor, after roughly 46,000 unused family numbers fell across.
Fiscal year rollover
1 Oct 2026
FY 2027 numbers become available; FY 2026 numbers expire on September 30.
| Category | August 2026 final action | What the Department said about October |
|---|---|---|
| EB-2 India | Unavailable | Likely at least the May 2026 date, which was July 15, 2014, subject to demand and the FY 2027 limit |
| EB-5 unreserved India | Unavailable | Likely at least the June 2026 level, which was May 1, 2022, on the same two conditions |
| EB-1 India | October 15, 2022 | Nothing stated; the bulletin warns demand may force retrogression |
| EB-3 worldwide and Mexico | September 1, 2024 | Nothing stated |
| EB-3 China | January 1, 2022 | Nothing stated |
| EB-3 India | January 1, 2014 | Nothing stated |
| EB-3 Philippines | August 1, 2023 | Nothing stated |
| EB-3 other workers, worldwide | April 1, 2022 | Nothing stated |
| EB-2 worldwide | Current | Nothing stated |
Which rows carry a commitment
- Two rows carry a statement from the Department about October. Every other row is blank there, and any figure you see filled into those blanks elsewhere is somebody's model.
- Both figures are floors, phrased as at least, so they set a minimum rather than a target. Both are also hedged as likely and made conditional on demand and on the FY 2027 annual limit, in the same sentence that states them.
- The reserved EB-5 rural and high-unemployment categories stayed current while unreserved India went unavailable, which is the distinction that decided who was affected.
The bulletin, the limits table, and the chart page
- Department of State Visa Bulletin for August 2026, employment-based final action dates
- Department of State Visa Bulletin for July 2026, sections F and I on October availability
- QueueCheck transcriptions of the May 2026 and June 2026 bulletins
Where the record stops and the models start
- Transcribed from published bulletins rather than trackers.
- QueueCheck enters a bulletin month only from the Department's own published document.
October 2026 Visa Bulletin questions, answered
When will the October 2026 Visa Bulletin be released?
There is no fixed publication date. Bulletins usually appear in the middle-to-late part of the preceding month, which puts October's in the first half of September. As of August 22, 2026 the October bulletin had not been published. September's has been, and its charts are on this site.
Will EB-2 India become available again in October?
The July 2026 bulletin said it is likely that in October the final action date will advance to at least the final action date announced in the May 2026 bulletin, and that date was July 15, 2014. Read the whole sentence, though: the same sentence makes it dependent on demand from Indian applicants and on the FY 2027 annual limit. It is a stated likelihood with a floor attached, not a promise, and neither the August nor the September bulletin restates it.
How far will EB-3 worldwide jump in October?
Nobody outside the Department knows, and the Department has said nothing about EB-3 for October. Forecasters expect movement from the August date of September 1, 2024 into late 2024 or early 2025, with more optimistic models going further, but those are private projections that disagree with each other.
Does a bigger annual limit mean my date moves further?
Not proportionally. Cutoffs are set against demand that is documentarily qualified and visible to the Department, so extra numbers reach a category only after the demand ahead of it is met. Categories with heavy pending demand can absorb a large share before anything reaches the rest.
What the floors mean per category
For EB-2 India applicants with a priority date before July 15, 2014, the bulletin's own language is the strongest signal available that October restores a usable date, though a stated expectation is not a published chart and the figure is a floor rather than a target.
For EB-5 unreserved India, the same applies at May 1, 2022, and the reserved rural and high-unemployment set-asides have stayed current throughout, which is why some investors were unaffected by the unreserved category going unavailable.
For EB-3 worldwide applicants, the honest position is that a larger annual limit makes forward movement more likely without fixing its size. Extra numbers reach a category only after demand ahead of it is satisfied, and EB-1 and EB-2 demand chargeable to India and China is capable of absorbing a large share.
For everyone, September was the month that actually tested these expectations, and its answer was a flat one. Every employment-based final action date except EB-4 held exactly where August left it, which is what a fiscal year running out of numbers looks like rather than a sign of what October will do.
Before October, and what September tells you first
- Read September's published charts before drawing conclusions about October: they show the fiscal year ending with almost no employment-based movement, which sets the baseline October has to move from.
- If your category is currently unavailable, keep the file complete and documentarily qualified; the constraint is number availability, and a case that is not ready cannot use a number when one exists.
- Treat any October figure published before the Department posts the bulletin as a forecast, including tables that look authoritative, and check whether the publisher is quoting the bulletin or its own model.
- Check the USCIS chart announcement for October alongside the bulletin itself, since the chart selection decides whether an adjustment filing is possible that month.
Why a bigger pool is not a bigger jump
Forecasters currently expect EB-3 worldwide to move into late 2024 or early 2025 from its August position of September 1, 2024, with more optimistic models reaching further into 2025, and modest movement elsewhere. Those are projections from private models and law-firm commentary rather than statements by the Department, they disagree with each other about magnitude, and QueueCheck records them here without adopting any of them.
The structural argument behind the optimism is real: an immigrant visa issuance pause affecting nationals of 75 countries, effective January 21, 2026, means applications and interviews continue while visas generally are not issued, which plausibly leaves family-sponsored numbers unused and available to fall across to employment-based categories in Fiscal Year 2027. How large that carryover is has not been published, and estimates circulating online describe their own confidence as low.
The reason a bigger pool does not translate into a proportional date jump is worth holding onto. Numbers move a cutoff only as far as the demand behind it allows, and the Department adjusts cutoffs when demand it could not previously see becomes visible. That is the same mechanism that produced this year's retrogressions.
The figures nobody has published yet
- No October figures exist in this record because none have been published. The dates given here are the May 2026 and June 2026 figures the July bulletin refers back to, transcribed from those published bulletins.
- The Fiscal Year 2027 annual limit had not been published at the time of writing, so the size of any family-to-employment carryover is unknown, and the estimates in circulation are models rather than measurements.
- The Department's statements for EB-2 and EB-5 India are hedged likelihoods with named dependencies, expressed as floors. A published chart can differ, and the same bulletin warns that retrogression may be necessary in other categories.
- Filing strategy around a fiscal-year reset is a case-specific legal question and belongs with counsel rather than a news page.
- Correction, August 21, 2026: an earlier version of this record said the August bulletin flagged EB-2 China and EB-3 Philippines alongside EB-1 India. The August document does not; its warnings cover EB-1 India and the EB-2 category generally.
- Correction, August 22, 2026: with the July and August documents both in hand, the misattribution above is now fully traced. Those EB-2 China and EB-3 Philippines warnings are real text, and they are sections G and H of the JULY 2026 bulletin. The error was never invention, it was attributing July's notes to August.
- Correction, August 22, 2026: the same misattribution ran through this record's central claim. The October expectations for EB-2 India and EB-5 unreserved India are sections F and I of the July 2026 bulletin, not anything in August's. The July text also hedges them as likely and makes them dependent on demand and on the FY 2027 annual limit, where this record had described them as commitments. The title, the summary, the table and the questions above have all been rewritten to follow the document, and July's notes are now transcribed on this site so the sentences can be read in full.
- Update, August 22, 2026: the September 2026 bulletin has been published and transcribed here. It carries no forward-looking statement about Fiscal Year 2027 at all, so the October floors described above rest on the earlier bulletin that stated them and are not restated in the most recent document.
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Official citation
Published August 20, 2026. Original source: U.S. Department of State: Visa Bulletin for August 2026.
- Also checked: U.S. Department of State: annual numerical limits, FY 2026.
- Also checked: U.S. Department of State: the Visa Bulletin index.
- Also checked: USCIS: adjustment of status filing charts.