I-130 processing times · Petition for Alien Relative

Immediate Relative

All Other Relative

All categories

Petitions by US citizens for their spouses, their unmarried children under 21 and, if they are 21 or older, their parents.

Latest USCIS data: Apr–Jun 2026, from the All USCIS Application and Petition Form Types report.

If you file today (Immediate Relative), most likely

11-22 months

could be 8-40 months

Based on USCIS's median time of 13.0 months (Apr–Jun 2026 data) and on how much real waits differed from it in the past.

Time to clear backlog

24 months

rising vs. previous quarter

Pending applications

786,723

+3% vs. previous quarter

Decided in Apr–Jun 2026

99,297

−34% vs. previous quarter

Approval rate

83%

−6 pts vs. previous quarter

Quarter-over-quarter highlight: The pile of pending I-130 (Immediate Relative) applications at USCIS grew 3% to 786,723 in Apr–Jun 2026. At that quarter's pace of decisions, clearing it would take 24 months, up from 15 months.

After the I-130, a relative abroad goes through the National Visa Center and an interview at a consulate.

If you file today

How long an I-130 filed today is likely to take, by category. In past quarters, the typical wait landed in the most likely range about half the time, and in the could-be range 8 times in 10.

Category	Most likely (50%)	Could be (80%)	USCIS median
Immediate Relative	11-22 months	8-40 months	13.0 months
All Other Relative	USCIS's median for the ones it decided was 43.3 months, but approval is only the first step: when your relative can immigrate depends on the priority date: see today’s cutoff dates.		43.3 months for those decided in Apr–Jun 2026

USCIS is deciding fewer of these cases than usual: 51% fewer Immediate Relative cases in Apr–Jun 2026 than its average over the four quarters before. Plan for the later end of the range.

Details

We make the range wider when this happens. But in past slowdowns like this, the typical wait fell inside the could-be range only about 2 times in 3, not 8 times in 10 as usual.

What happened to the applications

The bars are the I-130 (Immediate Relative) decisions USCIS made each quarter, approved in blue and denied in red. The amber line is the backlog: how many applications were still waiting at the end of that quarter, most of them filed in earlier ones. The dashed line is how many came in. Before Oct–Dec 2024, USCIS's all-forms report had one row for every I-130; the Immediate Relative numbers for those quarters come from the national totals of its per-office I-130 report.

Approved
Denied
Pending at quarter end
Filed

Last 6 years

All years

Source: USCIS’s quarterly All USCIS Application and Petition Form Types reports, via the Immigration and Citizenship Data page.
The numbers are stored in a JSON file on GitHub. A dashed line ("split by category"): From Oct–Dec 2024, USCIS reports the I-130 by category; before, one row covered all of them. A diamond marks a pending count that doesn't match the quarter before's count plus the quarter's filings minus its decisions: it is what USCIS reported, but USCIS doesn't say why they differ, so the pages draw no conclusions from it.

USCIS median and backlog over time

The range starts from USCIS's own median processing time for your category and widens it by how far real waits have landed from that median in past quarters. Time to clear backlog is how long USCIS would need to decide every pending case at last quarter’s pace. It is not your wait: the pile includes cases on hold and cases USCIS cannot decide yet. USCIS's Apr–Jun 2024 report repeated the quarter before's medians, so the chart has none for Apr–Jun 2024.

Time to clear backlog
USCIS median: Immediate Relative
USCIS median: All relatives (before the split)

Last 6 years

All years

Time to clear backlog is the pending applications at the end of each quarter, divided by the decisions (approvals and denials) made per month during it. USCIS's median is how long the cases it decided in the quarter had taken. A dashed line ("split by category"): From Oct–Dec 2024, USCIS reports the I-130 by category; before, one row covered all of them. A diamond marks a pending count that doesn't match the quarter before's count plus the quarter's filings minus its decisions: it is what USCIS reported, but USCIS doesn't say why they differ, so the pages draw no conclusions from it.

By category, Apr–Jun 2026

Category	Received	Approved	Denied	Pending	USCIS median
Petition for Alien Relative (Immediate Relative)	126,417	82,636	16,661	786,723	13.0 months
Petition for Alien Relative (All Other Relative)	39,905	7,951	8,883	1,617,823	43.3 months

Select your field office

USCIS also publishes these numbers per office for the I-130. Your case is handled by the field office whose jurisdiction covers your home address (or by a service center). Not sure which one? Look it up on USCIS’s office locator. Next to each office is how many I-130 (Immediate Relative) cases it decided, approved or denied, in Apr–Jun 2026, and the offices are listed from the most to the fewest. The office pages show every category.

Find your field office

Texas Service Center

9,189 decided

California Service Center

8,401 decided

Nebraska Service Center

7,373 decided

Vermont Service Center

5,013 decided

Potomac Service Center

3,864 decided

New York