Visas and the queue

Dates for Filing

Also called filing chart, DFF, Dates for Filing Applications.

Dates for Filing is the more permissive of the two cutoff charts in each monthly Visa Bulletin, and its date is normally later than the matching Final Action Dates cutoff, so it opens paperwork earlier in the queue than a visa number is actually ready. For Form I-485 it applies only in the months and categories USCIS designates; the State Department uses it separately to decide when the National Visa Center asks a consular applicant for documents.

What it decides

Every Visa Bulletin carries two charts: Application Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing Applications. A preference applicant has a visa available when the priority date falls earlier than the cutoff shown, or when the category is current (8 CFR 245.1(g)(1)). Because the Dates for Filing cutoff is normally the later of the two, it reaches further back into the queue and lets more people act. USCIS designates a chart each month, separately for family-sponsored filings and for employment-based filings, so the two can differ. When USCIS determines that more immigrant visas are available for the fiscal year than there are known applicants, adjustment applicants may use Dates for Filing; otherwise they must use Final Action Dates. Either way, an applicant whose category is current on the Final Action chart, or whose Final Action cutoff is later than the Dates for Filing date, may use the Final Action chart that month. For August 2026 USCIS placed all family-sponsored categories on Dates for Filing and all employment-based categories, fifth preference included, on Final Action Dates. So as at 5 August 2026, USCIS rejects an I-485 that would qualify only under the Dates for Filing chart. The designation reaches adjustment of status and nothing else. It does not govern when Form I-526E may be filed, and it does not bind the State Department, which uses Dates for Filing to decide when the National Visa Center invites a consular applicant to assemble and submit documents.

Governed by 8 CFR 245.1(g)(1), which supplies the "immediately available at the time the application is filed" test and directs that the Visa Bulletin be consulted, but does not itself name either chart; USCIS, Visa Availability and Priority Dates (https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates); USCIS, Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin, last updated 3 August 2026 (https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates/adjustment-of-status-filing-charts-from-the-visa-bulletin). All read 5 August 2026. The chart names and the monthly designation come from the Visa Bulletin and USCIS practice rather than from the regulation.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into dates for filing rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Final Action DateA final action date, shown in the Department of State Visa Bulletin as an Application Final Action Date, is the cut-off at which an immigrant visa may actually be issued or an adjustment of status approved for a given preference category and country of chargeability.
Visa BulletinThe Visa Bulletin is the monthly Department of State publication that reports, by preference category and country of chargeability, which priority dates have reached the front of the immigrant visa queue.
Priority dateA priority date is the date USCIS properly receives a complete, signed and paid Form I-526 or I-526E, and it fixes the investor's place in the visa queue for their country of chargeability and their EB-5 category.
RetrogressionVisa retrogression is a Visa Bulletin cut-off date moving backward, so a priority date that was current one month is not current the next, because demand in a category or country outran the visa numbers available.

Checked against primary sources on 6 August 2026. Back to the glossary