Visas and the queue

EB-2 national interest waiver

Also called NIW, national interest waiver, EB-2 NIW.

A national interest waiver is a grant under 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(2)(B)(i) that lets someone who already qualifies for the employment-based second preference self-petition on Form I-140, because USCIS has waived the job offer, and with it the labor certification, on the ground that the person's proposed endeavor serves the national interest.

What it decides

USCIS settles EB-2 eligibility first, as an advanced degree professional or a person of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business, and only then reaches the waiver, which it may grant as a matter of discretion on the three prongs of Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016): the proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance, the person is well positioned to advance it, and on balance it benefits the United States to waive the job offer and thus the permanent labor certification. The regulation at 8 CFR 204.5(k)(4)(ii) still frames the waiver as one for exceptional ability alone and predates Dhanasar, so the Policy Manual is what officers apply. Nothing here carries a priority date into EB-5: 8 CFR 204.5(e) retains a priority date only across petitions under section 203(b)(1), (2) or (3), and 8 CFR 204.6(d) retains one only from one EB-5 petition to the next, so an approved NIW leaves an investor filing Form I-526E at the back of the fifth preference queue.

Governed by USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 5, Advanced Degree or Exceptional Ability, current as of 5 August 2026, which carries the order of analysis and the three Dhanasar prongs word for word; 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(2)(B)(i) for the waiver power and 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(2)(A) for the underlying classification; 8 CFR 204.5(k) for the classification and 8 CFR 204.5(k)(4)(ii) for the older regulatory framing. The priority date clause rests instead on 8 CFR 204.5(e), headed Retention of section 203(b)(1), (2), or (3) priority date, and on 8 CFR 204.6(d); the Policy Manual chapter does not address it.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into eb-2 national interest waiver rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

EB-1C multinational managerEB-1C is the employment-based first preference subcategory for a manager or executive transferred to a United States employer from the same firm abroad or from its parent, subsidiary or affiliate, and it requires no investment, no job creation and no labor certification.
EB-3EB-3 is the employment-based third preference immigrant category, covering skilled workers whose job requires at least two years of training or experience, professionals holding a bachelor's degree, and other workers in unskilled jobs requiring less than two years, each of whom needs a permanent full-time job offer from a US employer.
PERM labor certificationPERM labor certification is the Department of Labor process in which a US employer must show both that no able, willing, qualified and available US worker exists for the job and that hiring the foreign worker will not depress wages or working conditions, and it stands in front of most EB-2 and EB-3 green cards but is not required for EB-5 at all.
Form I-140Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers, is the USCIS immigrant petition for the employment-based first, second and third preferences, covering extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers, multinational managers and executives, advanced degree and national interest waiver cases, skilled workers, professionals and other workers. An EB-5 investor never files it.
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.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary