The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has published the monthly Visa Bulletin for April 2025. Until April 1, the March 2025 Visa Bulletin remains in effect. 

The Visa Bulletin contains the DOS’s Final Action Dates chart, which lists the cutoff dates for each respective category, the categories that are current during the applicable month (i.e., categories that do not have any backlogs), and the categories that are unavailable. The Visa Bulletin also contains the DOS’s Dates for Filing chart, which usually progresses ahead of the Final Action Dates chart and which U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) sometimes uses to determine the date that Adjustment of Status filings are permitted in each respective category. 

For April 2025, USCIS has confirmed on its website that beneficiaries of employment-based immigrant petitions should use the Final Action Dates to determine eligibility to file adjustment of status (“green card”) applications. 

Key Takeaways: 

• The State Department has issued all available immigrant visas in the EB-4 category, which includes visas made available to certain religious workers under the SR visa category, for fiscal year (FY) 2025 and the category was made unavailable on February 28, 2025. The annual limits will reset with the start of FY 2026 on October 1, 2025.  At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in this category to qualified applicants. 

• Increased demand and number use by China and India in the EB-5 unreserved visa categories led to retrogression of several years for the final action dates to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the FY 2025 annual limits. 

• The EB-1 category remains unchanged from last month’s Visa Bulletin for all countries of birth.  

• The EB-2 category showed modest forward movement between one (1) to five (5) months across the various categories of birth. 

• The EB-3 category saw modest forward movement of three (3) months for individuals born in China; two (2) months for individuals born in India; and one (1) month for all other countries of birth. 

• The Other Workers category moved forward about two (2) to four (4) months for all countries of birth. 

April 2025 Final Action Dates: 

 Foster LLP will continue to track immigrant visa availability and provide updates about any developments via Immigration Updates©, articles, and blogs on our website at www.fosterglobal.com.