I-129 final-stage approvals hold at 18 days as pending pipeline grows rapidly

The final-stage median for I-129 petitions held at 18 days this week, the same reading as last week and 6 days above the same week last year (12 days, based on 334 cases). The 12-week trailing average also sits at 18 days, confirming this is not a one-week fluctuation but a settled range. For applicants whose cases have already reached the final-stage queue, the current pace offers a stable baseline.

USCIS announced on July 17 that it has reached the FY2027 H-1B cap (news-001). That milestone aligns with a volume pattern visible in the monthly data: June and May 2026 together logged roughly 52,000 approvals (27,688 in June and 24,724 in May, per monthly status counts), the highest two-month run in the 14-month dataset, in line with the annual cap-subject adjudication (the USCIS case decision step) wave that typically peaks in summer. Reaching the cap means USCIS will accept no new cap-subject H-1B registrations for FY2027; it does not affect petitions already filed and pending.

The same months that saw the highest approval volumes also saw the largest RFE (Request for Evidence) counts: 2,852 RFEs in June and 1,390 in May, per monthly status counts. To keep these in proportion: June RFEs represented about 10% of June's 49,679 total case activity. An RFE is USCIS's standard follow-up letter requesting missing documents; most cases that receive one are still ultimately approved.

The largest single stage in the broader pipeline is cases at 'Case Is Still Being Processed By USCIS,' which accounts for 235,919 cases (58.7% of the stage-duration dataset) with a median of 88 days at that status and a spread from the 25th percentile (p25) at 38 days to the 75th percentile (p75) at 135 days, based on the Stage durations (30-day raw) data. This is the primary accumulation point for cases that have not yet reached the final-stage queue, and it is where the pipeline growth is most concentrated.

The June 2026 filing-month group, with 46,717 total cases and 20,502 still active, is the largest cohort (filing-month group) in the table and is only 55.9% approved at age 8 weeks. Age-adjusting across the table shows a consistent pattern of large recent groups carrying sizable pending tails: the May 2026 group is 64.4% approved at age 12 weeks, meaning nearly one in three of its 35,978 cases remains pending. April at age 16 weeks sits at 71.0%, and March at age 21 weeks at 72.2%. These pending tails across large recent groups are what drove the active backlog's 182% rise, from roughly 18,581 active cases to 52,419 over 81 days.