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Bulletin

U.S. Visa Bulletin explained

Plain-language guide to reading the monthly Visa Bulletin: Final Action Dates vs Dates for Filing, family vs employment charts, and why Entryora never hosts live cut-off dates.

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Notice No live cut-off dates here · not a determination that your priority date is current · check the official Visa Bulletin and USCIS guidance

What the Visa Bulletin is

Each month the U.S. Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin. It shows which immigrant visa priority dates are “current” for family-sponsored and employment-based preference categories (plus other charts such as certain diversity visa notes). It is about immigrant visa number availability — not tourist visas, ESTA, or nonimmigrant interview wait times.

Priority dates in one sentence

Your priority date is usually the date USCIS received a qualifying petition (or another date the rules define for your category). In preference categories you generally cannot receive an immigrant visa or adjust status until your priority date is current under the chart that applies to you that month.

Final Action Dates vs Dates for Filing

Most bulletins have two family charts and two employment charts. Final Action Dates (often Chart A) are when a visa can normally be issued or adjustment approved if everything else is ready. Dates for Filing (often Chart B) can let some applicants submit documents or file adjustment earlier when USCIS says Chart B may be used that month. Always read the bulletin’s own instructions and the USCIS “when to file” page for the same month — Entryora does not tell you which chart applies to your case.

Family-sponsored vs employment-based

  • Family charts cover preference categories such as F1–F4 (and note that immediate relatives are often treated differently and may not wait on the same preference cut-offs).
  • Employment charts cover preference categories such as EB-1 through EB-5 (and related notes in the bulletin).
  • Your category letter/number on the petition must match the row you read. Country of chargeability (often place of birth) can matter when a country is oversubscribed.
  • “C” (current) means the category is open for that chart and chargeability in that month — still confirm on the official bulletin PDF/HTML.

How to read a row (without live dates here)

  • Open the current official Visa Bulletin on travel.state.gov (link below).
  • Find the correct table: family or employment, and Final Action vs Dates for Filing.
  • Find your preference category row and your country of chargeability column (or “All Chargeability Areas Except…” plus any listed countries).
  • Compare that cut-off date to your priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the cut-off (or the cell is current), the bulletin is saying numbers are available under that chart — not that your case is approved.

Live dates — limitation

Entryora does not scrape, mirror, or invent monthly cut-off dates. Tables go stale within weeks. We explain how the bulletin works and deep-link to the Department of State’s current publication. For whether your date is current this month, check the official bulletin and USCIS filing guidance only.

What Entryora will not do

  • We do not republish monthly cut-off dates
  • We do not calculate whether your priority date is current for your case
  • We do not replace a lawyer or accredited representative for immigrant petitions
  • We always point you to travel.state.gov for the current bulletin

Family and employment starter guides explain petition types at a high level. USCIS processing times for forms are separate from Visa Bulletin cut-offs. For short visits, see the ESTA / VWP helper instead — the bulletin does not control tourist entry.

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