I-130 Final-Stage Waits Are Running 60 Days Shorter Than a Year Ago
The week of September 14, 2026 marks a full year of sustained improvement in I-130 processing. The 43-day final-stage median is less than half what applicants faced in the same week of 2025, and the summer trend has been broadly flat rather than drifting in either direction.
I-130 petitions are clearing in a final-stage median of 43 days this week, compared with 104 days in the same week last year, a reduction of about 60 days or 58%. The 12-week trailing average sits at 44 days, confirming that this week is not an outlier but part of a stable, lower-wait regime that has held all summer. Based on 5,315 approvals this week, the sample is large enough to treat the number with confidence. For applicants who have heard from peers that I-130 used to take many months, the processing environment has changed substantially.
- The I-130 final-stage median this week is 43 days, down from 104 days in the same week last year, a 58% year-over-year reduction.
- The 12-week trailing average is 44 days, confirming the improvement is a sustained regime, not a one-week result.
- Weekly medians have ranged from 25 to 54 days over the past 12 weeks, with an 8-week slope of -0.9 days per week (R² = 0.22), indicating a flat and noisy-stable pattern rather than a directional trend.
- An RFE (Request for Evidence) anomaly flag fired this week: cases with an RFE response cleared in a median of 18 days, faster than the 45-day median for plain cases, an artifact of batch timing rather than a policy shift.
- The overall active I-130 pending backlog stands at 737,541 cases, up about 23,700 over the past 28 days, consistent with new filings continuing to enter the queue faster than approvals clear them.
A year ago it took 104 days. Now it takes 43.
This week's median of 43 days compares with 104 days in the same week of 2025, a reduction of about 60 days. The 12-week trailing average is 44 days, meaning the current week is essentially at the summer norm rather than an isolated dip. The sample of 5,315 approvals this week is large and gives the number statistical weight. Applicants who filed in the past year are navigating an adjudication (the USCIS case-decision step) environment that has improved considerably from where it stood 12 months ago.
Flat all summer, with some week-to-week noise
The 8-week slope is -0.9 days per week, but with an R² of only 0.22, there is no reliable directional trend to report. What the data shows instead is a noisy-stable pattern: medians that bounce around a roughly fixed center without accumulating in either direction. Over the past 12 weeks, the weekly reading has ranged from 25 days (week of June 29) to 54 days (week of August 17), a span of 29 days, yet the trailing average has barely shifted. The +3-day move this week, from 40 days in the week of September 7 to 43 days now, falls comfortably within that normal oscillation. The week of August 17 peaked at 54 days and the week of September 7 troughed at 40 days; neither of those readings proved to be a turning point, and this week's modest uptick appears to follow the same pattern.
Weekly medians have ranged 29 days over the summer, yet the average has barely moved: the oscillation is the pattern, not a warning.
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