State Department January 2021 Visa Bulletin Summary

The Department of State has released the January 2021 Visa Bulletin. D&S provides a Monthly Summary of the employment-based priority dates. USCIS has advised that, in January 2021, it will accept adjustment of status applications for employment-based petitions based on the January Bulletin’s final action dates, for the first time in several months.

With respect to Final Action Dates, all countries of chargeability, except India and China, will remain current. EB-1 China and EB-1 India will advance five months to September 1, 2019. With the exception of India and China, all other EB-2 countries of chargeability will remain current. EB-2 China will advance one month to June 1, 2016 and EB-2 India will advance one week October 8, 2009. All EB-3 categories except India and China will remain current. EB-3 China will advance one and a half months to December 15, 2017, and EB-3 India will advance one week to March 22, 2010. 

As the EB-5 Regional Center program is set to sunset on December 28, 2020, the category will be unavailable in January pending reauthorization of the program by Congress. If there is further legislative action extending this category, final action dates would immediately become current for January for all countries of chargeability except for China, which would be subject to an August 15, 2015 final action date, and for Vietnam, which would be subject to a September 15, 2017 final action date. Final action dates for the EB-5 Non-Regional Center program, which will not be affected, remain current for all countries of chargeability except China, which will remain unchanged at August 15, 2015, and Vietnam, which will advance two weeks to August 15, 2017. 

With respect to Application Filing Dates, all categories (with the exception of the “Other Workers”, EB-4 special immigrants, and “Certain Religious Workers” categories) will remain unchanged from December.