I-140 Final-Stage Wait Cuts to 20 Days, Halving Since April's Peak

The I-140 final-stage wait settled at 20 days the week of June 1, down 3 days (-11.6%) from the prior week's 22-day reading and 10 days below the 12-week trailing average of 30 days. At its spring peak in W15 (Apr 6), the same metric stood at 44 days. That 24-day decline over roughly 10 weeks reflects a genuine directional improvement, though the regression fit is weak enough that no single week should be read as confirmation of a steady descent.

The "final-stage wait" measures time from a case's last recorded status update to the approval decision, not the total time from original filing. This week, the 25th percentile (p25) sat at 14 days and the 75th percentile (p75) at 53 days, giving an interquartile range of 39 days. That wide spread means cases on either side of the 20-day median can look very different: a quarter of approved cases this week cleared in 14 days or fewer, while another quarter took 53 days or more.

From W12 through W15 (mid-March to early April), the weekly median held in a band of roughly 38 to 44 days. It then fell sharply to 24 days in W16 before recovering to 38 days in W17, dropped again to 20 days in W19, climbed back to 30 days in W20, and has since settled near the low 20s through W21 to W23. The path down has not been straight: the largest single-week readings in that stretch (44 days in W15, 38 days in W17) illustrate that individual weeks can sit well above the underlying trend.

The 8-week regression slope of -1.6 days per week captures the direction, but the R² of 0.34 indicates the linear fit accounts for only about a third of the week-to-week variance. In practical terms, the residual standard deviation is 6 days, so any given week's reading may land roughly 6 days above or below the trend line. Attorneys and analysts tracking this form should treat the slope as a directional signal rather than a precise forecast, and should expect continued oscillation around the current 20-day level.

Filing-month cohort (cases filed in the same calendar month) data shows clearance rates rising with case age at a pace consistent with recent history. The April 2026 filing-month group, now 9 weeks old, is 43.8% approved across 17,655 total cases. The March 2026 group, at age 14 weeks, is 50.2% approved across 16,443 total cases. The February 2026 group, at age 18 weeks, is 55.5% approved across 16,758 total cases. The January 2026 group, now 22 weeks old, has reached 50.6% approved across 13,990 total cases, slightly below February's same-age pace, suggesting a modest plateau for the oldest tracked group.

Total active pending cases across the tracked filing-month groups stood at 38,570 as of June 7, up 43.6% over the prior 31 days (from approximately 26,863 on May 7). The May 2026 intake group accounts for most of that growth, adding 7,678 active cases as new filings were receipted during May. A growing pipeline does not translate directly into slower medians, but if May's intake group clears at a slower rate than April's 43.8% pace at the same age, it may begin to apply upward pressure on future weekly medians.