I-765 Final-Stage Wait Hits 140 Days as Active Backlog Nearly Doubles
The median final-stage wait for Employment Authorization Document approvals reached its highest point in the current 12-week window this week, while the active pending backlog expanded 94% in 61 days, adding more than 150,000 cases since early May.
The I-765 Employment Authorization Document application's final-stage wait reached 140 days this week, up 12 days from last week's 128 and 53 days above the 12-week trailing average of 87 days, the largest two-week swing in the 12-week window. Behind that reading: the active pending backlog has grown to 311,188 cases as of this snapshot, a gain of 150,873 cases (+94.1%) since May 7. IOE, the electronic-filing channel, handled 87% of this week's approvals and carries a slope of +8.9 days per week, making it the primary driver of the aggregate trend. The confluence of rising volume and rising medians appears consistent with a structural queue buildup rather than a single-week fluctuation.
- The I-765 final-stage median reached 140 days this week, up 12 days (+9.1%) from last week and the highest reading in the 12-week window.
- The active pending backlog stands at 311,188 cases, up 150,873 (+94.1%) in 61 days, with the May 2026 filing-month group alone contributing 59,260 still-active cases.
- IOE processed 13,333 of 15,322 approved cases this week (87%) and carries an upward slope of +8.9 days per week, making it the dominant force behind the aggregate median.
- The spread between the fastest center (SRC at 58 days) and the slowest (EAC at 236 days) is 178 days, triggering the uneven-centers anomaly flag.
- Cases with an RFE (Request for Evidence) response cleared in 32 days, nearly one-third the 95-day median for plain cases, a pattern consistent with a batch of older responses closing together rather than a systemic speed advantage.
140 days: the 12-week ceiling, cracked
The week of June 22 produced a median final-stage wait of 140 days for I-765 Employment Authorization Document cases, up 12 days from 128 days the prior week and 53 days above the 12-week trailing average of 87 days. Just two weeks earlier, in the week of June 8 (W24), the median sat at 45 days, the lowest point in the visible window. That 95-day climb from W24 to W26 is the largest two-week swing in this 12-week period, and the direction of the last two weeks (128, then 140) points forward to the backlog data for context.
The 8-week regression slope sits at +5.7 days per week, but the R² of 0.18 reflects a noisy fit: the trend line has direction but limited explanatory power week to week. The 140-day reading may carry some week-to-week variance on its own. What makes it less likely to be pure noise is that it extends a two-week sequence (128, 140) that aligns with the slope's direction, and the backlog data described in the next section offers a plausible structural reason for the rise.
A backlog that nearly doubled in two months
The active backlog of pending I-765 cases stood at 311,188 as of this snapshot, a gain of 150,873 cases (+94.1%) since May 7. A growing backlog means more cases competing for adjudication (USCIS's term for the case decision step: approval, denial, or a request for more information) time, which pushes the queue of cases nearing approval further out. The data does not tell us whether throughput slowed, intake accelerated, or both; the +94.1% figure captures the net change. What it shows is that the pipeline behind the approvals measured this week is considerably larger than it was 61 days ago.
Looking at each filing-month group (cases filed in the same calendar month) in sequence: the April 2026 group had 106,938 cases at filing and is 20.6% approved at 13 weeks, with 81,298 cases still active. The March 2026 group reached 28.2% approved at 18 weeks, with 72,571 cases still active. The May 2026 group carries the most unprocessed volume: 75,417 cases filed, only 17.8% approved at 9 weeks, and 59,260 cases still active. All three groups are moving through adjudication at a measured pace relative to the volume filed, and the combined weight of their active cases is what the 311,188 backlog total reflects.
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