- EB-1A visa approval rates for Indian applicants dropped to thirty-five percent in the first half of fiscal year 2026.
- Indian tech professionals face tighter scrutiny and higher denials under current immigration policies and administrative crackdowns.
- Over four hundred eighty thousand Indians await green card numbers despite having already secured approved employment-based petitions.
Boundless Immigration’s analysis of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data shows Indian applicants’ EB-1A approval rate falling to 35% in the first half of FY26, from 49.1% for all of FY25. Indian techies have taken the sharpest hit in the route for people seeking green cards through extraordinary ability.
Indian nationals filed 7,316 petitions during the first two quarters of FY26, covering October 2025 through March 2026. USCIS approved 2,571 and denied 1,131 of those petitions.
The route has become an alternative for highly accomplished professionals facing much longer employment-based queues. The latest figures show fewer petitions succeeding even as demand for that alternative remains high.
Xiao Wang, co-founder and CEO of Boundless Immigration, said technology professionals from India saw the most pronounced decline, followed by Chinese applicants. He linked the change to tighter scrutiny of skilled-worker immigration under the Trump administration.
“The decline is particularly severe among technology professionals from India and China. The tightening of immigration policies, particularly under the [current administration], has led to increased scrutiny and higher denial rates for even high-skill pathways.”
India’s position in the broader employment-based queue adds pressure to the approval decline. As of March 2026, Indian nationals accounted for 482,672 of 878,542 approved employment-based petitions waiting for visa numbers, more than 54% of the total queue.
The latest six-month figures show more denials alongside fewer approvals
The comparison covers a full fiscal year against only the first two quarters of the next one. Even with that difference, the cited approval rate moved from 49.1% to 35%.
| Fiscal period | Petitions filed | Approved | Denied | Approval rate cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY25 | 14,250 | 6,993 | 1,474 | 49.1% |
| FY26 first two quarters | 7,316 | 2,571 | 1,131 | 35% |
In FY25, Indian nationals filed 14,250 petitions. USCIS approved 6,993 and denied 1,474.
During the first two quarters of FY26, filings reached 7,316. Approvals fell to 2,571, while denials reached 1,131.
USCIS released its FY 2026 Quarter 2 Data Reports on August 10, 2026. Those reports confirmed a rise in denials for Indian employment-based petitions.
The figures measure petition decisions. They do not establish why any particular case failed. Wang attributed the broader pattern to increased review of high-skill cases, while the administration’s immigration approach has been described as a crackdown on skilled-worker pathways.
The pressure extends beyond this one category. USCIS’s net backlog reached 6.3 million cases in June 2026, compared with 4.3 million at the end of FY25.
India’s queue leaves approved petitions waiting for visa numbers
Current law limits any single country to no more than 7% of total employment-based green cards issued annually. India’s large pool of applicants means that an approved petition may still wait for a visa number.
Approval is not the same as immediate permanent residence. A petition can clear USCIS review and then join the queue for an available immigrant visa.
The EB-2 and EB-3 categories for India have faced a projected 100-year backlog. That projection has pushed more highly skilled applicants toward the extraordinary-ability route as an alternative to those categories.
India’s share of the waiting queue illustrates the imbalance. Indian cases represented more than half of the 878,542 approved employment-based petitions awaiting visa numbers as of March 2026.
Major Indian information-technology companies have also reported operational hurdles and increased costs while trying to secure permanent residence for their U.S.-based workforces. The companies identified in those accounts are TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra.
EB-2 reached its Indian limit before the fiscal year ended
The Department of State confirmed that the EB-2 immigrant visa quota for Indian nationals was exhausted in May 2026. No additional visas in that category will go to Indian nationals until the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2026.
That pause has increased attention on the higher-skill category. The department’s August 2026 Visa Bulletin warned that EB-1 India could become “unavailable” before September 30 because of “high demand and number use.”
A separate August 15, 2026, warning said EB-1 India faced a risk of further retrogression before October 1. Retrogression would move visa availability backward, leaving fewer priority dates current.
The two categories therefore present different barriers. An applicant must first win petition approval, then wait for a visa number when the relevant category and priority date permit issuance.
September 30 marks the end of the current fiscal year. October 1 begins the next one, when the exhausted Indian EB-2 allocation can become available again under the next fiscal year’s allocations.
Applicants and employers face uncertainty beyond the approval figures
Navdeep Sharma, an Indian software engineer, lost a high-profile H-1B lawsuit in July 2026. His case has been cited in accounts describing the emotional and financial strain created by visa denials and prolonged separation from family.
Founders and other high-skill workers have also returned to India, describing the move as “exiting not by choice.” Some have characterized the U.S. immigration system as “hostile and dysfunctional.”
Those accounts describe personal and business effects, while the USCIS figures directly record petitions, approvals and denials. The data show the outcome shift without resolving how every applicant experienced it.
The approval-rate decline arrives alongside a larger employment-based backlog and a warning about future visa availability. The next formal cutoff comes on September 30, followed by the new fiscal year on October 1, 2026.
