N-600 Median Falls 27 Days, but the Eight-Week Trend Keeps Climbing
This week's final-stage wait dropped to 119 days, the lowest reading in two weeks. The 8-week slope, at +8.7 days per week, and a backlog that grew 77.6% in six weeks, point in the opposite direction.
The N-600 Certificate of Citizenship final-stage wait fell to 119 days this week, down 27 days from 146 last week. That single-week drop is real, but the 8-week regression slope stands at +8.7 days per week, and the active pending backlog has grown 77.6% in 43 days. The two signals can coexist: a noisy, lower-volume form like N-600 regularly produces week-to-week swings that cut against a broader trend. The 12-week series, ranging from 57 to 146 days, shows just how wide that scatter is. The structural picture, driven by a fast-growing backlog, remains one of rising pressure.
- This week's N-600 final-stage median fell 27 days to 119 days, but the 8-week slope is +8.7 days per week (R²=0.41), meaning the broader trend has been adding roughly 9 days each week.
- The active pending backlog reached 7,556 cases as of June 19, up 77.6% (+3,301 cases) in 43 days, with the April 2026 filing-month group accounting for 1,548 active cases.
- The January 2026 filing-month group, the oldest tracked, has cleared only 8.0% of its cases at 24 weeks of age.
- An RFE (Request for Evidence) anomaly flag fired this week: RFE-stamped cases cleared in a median of 28 days, compared to 105 days for plain-processing cases, a 3.7x speed ratio consistent with a batch-clearing effect.
- The 4-week mechanical forecast carries a wide band: if the current slope holds, the projected median for the week of July 6 falls in the range of ~98 to 210 days.
One week down, eight weeks up
This week's median of 119 days is 27 days below last week's 146-day reading, a move that may look like the beginning of a reversal. It is not, on its own, evidence of one. The 8-week regression slope for N-600 stands at +8.7 days per week, meaning the broader trend has been adding roughly 9 days each week over the last two months. A single-week dip within a rising slope is a normal feature of a noisy series, not a signal that the direction has changed. The two readings can coexist: the drop is real, and so is the upward trajectory behind it.
Volatility is the pattern, not the exception
The 12-week series runs from 57 days (week of May 18) to 146 days (week of June 1) and back to 119 this week. The spread between the 25th percentile (p25) and the 75th percentile (p75) is similarly wide in most weeks: the week of May 4 ran from 29 days at the p25 to 192 days at the p75. Weekly sample sizes have ranged from about 217 cases in the week of April 27 to roughly 476 cases in the week of April 13, so the signal is built on a thin base. The 8-week R² of 0.41 confirms the upward trend is real, but the scatter around it is large enough that any given week's reading can land well above or below the trend line.
The backlog that explains the slope
The active pending backlog (cases filed but not yet approved or closed) stood at 7,556 cases as of June 19, up 77.6% from 43 days earlier, a net addition of 3,301 cases. The April 2026 filing-month group accounts for 1,548 of those active cases, having grown by 1,173 cases over the same period, the largest single-group increase. The January 2026 filing-month group, the oldest tracked here, had cleared only 8.0% of its cases at 24 weeks of age, with 1,480 cases still pending out of the 1,616 that filed that month. That pace of clearance, combined with continued high intake, is the structural factor most consistent with the rising 8-week slope.
Preview
Unlock the rest of this brief
Subscribers see the full analysis, including detailed forecasts and personalised case lookup.
- Full premium analysis: outlook, what it means for you, and implications.
- Personalised case lookup against this week's cohort, with percentile and remaining days.
- Estimated approval window mapped to your filing date.