N-400 Final-Stage Wait Has Nearly Tripled Since May, Forecast Points Higher
The median final-stage wait for N-400 naturalization approvals has risen from 13 days in early May to 39 days this week, a slope of +3.9 days per week at R²=0.99. If the pace holds, the median reaches 55 days by late July.
Nine weeks ago, the median final-stage wait for an N-400 naturalization approval was 13 days. This week it is 39 days, a nearly threefold rise driven by a slope of +3.9 days per week with an R² of 0.99, meaning the acceleration has been nearly perfectly linear. The active pending backlog stood at 68,855 cases as of July 7, up roughly 40,000 cases (138%) in 61 days. A four-week forecast puts the median near 55 days by July 20 if the current pace continues.
- The N-400 final-stage median rose from 13 days (week of May 4) to 39 days (week of June 22) in nine weeks, a slope of +3.9 days per week at R²=0.99.
- The active pending backlog reached 68,855 cases as of July 7, up roughly 40,000 cases (+138%) in 61 days, with the May 2026 filing-month group contributing 13,904 of those active additions.
- Cases that received and responded to a Request for Evidence (RFE) cleared in a median 24 days this week, faster than the 30-day median for cases without an RFE.
- The four-week forecast, based on the high-confidence regression, projects the median reaching ~55 days by the week of July 20, with a confidence band of ±1 day.
- The February 2026 filing-month group (22 weeks old) has cleared only 3.2% of its cases, compared with monthly approval rates of 5,000 to 13,000 in mid-2025.
From 13 days to 39 in nine weeks
Nine weeks ago, in the week of May 4, the final-stage wait for N-400 (Application for Naturalization) approvals was 13 days. This week it is 39 days. The slope of the 8-week regression is +3.9 days per week with an R² of 0.99, meaning the rise has been nearly linear with very little week-to-week noise. This is not a bounce off an unusually low reading: the median rose in each of the last eight consecutive weeks, from 13 days through 16, 22, 25, 28, 34, 38, and now 39.
The 12-week trailing average is 30 days, pulled down by the low readings in May. The current 39-day figure sits 9 days above that average. Worth noting: the median was also 38 days in W15 (April 6), before a pronounced dip in W18 and W19. The current reading has returned to that earlier level and is still rising, so this week's +1-day move is a continuation rather than a one-week move above a stable baseline.
A backlog that grew 138% in 61 days
The active pending backlog (cases not yet adjudicated (approved, denied, or closed)) stood at 68,855 cases as of the July 7 snapshot, up roughly 40,000 cases (+138%) from the May 7 snapshot 61 days earlier. The largest single-month contributor is the May 2026 filing-month group, which added 13,904 active cases, more than any other recent filing month. The monthly status-count table reinforces the picture: zero 'approved' outcomes appear for cases filed in February through July 2026, consistent with the weekly aggregate showing that approvals this week likely represent older cases working through the queue.
Using the Stage durations (30-day raw) data, the dominant pending status is 'Case Is Still Being Processed By USCIS', which holds about 368,000 cases — roughly 39.5% of the active pipeline — at a raw median of 103 days at that stage (25th percentile 68 days, 75th percentile 164 days). Interview-scheduled cases, at 19.3% of the pipeline, sit at a raw median of 50 days at that stage (p25 37 days, p75 73 days). Together these two stages account for roughly 59% of the active queue. Oath-ceremony statuses add another 16%, meaning nearly all queue weight sits well before the final adjudication (USCIS's decision step) step that the weekly median measures.
About 39% of all pending N-400 cases are still in general processing, where the median wait at that stage already exceeds 100 days.
Recent filers: still early in the queue
The filing-month cohort (a group of cases) burndown tracks what share of cases filed in a given month has been approved as of today's snapshot. These are cumulative cohort metrics, not weekly flow. The February 2026 filing-month group, now 22 weeks old, has cleared just 3.2% of its 14,488 cases. The March 2026 group (18 weeks old, 17,815 total cases) has cleared 1.7%. For comparison, the monthly status table shows that USCIS approved 13,867 cases filed in June 2025 and 8,524 cases filed in July 2025, rates that have since collapsed to near-zero for 2026 filing months.
No filing-month group from 2026 shows more than 3.2% approval. The monthly status table confirms that zero approved outcomes appear for cases filed in any 2026 month through July. The 913 approvals recorded this week most likely represent cases filed well before 2026, working through the tail of the queue. Monthly throughput was robust through mid-2025 (ranging from roughly 5,000 to 13,000 approvals per month from June through August 2025) before dropping sharply from October 2025 onward.
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