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US will not be issuing any more visas in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category for fiscal year (FY) 2025. The US State Department, working in close collaboration with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has announced the issuance of all available visas in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category for fiscal year (FY) 2025.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) limits the number of employment-based preference immigrant visas that may be issued within a fiscal year. Specifically, the INA provides that the annual limit for EB-4 visas is 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment limit. The worldwide level for annual employment-based preference immigrants is at least 140,000.
The EB-4 category is for special immigrants, including religious workers, special immigrant juveniles, certain U.S. government employees, certain international organization retirees, and certain international broadcasting employees, among others.
Since all available EB-4 visas for FY 2025 have been used, embassies and consulates may not issue visas in these categories for the remainder of the fiscal year. The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2026) on October 1, 2025. At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in this category to qualified applicants.
The US Bulletin for March showed retrogression was required in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category. Due to high demand and number of uses throughout the first half of the fiscal year, it had become necessary to retrogress the final action date in the EB-4 categories for March to keep issuances within the annual limit.
The March bulletin stated that it may be necessary to make the category “Unavailable” in the coming months, possibly as soon as April. However, as of February 2025, all available immigrant visas in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category for fiscal year (FY) 2025 has been issued.
A specific category may become unavailable before the end of a fiscal year if demand and issuance rates for that category would otherwise exceed its annual limit.
Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/investing-abroad-all-available-eb-4-visas-in-the-employment-based-fourth-preference-category-issued-for-fy-2025-3769481/
