I-140 Final-Stage Wait Holds at 18 Days, Down 74% From Last Year
The week of September 21, 2026 marks twelve consecutive weeks of stable, low final-stage waits for I-140 applicants, a level that would have been considered fast by any measure a year ago.
The I-140 final-stage wait (the time from a case's last reported status to approval) came in at 18 days this week, against 69 days in the same week of 2025, a drop of 73.6%. Across 2,804 approved cases, the result is consistent with a pattern that has held since early July: medians ranging from 16 to 28 days, a 12-week trailing average of 19 days, and no anomaly flags. The slope is effectively flat at +0.5 days per week with an R-squared of 0.10, meaning the week-to-week scatter explains almost none of the directional movement. For applicants who tracked I-140 timelines a year ago, the current environment looks materially different.
- The I-140 final-stage median this week is 18 days, down from 69 days the same week in 2025, a 73.6% year-over-year decline.
- The 12-week trend is effectively flat: medians have ranged from 16 to 28 days with a slope of +0.5 days per week and an R-squared of 0.10.
- RFE (Request for Evidence) cases and non-RFE cases reach approval at nearly identical speeds: 21 days vs. 19 days, a 2-day gap.
- The April 2026 filing-month group is 59.1% approved at 25 weeks; the total active pending count across all filing months fell by 2,600 cases (1.5%) over the 28 days ending September 28.
- The 4-week mechanical forecast projects midpoints of ~19 to 20 days, with weekly bands of roughly ~11 to 28 days given the weak trend fit.
Eighteen days, down from sixty-nine a year ago
The I-140 final-stage wait, measured as the time from a case's last reported status to approval, came in at 18 days this week, against 69 days in the same week of 2025. That 73.6% year-over-year decline is grounded in a sample of 2,804 cases, a volume consistent with the weekly pace over the past three months. The current level is not a sudden drop; it reflects a condition that has held since early July.
Over the last 12 weeks, medians have ranged from 16 days (Jul 27, Aug 3) to 28 days (Aug 31), with a trailing 12-week average of 19 days. The Aug 31 reading of 28 days returned to 20 days the very next week, in line with the prior run. The slope is +0.5 days per week with an R-squared of 0.10, a combination that meets the definition of noisy and flat. No directional claim is supported by the current fit.
Where the wait actually lives
The 18-day final-stage figure describes only cases that were approved this week. The larger pending population tells a different story. Using Stage durations (30-day raw percentiles), the main processing queue ("USCIS Is currently Processing the Case") holds 59.8% of all pending I-140 cases, across 177,050 cases, with a median raw wait of 80 days and a spread from 44 days at the 25th percentile (p25) to 150 days at the 75th percentile (p75). The RFE (Request for Evidence, USCIS's standard follow-up letter asking for additional documentation) queue accounts for 17.0% of pending cases, across 50,389 cases, with a median of 83 days. These are waiting times for cases not yet approved, not the final-stage times for cases that crossed the finish line this week.
0.92x RFE and plain processing cohorts clear at a similar pace.
Once an RFE response is submitted, the final approach to approval takes roughly the same time regardless of whether an RFE was issued. RFE-response cases approved this week cleared in a median of 21 days; non-RFE cases cleared in 19 days. The 2-day difference is minimal. Receiving an RFE does not, by itself, lengthen the final stage meaningfully, and it is not a signal of denial risk.
The backlog is moving in the right direction
The filing-month group (cohort (a group of cases): all cases filed in the same calendar month) burndown data shows continued progress. Cases filed in April 2026 are 59.1% approved at 25 weeks of age; cases filed in May 2026 are 54.3% approved at 21 weeks. Looking at the broader pending population across all filing months, the total active count fell by 2,600 cases, or 1.5%, over the 28 days ending September 28, 2026, moving from 173,000 to 170,400 active cases.
The June 2026 filing group is larger than adjacent months: 15,185 total cases at 17 weeks of age, compared with roughly 4,000 cases each for the July and August groups. At 17 weeks, the June group is 46.5% approved. For context, the May group was approximately 51% approved at 21 weeks, which is 4 weeks older. Same-age comparisons are the correct frame; a lower approval percentage for June relative to May simply reflects that June cases are younger, not that USCIS is processing that month more slowly.
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