I-765 processing times · Application for Employment Authorization

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

If you file today (Adjustment of Status), most likely

6-11 months

could be 4-20 months

Based on USCIS's median time of 6.4 months (Apr–Jun 2026 data) and on how much real waits differed from it in the past.

Time to clear backlog

25 months

easing vs. previous quarter

Pending applications

671,362

+15% vs. previous quarter

Decided in Apr–Jun 2026

82,172

+67% vs. previous quarter

Approval rate

56%

−21 pts vs. previous quarter

Quarter-over-quarter highlight: The pile of pending I-765 (Adjustment of Status) applications at USCIS grew 15% to 671,362 in Apr–Jun 2026. At that quarter's pace of decisions, clearing it would take 25 months, down from 36 months.

For a green card from inside the US, the I-765 is usually filed with the I-485 and the I-131 travel document.

If you file today

How long an I-765 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
Asylum	0.7-1.3 months	0.5-2.5 months	0.8 months
Adjustment of Status	6-11 months	4-20 months	6.4 months
DACA	3-5 months	2.2-6.8 months	4.1 months
Other Categories	2.8-5.5 months	2.0-10.2 months	3.3 months

For an extra fee, you can ask for premium processing of some work permits, such as OPT and STEM OPT for F-1 students (in Other Categories), and USCIS then acts within 30 days. USCIS's median includes these fast cases.

USCIS is deciding fewer of these cases than usual: 69% fewer Asylum 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-765 (Adjustment of Status) 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

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

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.

By category, Apr–Jun 2026

Category	Received	Approved	Denied	Pending	USCIS median
Application for Employment Authorization (Asylum)	125,663	117,965	10,986	108,565	0.8 months
Application for Employment Authorization (Adjustment Of Status)	153,039	46,405	35,767	671,362	6.4 months
Application for Employment Authorization (DACA)	81,835	76,053	482	231,872	4.1 months
Application for Employment Authorization (All Other)	212,410	125,656	19,787	1,098,913	3.3 months