Every I-130 petition travels the same path: it waits for a USCIS decision and — if approved — waits for a visa number. We follow that journey with official USCIS data, stop by stop. Three reports, one single story.
Three waiting rooms, one single building.
None of these figures is the same queue. They are different stops on the same path — and we're going to walk them in order.
Two point three million await a yes or a no.
"Pending" is not the same as "backlog."
Pending is 67% preference. But the real backlog is 91% immediate relative. It's an inverted mirror — and there's a reason.
Why: USCIS defines "backlog" as what's pending beyond its target time and within its control. Almost all preference pending is excluded — those people aren't waiting on USCIS, they're waiting on a visa number.
The backlog measures how slow USCIS is. The visa queue measures the limits set by Congress. They are not the same problem.
Five buildings hold almost everything.
The I-130 is adjudicated at service centers, not at the field offices where you have your interview. Five centers hold 87.6% of all pending.
It's the office you go to in person: your biometrics appointment and, if your case requires one, your interview. It serves the public and handles local paperwork — but it decides almost no I-130 petitions.
These are centers closed to the public where forms sent by mail are processed and decided. Your I-130 is adjudicated here. Five centers hold almost all of the country's workload.
The queue is emptying.
Mexico moved the needle.
Its queue fell 37% (−210K), the biggest contribution to the total decline. "Rest of the world" had the most dramatic peak-and-recovery: it rose to 862K and came back down to 510K.
start Sep 2023
peak 2026
today
F2A: the fast track.
Spouses and minor children of residents are the highest-priority category. Visas are almost always available, so no one waits — the queue reads zero.
When demand exceeds the cap, a brief queue forms (the 380K peak in 2023) that drains back to zero. Its numbers are episodic, not a trend.
For India and China, the wait is the siblings.
Country × category, FY 2026 Q1. Color marks the intensity of the queue. Hover over each cell to see the detail.
unmarried USC
spouses LPR
children LPR
married USC
siblings
What these numbers are NOT.
2.3M under review + 1.03M in the visa queue are not 3.3M people. They are different stages of the same path; adding them is double-counting.
One petitioner can file several, and derivative beneficiaries — spouse, children — aren't counted separately. The real number of people is higher.
Except for quarterly received/approved/denied, everything is a point-in-time stock as of Dec 31, 2025 — a snapshot, not a count of arrivals.
Eight things we learned.
It's a stock, not a flow.
A falling queue means it's emptying — visas issued faster than petitions coming in — not that fewer people are migrating. The −21% is good news for those who wait.
The peak was 1.69M; it has drained 39% since then.
From September 2023 to today, nine consecutive quarters of decline, down to 1.03M — the best level in five years.
Siblings (F4) are 70% of the queue.
Reforming the family visa queue is, mathematically, reforming the siblings queue.
Mexico is 35% of the queue and drove the decline.
−37% (−210K), more than India, China and the Philippines combined. The center of gravity of family visa demand.
For India (91%) and China (85%), the queue is almost pure siblings.
The longest-waiting category — spouses and children advance quickly; siblings wait decades.
F2A is the fast track.
Spouses and children of residents barely wait: the queue is usually zero. Its peaks are episodes of visa availability, not a backlog.
The "real backlog" is 91% immediate relative, not preference.
The backlog USCIS can resolve and the one that depends on Congress are opposite problems. Confusing them is the most common mistake when reading this data.
Five centers hold 88% of everything.
The wait is decided by USCIS logistics — Vermont, California, Texas, Nebraska, Potomac — not by your zip code.
About Form I-130
How many I-130 petitions are waiting for a visa?
Why does the I-130 take so long?
Which country has the most I-130 petitions waiting?
Does the F2A category (spouses of residents) have a wait?
Three official USCIS reports (Office of Performance and Quality, accessed 01/2026), combined into a single journey: performance and pending by office (PAER0020061, Oct–Dec 2025), Net Backlog by form type (as of Dec 31, 2025) and approved petitions waiting for a visa by category and country (PAER0020057, 17 snapshots FY2021 Q3→FY2026 Q1). All values are point-in-time counts (stock), except quarterly received/approved/denied (flow). The aggregates reconcile to the figure (office→total, country→TOTAL, category→ALL). The frontlog is published only at the all-forms level, not per I-130, which is why it's left out.
17 snapshots · 36 rows each
inmigreat
© 2026 · I-130 Report · The complete journey of a family petition
Official USCIS data · This report does not constitute legal advice