After two years of record green card supply, the EB-1 in 2023 delivered a reality check. The pandemic-era surplus of employment-based visa numbers dried up, demand from high-achieving applicants surged, and the visa bulletin brought back something EB-1 applicants from India and China had briefly escaped: cutoff dates. If 2021 and 2022 were the open window, 2023 was the sound of it closing.
The numbers came back to earth
Fiscal year 2023 still had some spillover from unused family-based visas, putting the employment-based limit at roughly 197,000, above the normal 140,000 but well below the roughly 281,000 of the year before. With consulates back to near-normal operations worldwide, the era of huge surpluses was over, and everyone competing for EB-1 numbers felt it.
Retrogression returned for India and China
The headline event of 2023 was the return of EB-1 cutoff dates for India and China in the visa bulletin. For roughly two years, applicants born in those countries had enjoyed current dates. In 2023, the queue reformed.
- EB-1 India retrogressed sharply, with cutoff dates reaching back years, driven by heavy demand and the per-country cap of about 7 percent.
- EB-1 China also saw cutoff dates, though shorter than India's.
- Applicants from the rest of the world remained current, preserving EB-1's status as the fastest employment-based route for most nationalities.
None of this changed the law. It reflected arithmetic: too many qualified applicants chasing a fixed number of visas, with country caps concentrating the pain on Indian-born professionals.
Why demand exploded
Several forces converged. The 2022 STEM-friendly policy guidance encouraged researchers and founders to aim high. Tech-sector layoffs in late 2022 and 2023 pushed talented workers on temporary visas to seek permanent, self-directed options. And the surge in national interest waiver filings created a wave of accomplished applicants who, facing new EB-2 backlogs, upgraded their ambitions to EB-1A. Extraordinary-ability filings climbed to historic levels, and adjudicators responded with closer scrutiny and more requests for evidence.
Processing: fast petitions, slow queues
Premium processing remained the great equalizer in 2023. EB-1A and EB-1B petitions could be decided in 15 business days, and EB-1C in 45 days, for a fee. But a fast petition approval no longer meant a fast green card for Indian and Chinese nationals; the wait shifted to the visa bulletin queue. That distinction, petition speed versus visa number availability, became the most misunderstood point in the entire category.
What this means for you
The 2023 turn holds practical lessons that still apply.
- Your priority date is an asset. Filing an approvable EB-1 petition early locks in your place in line, even if the final green card comes later.
- Rest-of-world applicants should not be complacent. Categories that look current can retrogress with little warning when demand spikes.
- Indian and Chinese applicants should consider filing in more than one category where legitimate, for example EB-1A alongside an existing EB-2, and use whichever date matures first.
- Quality matters more in high-scrutiny years. Thin petitions that might have slipped through in 2021 drew RFEs in 2023.
The deeper lesson is about policy. A merit-based system that makes the world's best researchers and executives wait a decade because of birthplace arithmetic is overdue for congressional repair. Until that happens, strategy and timing are your best defense.
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