I-485 Total Wait Climbs to 220 Days, Up 38% from a Year Ago

Cases approved the week of Nov 2 waited a median of 220 days from the date USCIS received their I-485 to their first approval — up from 159 days the same week in 2025. Among the 6,883 approvals with a known filing date, 2,051 (30%) had waited more than a year. As of Nov 9, 1,187,805 adjustment-of-status applications remain pending across all filing months, up from 1,098,932 four weeks earlier. That count describes cases not yet decided; every wait figure in this brief is measured only on cases that were approved, so none of them reflects how long those pending cases have been waiting.

The 12-week trajectory of the total wait has ranged from 208 to 252 days since mid-August 2026, putting this week's 220-day reading in the lower portion of that band. It is not a peak for the recent period, but it sits well above the year-ago baseline of 159 days. The data does not tell us what is driving the year-over-year gap; the concurrent backlog growth is consistent with new intake outpacing approvals, but the data does not distinguish that mechanism from a change in the mix of cases reaching approval.

The 220-day total wait measures the full journey from USCIS receipt to approval. A separate metric, the time from the last status update to approval (the final-stage wait), covers only the last stretch of that journey. This week that figure was 76 days, compared with 97 days the same week last year — a 22-day, 22.4% improvement. The 12-week trailing average stands at 71 days, so this week is slightly above trend. The 8-week regression shows a slope of +0.8 days per week with an R² of 0.27, a pattern the data characterizes as noisy and essentially flat.

A faster final-stage queue does not automatically shorten the total wait if more cases are entering the system than clearing it. The backlog growing by 88,873 in 28 days illustrates that dynamic: cases already near approval may be moving faster, but the pipeline behind them is lengthening. These two signals point in different directions, and both are real.

An RFE, or Request for Evidence, is USCIS's standard follow-up letter asking for additional documents. Receiving one does not by itself signal denial; most cases that receive an RFE are still approved. This week, something atypical appeared: cases with an RFE response cleared in a median 26 days at final stage, while cases without an RFE took 77 days — meaning the group that had been asked for more information resolved faster than the group that had not. The data's RFE anomaly flag (rfe_fast) fired, confirming this is outside the typical range. One-week inversions of this kind often appear to follow a batch of older RFE responses clearing together and may not persist into subsequent weeks.

The broader 30-day stage duration data provides context. Cases currently sitting at 'Response To USCIS Request For Evidence Was Received' show a median of 159 days in queue, with a 25th percentile (p25) of 82 days and a 75th percentile (p75) of 234 days across 186,642 cases. The 26-day final-stage figure for RFE-response cases approved this week likely reflects a faster-moving portion of that pool, not a system-wide acceleration. The data does not tell us why this slice cleared quickly.

One-week inversions like this week's RFE reading often appear to follow a batch of older responses clearing together, not a durable change in how the system handles RFE cases.