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Guide · Updated July 2026

How to Read the Visa Bulletin as a Couple

The Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin every month. For spouses of green card holders (category F2A) and for fiancé(e) and spouse cases that touch a preference category, it is the document that tells you whether your place in line has been reached. This guide explains the charts, the vocabulary, and what actually applies to you.

Written from official U.S. government sources. Last reviewed July 2026. Sources and limits.

At a glance

  • Your priority date is the day USCIS received your I-130. It is on your receipt notice.
  • F2A is the category for spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents. It is numerically limited, so it appears in the bulletin.
  • Immediate relatives — spouses of US citizens — are not numerically limited and generally do not wait on the bulletin at all.
  • Two charts: Final Action Dates (when a visa can be issued) and Dates for Filing (when you may submit paperwork).
  • The bulletin can move forward, stand still, or retrogress — go backwards — from one month to the next.

Reading the bulletin, step by step

Official fact

Origin: official source. Official sourceStated by a US government publisher on the page we cite.Sources for this page

  1. 1. Find your category

    Family-sponsored categories run F1 through F4. Spouses and unmarried children under 21 of a lawful permanent resident are F2A. If your petitioner is a US citizen and you are their spouse, you are an immediate relative (IR-1/CR-1) and the preference chart does not gate your case.

  2. 2. Find your chargeability country

    The columns are by country of chargeability — usually the beneficiary's country of birth, not citizenship. Most countries fall under the first column (“All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed”); Mexico, India, China-mainland born, and the Philippines have separate columns because of per-country limits.

  3. 3. Compare your priority date to the cell

    Read across your category row to your country column. If the date shown is later than your priority date, your date is “current” for that chart. If it is earlier, you are still waiting. C means current for everyone in that cell; U means unavailable that month.

  4. 4. Use the right chart for your stage

    Consular cases at the National Visa Center are usually invited to submit documents based on Dates for Filing, then scheduled for interview when Final Action Dates reach them. For adjustment of status inside the US, USCIS states each month which chart applicants may use.

  5. 5. Check again next month

    Movement is not guaranteed and is not linear. A category can advance several months, hold still, or retrogress if demand exceeds supply. Plans that assume steady forward movement tend to break.

Final Action Dates vs Dates for Filing

Official fact

Final Action Dates (Chart A) control when an immigrant visa can actually be issued or an adjustment application approved. Dates for Filing (Chart B) sit ahead of Chart A and control when you are allowed to send in the paperwork — the DS-260 and civil documents at NVC, or the I-485 package when USCIS authorizes that chart. Being current on Chart B is permission to prepare, not approval.

What F2A means for a separated couple

Togetherward analysis

Origin: Togetherward explanation. Togetherward explanationOur reading of the official sources, not something an agency says.

  • The clock starts at filing. Your priority date is fixed on the day USCIS receives the I-130, even though the wait is felt much later.
  • If the petitioner naturalizes, an F2A spouse case generally converts to the immediate relative category, which removes the numerical wait. This is a common turning point worth tracking deliberately.
  • Retrogression is real. F2A has been current for long stretches and has also had backlogs. Do not treat a current month as a permanent state.
  • The bulletin is only one queue. USCIS petition processing, NVC document review, and embassy interview scheduling each have their own timelines on top of it.

Where to read the official bulletin

Official fact

Origin: official source. Official sourceStated by a US government publisher on the page we cite.Sources for this page

The authoritative source is the Department of State's Visa Bulletin page on travel.state.gov. For adjustment of status, USCIS publishes which chart may be used each month on its visa-bulletin page. Always confirm your own month and category against those pages rather than a summary — including this one.

Figures that change

These numbers change without notice. We only show one when a person has verified it against the official source recently enough; otherwise we say so and send you to the source.

Common questions

What is a priority date?
For a family petition, the priority date is the date USCIS received the Form I-130. It is printed on the receipt notice (Form I-797C) and marks your place in line for a category that has an annual numerical limit.
Do spouses of US citizens need to watch the Visa Bulletin?
Generally no. Spouses of US citizens are immediate relatives, a category with no annual numerical limit, so a visa number is available as soon as the case is ready. Spouses of lawful permanent residents fall in the F2A preference category, which is listed in the Visa Bulletin.
What is the difference between Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing?
Final Action Dates show when a visa can actually be issued or adjustment of status approved. Dates for Filing show when applicants may submit their documents to the National Visa Center, or in some months file adjustment of status if USCIS says that chart may be used.
What does a C or U in the chart mean?
C means current: visa numbers are available for everyone in that category and country. U means unavailable: no visa numbers are being issued in that category for that month.

Related guides

Pages in this library that continue or qualify what you just read.

How Togetherward helps

Suggestion

Togetherward is a shared, private workspace for internationally separated couples. It keeps your priority date, receipt notices, and stage evidence in one place, tracks where your case sits against published official data, and gives both partners the same view while you wait. It does not file for you and it is not a law firm.

In Togetherward

Sign in to your case to continue where this leaves off.

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Sources and limits

This guide explains how the monthly Visa Bulletin published by the US Department of State is structured. Cut-off dates change every month and this page does not reproduce them. It is not legal advice and Togetherward is not a law firm. Confirm your category and dates against travel.state.gov and USCIS, and consult a licensed immigration attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

Before you read on

  • Waiting on USCIS
  • F2A (spouse of a permanent resident)
Who this is for
Couples where the petitioning partner is a lawful permanent resident, and anyone who has been told to “watch the bulletin” and is not sure whether it applies to them.
Stage it covers
After the I-130 is filed and a priority date exists, through to the month a visa number becomes available.
What it helps you do
Find your category row and country column, read the two charts correctly, and know which one governs your current stage.
What this page cannot tell you
  • Whether your priority date is current this month — the cut-off dates change monthly and are not reproduced here.
  • When your category will advance, or whether it will retrogress.
  • Which chart USCIS will authorize for adjustment of status in a given month.
  • Whether you are legally eligible for the category you think you are in.

Last reviewed and verification status

Last reviewed
Last recorded source review: . We aim to re-read it every 120 days.
Current — reviewed inside our review interval.
Verification status of the sources behind this page
2 of 2 sources are recorded as checked. Nothing is awaiting verification.

Verified (2)

How we put this page together

Togetherward analysis

We read the structure of the published Visa Bulletin on travel.state.gov and described how a couple locates their own row: category, chargeability country, chart, and the vocabulary the charts use. Every process statement is drawn from the Department of State and USCIS pages recorded in the sources below, and reviewed on the date shown.

What we did not include

  • Monthly cut-off dates. They change every month, so a static page reproducing them would be wrong within weeks.
  • Predictions of future movement. We do not model or forecast advancement or retrogression.
  • Eligibility analysis. We describe how the chart is read, not which category your case belongs in.
  • Employment-based categories, which follow different charts and are outside this page's scope.

Who wrote this, who checked it, and how current it is

Author
The Togetherward editorial team. The people who build Togetherward. We are not attorneys and we do not give legal advice.
Reviewer
Reviewed in-house by a second person on the Togetherward team. No attorney, agency, or government office has reviewed or endorsed this page.
Scope of review
Review scope: a second person on the Togetherward editorial team re-read this page against the official pages listed below and confirmed that every process statement still matches them. That is what our review covers, and it is described in full in our editorial standards. It does not assess legal accuracy, eligibility, or how anything applies to a particular case — for that, speak with a qualified immigration attorney.
Dates
Published · last materially reviewed . We aim to re-read this page against its sources every 120 days.
Current state: Current — reviewed inside our review interval.
Automation and AI
Automation and AI: an AI assistant drafted structural first passes and suggested wording for parts of this page, and automated checks flag broken links and dates that have gone unreviewed. No AI system reads government sites and updates this page on its own, and nothing an AI produced is published unread. A named person on the editorial team compared every process statement here against the official pages listed below and is answerable for what it says.
Primary sources
Process steps come only from official U.S. government publishers. We do not use law-firm blogs, forums, or crowd-sourced timelines as authority.
Dates for each source are in the last reviewed and verification status section above.
What the labels in this guide mean
  • Official factStated by a U.S. government publisher on the source page we cite.
  • Togetherward analysisOur reading of the official sources, not something an agency says.
  • SuggestionA way to organise your own case. Optional, and not a requirement.
Limitations
  • This is an explanation of a published government process, not legal advice, and not a prediction about your case.
  • Figures that move — processing ranges, Visa Bulletin dates, fees, form editions, interview availability — are described rather than reproduced here, so you read the current number at the source.
  • USCIS, the National Visa Center, the embassy, or the consular officer may ask for something this page does not mention.
  • The Visa Bulletin is republished monthly. This page explains how to read it and never reproduces a month's dates.
Commercial independence
Commercial independence: nobody pays to appear on this page. There are no sponsors, no advertising, no referral fees, no affiliate links, and no paid placement of any attorney, agency, or service. Togetherward makes money from couples who use the product, and a commercial relationship cannot change what this page says, when it was last reviewed, whether it is flagged as out of date, or whether it stays in search results.
Corrections
If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it and update the review date. Reports go to a review queue — a person checks each one against the official source before this page changes. You can also email support@togetherward.app or use the support page.