Explainers / Numbers
Why country of birth changes your wait
The 7% per-country limit, in plain terms, and why two people with the same job and the same priority date can wait years or decades apart.
The rule
US law caps family- and employment-based green cards for people born in any single country at 7% of the total each year. It applies equally to a country of 1.4 billion people and a country of 1 million.
About 140,000 employment-based green cards are available yearly (plus unused family numbers in some years), split into EB-1 to EB-5. Within each category, no country can take more than its 7% share while other countries’ applicants are waiting.
What that does
- Rest of world: demand is spread across many countries, so no one hits the limit and dates are near-current.
- India: demand is far larger than 7%, so a queue forms that grows every year. NFAP estimates about 997,000 Indian-born people waiting.
- China: a smaller but still long queue.
Two engineers, same team
Imagine two engineers hired the same day, same role, same priority date. One was born in Canada, the other in India. The Canadian engineer might have a green card in two to three years. The Indian engineer might still be waiting a decade later, renewing H-1Bs and watching the Visa Bulletin every month.
Cross-chargeability
If your spouse was born in a country with a shorter wait, you can often be “charged” to their country instead, as long as you immigrate together.
Can it change?
Only through Congress. Proposals to remove or raise the per-country limit have passed one chamber before but have not become law. We track bills on the policy timeline.
The good
- It is a single rule, simple to understand once explained
- Cross-chargeability through a spouse can help some families
- Congress can change it; bills to lift the cap come up regularly
The hard
- The limit ignores how many people from each country apply
- It creates enormous backlogs for India and long ones for China
- Changing it requires new legislation
Recent from immigration lawyers
From independent law firms, newest first. Not reviewed by h1b-life, not legal advice and not an endorsement.
- November 2026 Visa BulletinMurthy Law Firm · Oct 22, 2026
- The employer’s guide to reading the Visa BulletinBerry Appleman & Leiden · Sep 30, 2026
Sources
- INA section 202(a)(2), 8 U.S.C. 1152 (per-country limit)
- Travel.State.Gov: Visa Bulletin
- Cato Institute: Employment-based backlog exceeds 1.2 million
Rules change often. If something here looks out of date, it probably is; check the official source and talk to an immigration attorney about your own case.