F2A Backlog Drops 94% in Two Years: What It Means for Green Card Holders’ Families

The line for spouses and young children of Green Card holders has gotten dramatically shorter.

In September 2023, nearly 380,000 approved Form I-130 petitions in the F2A category were sitting in a queue, waiting for a visa number to become available. Two years later, that number had fallen to 22,990—a 94% drop, according to USCIS data.

The shift is the result of how visa number allocation works. When there are more approved petitions than available visa numbers in a given year, a backlog forms. When the supply catches up with demand, the backlog clears. That’s what happened with F2A.

How the F2A backlog cleared in 2025

The F2A preference category covers spouses and unmarried children (under 21) of lawful permanent residents. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, F2A receives 77% of the second preference allocation of 114,200 visas—roughly 87,900 Green Cards per year.

Here’s the simple version of what happened: the government hands out a fixed number of F2A Green Cards each year. When more people are approved than there are Green Cards to give, a line forms. For years, that line kept growing. But starting around 2023, the number of people waiting started to shrink because the government was handing out Green Cards faster than new people were joining the line.

For much of 2023, there was no line at all—anyone with an approved petition could move forward. Then the State Department put a hold on new approvals midway through the year to avoid exceeding the annual cap, and a backlog built back up. (For more on how the Visa Bulletin works, see our Visa Bulletin explainer.) But with roughly 88,000 Green Cards going out each year and fewer new petitions piling up, the queue kept shrinking.

Source: USCIS Office of Performance and Quality

Where the backlog shrank the most

The decline was broad. Every country group tracked by USCIS saw its F2A queue shrink by at least 86%.

Source: USCIS Office of Performance and Quality

The Philippines saw the steepest percentage decline, from 12,580 waiting petitions in 2023 to just 294 in 2025. Mexico, which had the second-largest absolute backlog behind the “Rest of the World” group, dropped from 98,639 to 8,220.

What this means now

As of the April 2026 Visa Bulletin, the F2A category has returned to “current” for all countries on the Dates for Filing chart. That means if you’re a Green Card holder who filed an I-130 for your spouse or child, you may be able to begin the next steps in the process—like filing Form I-485 for adjustment of status—regardless of when you filed.

The Final Action Date—which governs when a visa can actually be issued—is currently set at February 2024 for most countries and February 2023 for Mexico. So while filing eligibility has opened up, final Green Card issuance still depends on your priority date.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Processing time isn’t the same as visa availability. Even with a shorter visa queue, USCIS I-130 processing for F2A cases averages roughly 35 months. The backlog data in this article tracks only what happens after the I-130 is approved—how long until a visa number opens up. For a full breakdown of timelines, see our guide to Green Card processing times.
• Naturalization changes the math. If the petitioning Green Card holder becomes a U.S. citizen, the spouse or child moves from F2A to the immediate relative category, which has no annual cap and no backlog.
• Retrogression can happen. The State Department has retrogressed F2A before when demand exceeded supply. There’s no guarantee the category stays current.

The bigger picture

The F2A backlog story is different from other family preference categories. While F2A has largely cleared, the broader family-based queue remains massive—over 1 million approved petitions across all preference categories were still waiting for visa numbers as of September 2025. The F4 category (siblings of U.S. citizens) alone accounts for more than 741,000 of those.

For F2A families, though, the trajectory is clear: the line is the shortest it’s been in years.

F2A backlog FAQs

With F2A returning to “current” on the filing chart, should applicants file concurrently (I-130 + I-485)?

“Yes, but it is important for clients to remember that they need to be in valid status in the U.S. to be able to file for adjustment of status based on F2A,” Manifest immigration attorney Ana Gabriela Urizar says. “If their visa expired, they won’t be able to file for AOS until their spouse is a US citizen.”

Are there any risk factors for retrogression later in FY 2026 that applicants should be aware of?

“It is difficult to predict, but if the 75-country travel ban stays, this could allow for further movement,” Urizar says.