July 2026 Visa Bulletin: India's EB-2 Is Now Unavailable. EB-5 Reserved Categories Remain Untouched.

The pattern that has been building since May has reached a new threshold in July. India's EB-2 category is no longer just retrogressed, it is now officially unavailable for the remainder of fiscal year 2026. No new applications in that category can be filed or approved until October 1 at the earliest. And for the third consecutive month, USCIS has confirmed it will use the Final Action Dates chart only. Chart B (Dates For Filing) remains unavailable again in July.

For EB-5 reserved category investors, the bulletin changes nothing. Rural, High Unemployment, and Infrastructure remain current for every country worldwide, exactly where they have been all fiscal year.

Final Action Dates: July 2026

Source: U.S. Department of State, July 2026 Bulletin

Unreserved EB-5

• All Other Countries: Current

• China: Advanced 2 months to December 1, 2016

• India: Unavailable through September 30, 2026

Reserved Categories (Rural, High Unemployment, Infrastructure)

• All Current for every country

Updated Final Action Dates for Pending EB-2 and EB-3 (India):

EB-1 Final Action Date Movement:

• Month/Month: Retrogressed 2 months (December 2022 to October 2022)

• Trailing 12 Months: Advanced 8 months (February 2022 to October 2022)

EB-2 Final Action Date Movement:

• Now Unavailable, no filings or approvals until FY2027

EB-3 Final Action Date Movement:

• Month/Month: Advanced 1 month (December 2013 to January 2014)

• Trailing 12 Months: Advanced 9 Months (April 2013 to January 2014)

Dates for Filing: July 2026

No movement from June across any EB category or country of chargeability. The Dates for Filing chart remains unchanged but with USCIS designating Chart A as the operative chart for July, it is Chart B that matters less each month.

What "Unavailable" Actually Means

Retrogression means a category's Final Action Date has moved backward. Unavailable means the annual visa limit for that country and category has been exhausted entirely, and no applications can be filed or approved until the fiscal year resets on October 1.

India's EB-2 category reached that threshold in July. This follows the same pattern as India's EB-5 unreserved category, which became unavailable in June after its per-country limit was exhausted on June 5th. India has now hit per-country limits in both EB-2 and EB-5 unreserved within the same fiscal year, which signals the scale of demand from Indian nationals across employment-based categories.

The State Department has noted that when FY2027 begins on October 1, the EB-2 India Final Action Date is likely to advance to at least where it stood in the May 2026 bulletin. But that is a projection, not a guarantee, and the actual date will depend on demand from Indian applicants and the FY2027 annual employment-based visa limit.

India's EB-5 Unreserved Category Confirms What June Started

July also confirms what June signaled: India's EB-5 Unreserved category is officially listed as Unavailable through September 30, 2026. This is consistent with the State Department's announcement on June 5 that India had exhausted its per-country limit in the EB-5 unreserved category for FY2026.

For Indian nationals, the July bulletin presents a clear picture across all major employment-based categories. EB-1 is retrogressed. EB-2 is unavailable. EB-5 unreserved is unavailable. The only employment-based immigration pathway that remains fully open and current for Indian nationals — without retrogression, without a warning, without an unavailability designation — is reserved EB-5.

That is not a coincidence or a marketing point. It is what the July bulletin actually shows.

EB-5 Reserved Categories Remain The Strongest Path

While the rest of the July bulletin tells a story of retrogression and unavailability, EB-5 reserved categories tell a different one entirely. Rural, High Unemployment, and Infrastructure set-asides remain current for every country worldwide, including India and China, exactly as they have been since the start of FY2026. No retrogression. No unavailability. No warning language specific to reserved categories.

In a bulletin where India's EB-2 is unavailable, India's EB-5 unreserved is unavailable, and India's EB-1 has retrogressed for the second consecutive month, the reserved EB-5 categories stand as the only employment-based pathway that has remained completely stable and open to Indian nationals throughout the entire fiscal year. That stability reflects the structural separation of reserved visa allocations from the per-country cap dynamics that have systematically closed other pathways. For Indian nationals still evaluating their options with fewer than three months until the September 30 grandfathering deadline, the July bulletin makes that choice about as clear as a visa bulletin can.

Why September 30 Matters More Now Than It Did a Month Ago

The combination of India EB-2 unavailability, India EB-5 unreserved unavailability, and three consecutive months of Chart A only paints a picture of an employment-based immigration landscape under sustained and increasing pressure as the fiscal year closes.

For EB-5 investors who have been following these bulletins and watching the window narrow month by month, July confirms and accelerates the one that has been developing since October 2025. The reserved categories that have remained stable throughout are the ones that continue to offer current, unimpeded availability. The categories that carried warnings in prior months have now, in many cases, progressed from warnings to retrogression to unavailability.

September 30 is now fewer than three months away. Grandfathering protections for petitions filed before that date remain in place. Investment minimums remain at $800,000 for TEA projects through at least December 2026. Reserved categories remain current.

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