Analysis - December 2013 Visa Bulletin

For December 2013 Visa Bulletin, please click here: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2013/11/december-2013-visa-bulletin.html

Please see below analysis of December 2013 Visa Bulletin:

EB1: All EB1 categories are current and should continue to remain current for fiscal year Demand is increasing at rate of around 1000-1200 every month.

EB2 ROW: This category continues to remain current. Demand in EB2ROW is very low at an average of around 300 per month. This is good news for EB2 India and China, as they could get a higher spillovers in FY 2014 compared to FY 2013.

EB2 China: As expected, EB2 China also moved forward by 4 weeks. It should continue to move forward around 3 to 5 weeks per month. It will still be behind EB3 China which is ahead by nearly 3 years.

EB2 India: As we had mentioned earlier, there was huge retrogression in EB2 India due to large amount of porting from EB3 India to EB2 India. We will be adding a new blog exclusive to EB2 India movement in fiscal year 2014. Till then, please see this blog post for updates in EB2 (India, ROW and China) category.

Note: The November EB2 India demand data does not have demand break down from year 2005 to 2008. It only says that the demand prior to Jan 2009 is 9,000.

EB3 ROW: The biggest (expected) forward movement was in EB3 ROW, Mexico and China category. This category moved forward exactly by one year. According to I-485 pending inventory, demand is very low at around 14,000. The annual quota for EB3 ROW is over 40,000. Hence dates have moved forward significantly and is likely to move forward by 4-6 months in next VB.

EB3 China: EB3 China also moved forward by 12 months. It is likely that EB3 China dates would continue to be ahead of EB2 China for this fiscal year.

EB3 China Other workers Category also continues to move at same rate as EB3 China.

EB3 Mexico: Similarly EB3 Mexico also moved forward by 12 months.

Dates for EB3 China and EB3 Mexico should continue to be same as EB3 ROW.

EB3 India: EB3 India retrogressed by 3 weeks. The huge forward movement in FY 2013 resulted in EB3 India dates to retrogress in Dec VB (due to much higher demand). Since quota resets from Oct 1, EB3 India will only have annual quota of 2802 visas (which means slower movements due to huge demand in this category).

Unlike China, EB3 India is not likely to move ahead of EB2 India due to huge backlog. Even if everyone ported from EB3 to EB2, their application would be open in both categories (and Charles Oppenheim from Visa Office has confirmed that they are been counted twice).

EB3 Philippines: Both EB3 India and EB3 Philippines received a huge amount of spillovers from EB3 ROW in September visa bulletin. DOS allotted these visas because of low demand in EB3 ROW category and to prevent wasting these visas in FY 2013. The demand in EB3 Philippines is much lower compared to EB3 India. Hence this category moved forward by 3 weeks and is likely to move forward in next few months.

Please see this blog post for future updates in EB3 categories.

EB4: This category continues to remain current.

EB5: This category continues to remain current.

Demand in EB4 and EB5 is currently very low. Hence EB2 category can expect a bigger spillover in FY 2014.

Family Categories:

Following categories did not move forward: F1 Philippines, F1 Mexico, F2B Mexico, F3 Mexico, F4 Mexico and all F2A categories.

F1 Philippines: This category has slowed down a lot from 4-6 months movement every month.

F2A Category: As expected, there was no further movement in this category. DOS is holding the dates steady to help them build a "pipeline" of cases after applicants file I-485 applications or consular processing cases. Once enough demand has been generated, it is likely to retrogress back and then continue to move forward slowly. Please see article for more details for FB category.

Most other FB categories moved between 1 and 5 weeks.

If you have not done it yet, remember to add your case data to GC tracker: http://www.mygcvisa.com/ tracker/

If your application has been sent to NVC, please see this blog post.

Tip: Charles Oppenheim creates and publishes the monthly visa bulletin. He works at Department of State (DOS) and is the Chief of "Visa Control and Reporting Division".

Did you know: Every year move than 1 million visas are allotted. Family based categories get 66% - whereas employment based categories get only 14%. Learn more statistics here.

Also See:

• December 2013 Demand Data: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2013/11/december-2013-demand-data.html

• November 2013 Visa Bulletin And Analysis: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2013/10/visa-bulletin-november-2013.html

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