US EB-5 Visa Delay 2025: Indian Green Card Wait Time Increases Under New US Visa Rules
In a major setback for Indian nationals aiming to secure U.S. residency through investment visas, the U.S. Department of State’s May 2025 Visa Bulletin reveals a significant regression in the EB-5 Unreserved category. The final action date for Indian applicants has been pushed back over six months, moving from November 1, 2019, to May 1, 2019. This shift delays green card processing for thousands of Indian investors and narrows the window of eligibility.
This adjustment does not affect all countries equally. The cutoff date for Chinese EB-5 applicants remains unchanged at January 22, 2014.
The bulletin explains that high demand from Indian applicants, combined with increased global usage, made the retrogression unavoidable. “It was necessary to further retrogress the Indian final action date to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the FY-2025 annual limits,” it stated.
The EB-5 program provides green cards to foreign investors who inject capital into projects that create jobs in the U.S., especially in targeted sectors like rural or high-unemployment areas. However, the unreserved portion of this category—where most Indian applicants file—continues to experience intense demand, rapidly exhausting the available visa slots.
Final Action Dates are pivotal in determining when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) can process visa or green card applications. Only applicants whose priority dates fall before the cutoff listed in the bulletin can move forward with their cases.
Apart from EB-5, little progress has been observed in other employment-based visa categories for India. In the EB-3 category, which covers skilled and professional workers, India saw a minimal advancement of two weeks, shifting the cutoff to April 15, 2013.
Meanwhile, cutoff dates for India in the EB-1 and EB-2 categories remain frozen at February 2, 2022, and January 1, 2013, respectively. China’s EB-1 and EB-2 dates also remain unchanged, indicating continued backlog in these segments.
The bulletin also outlines the immigration limits for fiscal year 2025: a cap of 226,000 for family-sponsored immigrants and at least 140,000 for employment-based categories. Each country can receive no more than seven percent of the total visas issued across both categories—about 25,620 annually. Dependent territories are capped at two percent, or 7,320 visas.
This development follows President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025 and the resurgence of the administration’s “America First” policy. Although the government’s main focus is on illegal immigration, recent measures are increasingly impacting legal immigration channels—including highly skilled professionals and investor visa applicants like those in the EB-5 category.