Progress of Rural and High Unemployment Visa Issuance since 2022

[UPDATE: The preliminary data in this post has now been replaced by final reports quoted above in Major Data Update (FY2024 Visa Report, FY2025 Q2 data, FY2025 I-485 and visa progress, visa interview timing)]

Multiple readers asked me this question about the updated EB-5 backlog analysis I published last week. Why use 2025 as “Year 0” for Rural and High Unemployment visa issuance? Haven’t Rural and High Unemployment EB-5 visas been set aside every year since 2022? Why assume that almost no investors with priority dates since 2022 have visas yet? Is it right to estimate the pipeline visa backlog as of January 2025 as equal to nearly everyone who’s ever filed I-526E, plus their family members?

Unfortunately, TEA visa issuance is indeed only starting to pick up steam as of FY2025. The thousands of Rural and High Unemployment visas available in FY2022, FY2023, and FY2024 are now irrelevant to backlog calculations, because they were mostly not issued. (Indeed most TEA visas theoretically available in FY2025 are also on track to not be issued, but the carryover rule means that FY26 may provide another chance to issue FY25 TEA visas.) The following table summarizes my view of Rural and High Unemployment Visa issuance to date.

The numbers for FY2022 and FY2023 are actual, according to Annual Reports of the Visa Office. Figures for FY2024 and FY2025 to date are still estimates, since litigation has (reportedly) delayed publication of the 2024 Annual Report. We can estimate consular visa issuance since 2023 by summing up monthly data in the Monthly Immigrant Visa Issuance Statistics reports (currently available through March 2025). And it’s possible to roughly estimate adjustment of status visa issuance by comparing monthly reports for “Pending Applications for Employment-Based Preference Categories” (currently available to January 2025 on the USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data page.) When the final numbers are published, I expect them to be higher than my estimates from the partial/preliminary reports, particularly for AOS. But the bottom line is clear: we are looking at 100s and not 1000s of Rural and High Unemployment visas issued to date. Which means that we do have to assume most Rural and High Unemployment investors since 2022 are still queued up waiting for visas.

Reserved visa issuance to date has been so low due to processing delay at USCIS and Department of State. People can’t get reserved visas until they can get visa interviews or I-485 processing, which in turn can’t happen until investor I-526/I-526E are approved, which in turn can’t happen until I-956F project applications are approved. With I-956Fs finally getting processed in volume in 2024, we’re starting to see more I-526E approvals and more visa issuance as of 2025. I’m including charts for USCIS processing and consular processing to date, and a table illustrating how monthly I-485 inventory reports can support a rough estimate of AOS visa issuance. For the most comprehensive available view of approval status of Rural and High Unemployment petitions, see the I-526E adjudication data by I-526E filing date and TEA category just published by AIIA “AIIA FOIA Series: Post RIA Petition Approval Statistics for January 2025” (May 16, 2025). As time permits I’ll publish an in-depth post on the USCIS and DOS operational factors that affect EB-5 timing, and prospects for forthcoming processing times. (I regret having more bad news to share about USCIS staffing and resource cuts at the Investor Program Office. And I wish I knew what was preventing consulates from scheduling post-RIA visa interviews for all qualified applicants.)

I’ve updated the Excel files linked to my EB-5 Timing Page. I fixed the first link (which for one day last week linked to an old analysis file instead of to the correct data collection file). And I added Progress and Visa Supply tabs to the EB-5 Backlog Analysis file to help clarify visa supply questions.