I-601A processing times · Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver

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

If you file today (I-601A), most likely

22-42 months

could be 15-79 months

Based on USCIS's median time of 25.4 months (Apr–Jun 2026 data) and on how much real waits differed from it in the past.

Time to clear backlog

56 months

rising vs. previous quarter

Pending applications

77,755

+8% vs. previous quarter

Decided in Apr–Jun 2026

4,132

−55% vs. previous quarter

Approval rate

86%

−4 pts vs. previous quarter

Quarter-over-quarter highlight: The pile of pending I-601A applications at USCIS grew 8% to 77,755 in Apr–Jun 2026. At that quarter's pace of decisions, clearing it would take 56 months, up from 24 months.

If you file today

How long an I-601A 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
I-601A	22-42 months	15-79 months	25.4 months

USCIS is deciding fewer of these cases than usual: 68% fewer I-601A 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-601A 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.

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 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 processing time

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 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.