I-485 Final-Stage Waits Fall 41 Days, but the Active Backlog Has Grown 57%

Six weeks ago, the median final-stage wait for I-485 — the time from a case's last recorded status to approval — sat at 90 days. It has since fallen to 49 days, a 41-day compression driven by an 8-week slope of -6.6 days per week (R² = 0.51). This week brought a mild reversal: the median rose 4 days (+8.0%) from last week's 45 days. That uptick is worth noting but does not alter the broader direction. A moderate-confidence trend of this magnitude is real, though roughly half the week-to-week variance remains unexplained by the linear fit alone.

The backlog of active pending cases tells a different story. The number of cases currently in the pipeline reached 269,550, up from roughly 172,000 on May 7 — a 56.8% increase in 43 days. The April 2026 filing group contributed the most: 72,931 cases remain active from that month alone, with net active growth of 45,216. The queue is filling faster than it is clearing. A shorter final-stage median reflects how quickly cases already near approval are finishing; it does not reflect how quickly the larger accumulation of newer filings will move.

The trend line has an unusual shape. The median climbed slowly from 77 days in W13 through a 90-day reading in W18, then fell quickly through W21 (30 days), and has since stabilized in the mid-40s. The W18 reading at 90 days deserves a caveat: the sample that week was 2,162 cases, well below the 12-week average of roughly 6,000, which makes it more susceptible to composition effects. The 12-week trailing average of 62 days provides a more stable reference than any single week's reading. No same-week data from last year is available for direct comparison, so year-over-year framing is not possible for this period.

Five centers processed I-485 approvals this week. IOE handled the most: 4,362 cases at a 37-day median, with a slope of -8.3 days per week (R² = 0.62), the strongest downward trajectory of any center. The National Benefits Center (MSC) posted 116 days across 490 cases, essentially flat at a slope of +0.2 days per week. SRC (Texas Service Center) cleared 186 cases at 50 days. LIN (Nebraska Service Center) posted 133 days on 136 cases, with a slope of +5.8 days per week — the only center trending in the wrong direction, though its small sample limits confidence. WAC (California Service Center) posted 276 days on just 28 cases. That last figure carries a direct caveat: a sample of 28 is thin enough that a handful of atypical cases can shift the median substantially. The 276-day reading may reflect a specific subset of filings at WAC rather than a representative population.

The center a case is routed to is not something applicants select. IOE is the processing designation for electronically filed cases; most employment-based and a growing share of family-based I-485 filings now enter through that channel, which is why IOE accounts for 84% of this week's approvals. MSC and LIN handle cases pre-processed through the National Benefits Center and routed to Nebraska, typically family-based filings awaiting interview assignment. The case mix at each center differs; these center-level medians reflect different populations as much as they reflect different processing speeds.