Department of State March 2020 Visa Bulletin Summary

The Department of State has released the March 2020 Visa Bulletin. D&S provides a Monthly Summary of the employment-based priority dates. Today, February 19, 2020, USCIS advised that in March 2020, it will once again accept adjustment of status applications for both employment-based and family-based petitions based on the March Bulletin’s application filing dates, with the exception of F2A, which can rely on Final Actions dates to determine filing eligibility. In addition, USCIS has instructed that because Vietnam is not listed on the Dates for Filing chart, adjustment applicants from Vietnam should use the worldwide dates for determining filing eligibility.

With respect to Employment Based (EB) Final Action Dates, all EB-1 countries of chargeability, except India and China, will advance three months to March 1, 2019. EB-1 China will advance one week to June 1, 2017 and EB-1 India will advance 2 months to March 1, 2015. With the exception of India and China, all other EB-2 countries of chargeability remain current. EB-2 China will advance one month to August 15, 2015, and EB-2 India will advance by just three days to May 22, 2009. All EB-3 categories except India and China will have a priority date of January 1, 2017 imposed starting in March (all, with the exception of the Philippines, had been current prior to this). EB-3 China will advance 15 weeks to March 22, 2016, EB-3 India will advance one week to January 5, 2009.

EB-5 Non-Regional Center and EB-5 Regional Center Final Action Dates remain current with the exception of China, India and Vietnam. EB-5 China advanced 5.5 months to May 15, 2015, EB-5 India advanced just under two months to October 22, 2018, and EB-5 Vietnam advanced one month to January 15, 2017.

With respect to Application Filing Dates most categories remain unchanged with the exception of EB-5 China with progressed seven months to December 15, 2015.