Green cards reopen for Indians: the October 2026 visa bulletin
The green-card wall is down: the October 2026 visa bulletin reopens EB-2 and EB-5 for Indian applicants. EB-2 India returns to 1 November 2013; EB-5 jumps 19 months to 1 December 2023. The FY2027 reset, and what it means for your priority date.
The green-card wall that shut Indian applicants out for the final quarter of the last US fiscal year has come down — on schedule, if not by much. The State Department's October 2026 visa bulletin, the first of fiscal year 2027, restores employment-based numbers that had been marked "Unavailable" for India since July.
The headline for Indians is that EB-2 and EB-5 are issuing again. EB-2 India, which had no visas available in September, returns with a final-action date of 1 November 2013; the dates-for-filing chart sits at 15 January 2015. The bigger move is in EB-5 Unreserved, where the final-action date for India reopens at 1 December 2023 — a jump of about 19 months from where it stood before the freeze, carrying applicants into the post-2022-reform period of the programme.
This is the "FY2027 reset" we flagged when the categories went dark: each 1 October, a fresh year's worth of green-card numbers becomes available, and the most backlogged countries — India chief among them — see their cut-off dates lurch forward before the annual and per-country limits bite again. (How the wall went up: our explainer on EB-2 India going Unavailable, and the September bulletin that promised this reset.)
The relief is real but narrow. The dates are still more than a decade behind the present for EB-2 India, meaning the queue remains punishing for anyone who filed recently. And the movement came partly at others' expense: EB-2 final-action dates for the rest of the world, Mexico and the Philippines retrogressed to 1 January 2025 as the State Department rationed the new year's supply across categories.
For an Indian family tracking a priority date, the practical takeaway is simple: if your date is now current under the relevant chart, this is the window to act with your attorney, because these openings have a habit of advancing fast and then stalling. For everyone behind the line, October is a reminder of the central, grinding fact of the Indian green-card experience — the numbers move, but the backlog abides.
Figures are from the US Department of State's October 2026 visa bulletin, as analysed by immigration firms including IIUSA, Ogletree Deakins and the Murthy Law Firm. This is general information, not legal advice; confirm your category and dates with a qualified immigration attorney.
