The State Department, working with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has issued all available immigrant visas in the Employment-Based Fifth Preference (EB-5) unreserved category for applicants chargeable to India for fiscal year (FY) 2026, the agency announced. The exhaustion took effect June 5, 2026, and results from statutory limits under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), not from an agency policy decision.
Under INA 203(b)(5), the annual limit for EB-5 visas is set at 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based visa limit, with 68 percent of that total allocated to unreserved categories (C5, T5, I5, R5, RU, NU). The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 further allowed unused EB-5 reserved visas from FY 2024 to be added to the unreserved pool for FY 2026. Additionally, INA 202(a)(2) caps visas for natives of any single foreign state at 7 percent of the combined employment-based and family-sponsored total, a limit prorated across visa categories under INA 202(e).
Because the per-country limit for India has been reached, U.S. embassies and consulates may not issue EB-5 unreserved visas to Indian applicants for the remainder of FY 2026. The annual limits will reset at the start of FY 2027 on October 1, 2026, at which point embassies and consulates may resume issuing such visas to qualified applicants.
The State Department's announcement did not include any estimate of how many visas were issued before the cap was reached, nor did it provide data on pending applications or the number of applicants affected. No official response from immigration advocacy groups or legal experts was included in the source account.
Informational content only, not legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.