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Employment-Based Immigrant Visa Trends and Immigrant Visa Usage for 2022 Fiscal Year

Mar 14, 2023 | Immigration Updates

For an in-depth look at the April Visa Bulletin, check out WR’s Chatting with Charlie: Unpacking the April Visa Bulletin on March 15, 2023 at 11 AM PST.

Late February the State Department finally published the anticipated Table V to complete its 2022 Annual Report of the Visa Office. The data in Table V is key information to understand worldwide employment-based immigrant visa trends and immigrant visa usage. WR Immigration’s Chatting With Charlie Webinar will discuss the data published in more detail and what it means for Companies and their sponsored foreign national employees. Overall Employment-based immigrant visa number use equaled 97.8% of the annual limit for Fiscal Year 2022.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 First Preference (EB-1) and Second Preference (EB-2) Employment-based categories benefitted from overflow immigrant visa numbers. The EB-1 Worldwide initial limit was 80,511. The EB-1 Worldwide initial limit benefitted from 2,700 unused, unreserved numbers from Fifth Preference category (EB-5). This means that the Adjusted EB-1 Worldwide annual limit for FY2022 was 83,211 immigrant visas. EB-1 (initial) limit 80,511 plus 2,700 EB-5 “fall-up” (unused, unreserved numbers) equals the 83,211 “adjusted” EB-1 annual limit.

Not all the EB-1 immigrant visa numbers were used. Only 54,137 EB-1 immigrant visa numbers were used in FY2022. The Adjusted EB-1 Worldwide limit for FY2022 (83,211) minus the used EB-1 immigrant visas (54,137) left 29,074 immigrant visas unused and available. The 29,074 unused EB-1 immigrant visa numbers “fall down” for use in the EB-2 category. Therefore, the EB-2 Worldwide initial limit benefitted from 29,074 unused numbers from EB-1. This means that the Adjusted EB-2 worldwide limit for FY2022 was 109,585. EB-2 (initial) limit 80,511 plus 29,074 unused EB-1 numbers equal the 109,585 “adjusted” EB-2 limit. 

Indian-born immigrant visa applicants were the BIG winner in terms of FY 2022 Employment-based immigrant visa numbers used: Indian-born applicants accounted for 25.8% of the EB-1 Worldwide adjusted annual limit and 54.2% of the numbers available under the EB-2 Worldwide adjusted limit.

By Laura Bloniarz, Senior Associate WR Immigration

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