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I-918 processing times · Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status

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

If you file today (I-918), most likely
13-25 months
could be 9-47 months

Based on USCIS's median time of 15.2 months (Apr–Jun 2026 data) and on how much real waits differed from it in the past.

Time to clear backlog

221 months

steady vs. previous quarter

Pending applications

480,114

+4% vs. previous quarter

Decided in Apr–Jun 2026

6,515

−3% vs. previous quarter

Approval rate

69%

+5 pts vs. previous quarter

Quarter-over-quarter highlight: The pile of pending I-918 applications at USCIS grew 4% to 480,114 in Apr–Jun 2026. At that quarter's pace of decisions, clearing it would take 221 months, about the same as the quarter before (207 months).

If you file today

How long an I-918 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.

CategoryMost likely (50%)Could be (80%)USCIS median
I-91813-25 months9-47 months15.2 months

What happened to the applications

The bars are the I-918 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
0100k200k300k400k500k202120222023202420252026
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.

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
0100200300400500months202120222023202420252026
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.