There Are 46,000 Additional Employment-Based Green Cards Available for FY 2026, State Department Reports

There are 46,000 additional employment-based Green Cards available for Fiscal Year 2026, according to a recent data report from the Department of State.

Each fiscal year, the government sets aside 140,000 work-based Green Card numbers for workers and 226,000 for family members. When the family-based categories do not use all of their numbers in a given year, any leftover slots spill over to the work side the following year. That is what created this year’s surplus.

What this means for employment-based Green Card applicants

According to Manifest immigration attorney Ana Gabriela Urizar, this extra supply could help explain why the March and April 2026 Visa Bulletins showed so much forward movement.

“Priority dates advance based on how many visa numbers are available compared to how many people are waiting,” she says. “When the pool grows by 46,000, the government can reach further back into the line and open the line so more people can be current and apply for the green card.”

Urizar also believes this trend could continue into the next fiscal year, in part because of recent government policies like the expanded travel ban and the immigrant visa freeze. “If family-based issuance remains low this year, we could see another large spillover into fiscal year 2027. That would keep pushing priority dates forward, especially for applicants outside the highest-demand countries,” she says.

Because no single nation can receive more than 7% of the total Green Card supply, applicants from high-demand countries often see slower Visa Bulletin movement even in a year with extra numbers. For example, EB-2 India reached its annual limit for FY 2026 and will remain static until the next fiscal year begins on October 1, 2026.