I-751 Final-Stage Waits Compress, but a Growing Backlog Tells a Different Story

The final-stage wait for I-751 cases approved this week came in at 56 days, up 13 days (+30.8%) from last week's 43-day reading. That one-week move is the largest in the series since the W18 jump to 140 days, but it does not reverse the underlying direction: the 8-week slope stands at -9.1 days per week, and the 12-week trailing average is 78 days, meaning the approved-case median has been compressing steadily. The 664-case sample this week is healthy enough to take seriously, though I-751 weekly volume can shift the median noticeably when the mix of cases clearing in a given week changes.

These final-stage-wait numbers describe only the 664 cases approved this week. Across the six filing-month groups tracked since January 2026, approval rates are effectively 0%: the January 2026 group, the oldest in the snapshot at 24 weeks of age, shows just 5 approvals out of 12,167 cases filed. The April 2026 group (11 weeks old) has 2 approvals out of 14,991. For the vast majority of pending filers, the improving approved-case median has not yet translated into an actual approval.

When the paper trail speeds things up

Cases that received and responded to an RFE (Request for Evidence, USCIS's standard follow-up letter asking for additional documents) posted a median final-stage wait of 22 days this week, versus 72 days for cases without an RFE. That 3.3x speed ratio is what triggered the rfe_fast anomaly flag. The most plausible reading is a batch effect: a group of similarly-aged RFE responses filed close together appears to have cleared in the same week, pulling the RFE-response median well below the non-RFE figure. The weighted-average approval-cohort (a group of cases) data supports this, showing RFE-response cases at a median of 16 days across the last 12 weeks, consistent with a pattern of fast clearing once responses are received. An RFE is not a denial signal; most cases that receive one are still approved.

The stage-duration data (from the 30-day raw-case window) shows where the bulk of the roughly 148,000 cases tracked across all statuses currently sit. The biometrics (fingerprint appointment) stage holds 36.0% of all active cases at a median 19 days at that status, which is within the typical scheduling range. The 'Case Is Still Being Processed By USCIS' status holds another 26.6% at a median 299 days (25th percentile 227 days, 75th percentile 344 days) across 39,349 cases. Only 1.2% of cases sit at 'Case Is Being Actively Reviewed By USCIS' (median 55 days, across 1,843 cases). This distribution explains the near-zero approval rates for recent cohorts: most cases have not yet reached the active adjudication stage.

Active pending I-751 cases rose from roughly 40,600 to 71,353 over the 43 days from May 7 to June 19, a 75.7% increase. The May 2026 filing-month group added 13,447 active cases in that window, the largest single-group contribution. Monthly approvals tell a contrasting story: the monthly status counts show 1,461 approvals in May 2025, falling to 707 in August 2025, 560 in March 2026, and just 9 in May 2026. Set against an intake of roughly 13,510 cases filed in May 2026 alone, the approval volume is a fraction of what would be needed to keep pace. Whether this reflects a processing reallocation, a shift in adjudicator capacity, or a structural intake wave is not clear from the data.

All six tracked filing-month groups from January through June 2026 show 0.0% cleared as of this snapshot. The January 2026 group, now 24 weeks old, has 5 approvals out of 12,167 cases. The February 2026 group (19 weeks old) has 6 out of 12,718. The historical knowledge-base baseline for joint petitions runs 12 to 24 months filing-to-approval, so most January 2026 filers are still within the expected window. Even so, the approval volume at this stage is lower than prior periods would suggest, and the active backlog is growing at a pace that may push wait times higher once cases currently at the biometrics and processing stages reach final adjudication.