How we calculate

PERM and PWD figures come from the DOL FLAG processing times page, which DOL updates at the end of the first work week of each month. We keep a copy of that page for every month since 2020 (the live page plus Internet Archive snapshots) and extract the analyst review averages, the filing month in review and the PWD backlog by month.

Priority date cutoffs come from the State Department’s monthly Visa Bulletin, currently through November 2026. I-140 and I-485 times follow USCIS historical medians and its processing times tool.

DOL reviews PERM cases roughly in order of filing month. We call the filing month DOL is working on the review front. When DOL publishes that month (64 times in our data) we use it. When it does not, we infer it as the publication date minus the 30-day average review time, calibrated on months where both exist (an offset of 0.44 months).

The front is around January 2026 now, about 287 days behind the publication date.

We measure how many filing months sit between the front and your filing month, then how fast the front has moved over the past six months (about 1.923 filing months per calendar month now).

The front cannot catch up forever: the queue has never been shorter than 135 days. So the projection has two phases: it catches up at the current pace until the lag reaches that record low, then advances one month per month. The range comes from the historical spread of the next six months’ pace divided by the past six months’ pace (15th and 85th percentiles). The employer’s first letter places the case within its month.

At each past point we predicted using only what was known then, and compared the prediction with the progress DOL later published, 456 times in total:

• Median error: 39 days
• 80% of predictions within 78 days
• The range labelled 80% contained the actual outcome 86% of the time

DOL publishes progress by month only, so every prediction carries about half a month of built-in imprecision.

Cases in audit or supervised recruitment are outside this model and usually take longer. Policy changes, DOL staffing and swings in filing volume can break historical patterns. Visa Bulletin projections are less certain still: visa numbers reset each October, and dates can move forward or back.

This is not a DOL, USCIS or State Department website, and nothing here is legal advice.

DOL posts processing times at the end of the first work week of each month and the State Department publishes the bulletin mid-month. We refresh soon after each release. This build was generated on November 8, 2026.