EB-4 Visa Guide 2026: Special Immigrants & I-360 Guide

What the EB-4 Category Is

Employment-based immigration in the United States runs in preference categories numbered EB-1 through EB-5. EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 are built around ability and occupation: extraordinary ability, advanced degrees or exceptional ability, and skilled or professional work respectively, each usually requiring a labor certification and a job offer. EB-5 is the immigrant investor category. EB-4 is different in structure. It does not test a job market; it tests whether the beneficiary falls within a statutory special immigrant definition that Congress wrote.

That structural difference has three practical consequences. First, there is no PERM labor certification anywhere in the EB-4 process, which removes the months of recruitment and recruitment reporting that slow EB-2 and EB-3 filings. Second, the petition is Form I-360, the Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, in most subcategories, not Form I-140, and the eligibility evidence is specific to the subcategory rather than to a prevailing wage or a worksite. Third, several subcategories permit self-petitioning, meaning the beneficiary files on their own behalf with no employer sponsor at all — which for religious workers and, in its own way, for juveniles, removes the single largest point of failure in employment-based immigration.

The catch is size. EB-4 receives 9,940 visas per fiscal year for all special immigrants combined, roughly 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment-based level, and that pool is shared across every subcategory. When demand from religious worker and special immigrant juvenile petitions exceeds the allocation — as it has in recent fiscal years — a cutoff date appears in the Visa Bulletin, and the I-360 approval converts into a green card only when the priority date becomes current.

The Nine Special Immigrant Subcategories

USCIS organizes EB-4 into nine subcategories, each with its own petitioner, its own evidence and, for two of them, its own legislative expiration. The table below sets them out side by side.

Two points about the table deserve emphasis. The first is that the subcategories are not interchangeable: a person who qualifies for none of them cannot be shoehorned into EB-4 by analogy, and the statutory language controls. The second is that the religious worker and special immigrant juvenile subcategories drive almost all of the backlog, because they are the two that operate at scale — the other seven are either employment-tied in ways that generate few petitions or are closed historical classes.

Religious Workers and the December 2026 Sunset

The special immigrant religious worker subcategory is the largest source of EB-4 petitions, and it is also the one with a legislative expiration attached. USCIS sets out the requirements plainly: a special immigrant religious worker is a person coming to the United States to work full time, an average of at least 35 hours per week, in a compensated position as a minister or in a religious vocation or occupation, and to be employed by one of three qualifying entities — a US nonprofit religious organization, a religious organization authorized by a group tax exemption holder to use its group tax exemption, or a US nonprofit organization affiliated with a religious denomination.

Two additional tests apply to the beneficiary personally. The person must have been a member of a religious denomination having a bona fide nonprofit religious organization in the United States for at least two years immediately before the petition is filed. And the person must have been working in a religious position after the age of 14, either abroad or in the United States, continuously for at least two years immediately before filing. The prior work does not have to match precisely the work that will be performed in the United States, and a break in continuity does not defeat eligibility provided the person was still employed as a religious worker, the break did not exceed two years, and its nature was further religious training or a sabbatical — but the person must have remained a member of the petitioner's denomination throughout the two years of qualifying employment.

The sunset is the date employers and workers most often get wrong. On September 2, 2026, the president signed P.L. 119-103 into law, extending the EB-4 non-minister special immigrant religious worker program through December 11, 2026. Non-minister workers — those within a religious vocation or occupation, whether professional or non-professional capacity — must immigrate or adjust to permanent resident status by that date, and the sunset applies to their accompanying spouses and children as well. Special immigrants entering the United States solely to carry on the vocation of a minister, and their accompanying spouses and children, are not affected by the sunset and face no such deadline. Because Congress has repeatedly extended this provision on short notice, the December 11, 2026 date should be independently confirmed before publication; check the USCIS religious worker page for the current authorization period.

Our religious worker visa guide covers the nonimmigrant R-1 side of this pipeline in depth, and the two statuses are frequently used in sequence: R-1 to work in the United States, then an I-360 and I-485 to convert to permanent residence before the sunset.

Special Immigrant Juveniles

Special Immigrant Juvenile classification is the EB-4 subcategory for young people who cannot be reunified with one or both parents. USCIS requires, first, that the person be under 21 years of age and unmarried at the time of filing the I-360. Second, the person must hold a valid juvenile court order issued by a state court in the United States making the required findings. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6, Part J, Chapter 2 sets out the threshold, and Volume 7, Part F, Chapter 7 confirms that USCIS does not deny an SIJ-based adjustment application solely because the applicant is older than 21 at the time of adjudication — the age test is tied to the filing of the petition, not to the later adjustment stage.

The state court order is the hinge of the entire case, and it is why SIJ is structurally different from every other EB-4 subcategory. The juvenile must be currently placed in the custody of, or have been declared dependent on, a state agency or department, an individual, or a court, and the court must find that reunification with one or both parents is not viable because of abuse, neglect, abandonment or a similar basis under applicable state law. Those findings are made by a state juvenile or family court under state family law, not by USCIS, and USCIS reviews the order rather than re-deciding the underlying custody question. The practical consequence is that the process begins in state court and the immigration petition follows it, which means timing, state-by-state age limits and the availability of a qualified state court all shape the case before USCIS ever sees it.

Cost is one area where SIJ is unusually favorable: the Form I-360 filing fee is $0 for Special Immigrant Juveniles, though a $250 additional Pub. L. 119-21 fee applies, and a qualifying Form I-485 is also $0 under the current fee schedule.

Form I-360: Who Files and What It Costs

Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, is the filing that opens almost every EB-4 case. USCIS notes that certain employment-based fourth preference subcategories require an employer to file the I-360, that other subcategories require the beneficiary to self-petition on their own behalf, and that still others do not require the form at all — so the first task is establishing which subcategory applies and who the proper petitioner is.

The fee schedule is unusually fragmented because several special immigrant classes are fee-exempt by statute. All figures below come from the current USCIS Form G-1055 fee schedule; confirm the exact amount at the time of filing.

Form I-485, the adjustment application that converts an approved I-360 into a green card, is priced separately and is where the general EB-4 applicant sees the larger number. For an applicant over the age of 14 the fee is $1,440 on paper or $1,390 online, reduced to $950 on paper or $900 online for an applicant under 14 filing concurrently with a parent. Two EB-4-relevant exemptions stand out: a Special Immigrant Juvenile filing adjustment pays $0, as does an applicant filing as a person who served honorably on active duty in the US armed forces under INA section 101(a)(27)(K). Our visa fee calculator runs the full I-360 plus I-485 stack for any EB-4 subcategory.

Visa Numbers, the Visa Bulletin and the Backlog

An approved I-360 does not by itself confer permanent residence. It establishes the priority date — the date USCIS received the petition — and that priority date becomes usable when a visa number is available under the State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin. Because EB-4 draws from a single annual pool of 9,940 visas shared across all subcategories, and because the per-country limits under the Immigration and Nationality Act apply on top of that, the category has been oversubscribed in recent fiscal years.

In the October 2026 Visa Bulletin, which opened fiscal year 2027, the EB-4 picture is:

Three things follow from that single date. It applies to every country of chargeability, which means there is no rest-of-world line that runs faster than India, Mexico or the Philippines in this category — a rarity across the employment preferences. USCIS has confirmed that employment-based adjustment applicants may use the Dates for Filing chart for October 2026, so a priority date earlier than the listed cutoff lets you file Form I-485 now even though final action remains in late 2022. And the October bulletin itself notes that Congress extended the certain religious workers program through December 11, 2026, with that category assigned the same October final action date as the other EB-4 categories.

The strategic implication is that priority date management matters more in EB-4 than in most preferences. Filing the I-360 early locks in a date, and the date — not the approval — governs the green card. For subcategories where the beneficiary has a genuine alternative, our green card backlog estimator models the wait by category and country, and green card processing time tracks the post-petition stage.

The EB-4 Process, Step by Step

The sequence is consistent across subcategories, with the evidence varying by type.

• Step 1 — establish the subcategory. Determine which of the nine special immigrant definitions the beneficiary actually falls within. This is a legal analysis, not a preference, and it determines who may petition and what evidence is required.
• Step 2 — assemble the subcategory evidence. For religious workers, that is the two years of denomination membership and the two years of qualifying religious employment, plus evidence the position is full-time and compensated and the employer is a qualifying nonprofit. For special immigrant juveniles, it is the state juvenile court order with the required findings.
• Step 3 — file Form I-360. The proper petitioner files the I-360 with USCIS, paying the applicable fee or establishing a fee exemption. USCIS adjudicates the petition and issues an approval notice with the priority date.
• Step 4 — wait for a visa number. The priority date is compared against the monthly Visa Bulletin. In October 2026 that date is December 15, 2022 for all chargeabilities.
• Step 5 — adjust or process consular. If the beneficiary is lawfully inside the United States and the Dates for Filing chart permits, they file Form I-485 for adjustment of status. If they are abroad, they proceed through the National Visa Center and a consular interview.
• Step 6 — receive the green card. On approval of the I-485 or on consular admission, the beneficiary becomes a lawful permanent resident. Derivative spouses and unmarried children under 21 follow the same timeline.

EB-4 Document Checklist

Every EB-4 filing needs a core set of documents, with subcategory-specific items layered on top. This list covers the core plus the two largest subcategories.

• Form I-360 signed by the proper petitioner, on the current edition.
• Filing fee or documented fee exemption, per the table above.
• Beneficiary identity documents: passport biographic page, birth certificate with translation where applicable.
• Religious worker: evidence of two years of denomination membership; evidence of two years of qualifying religious employment, abroad or in the United States; documentation that the position is full-time, averaging at least 35 hours per week, and compensated; evidence the petitioner is a qualifying US nonprofit religious organization, is authorized to use a group tax exemption, or is affiliated with a religious denomination.
• Special immigrant juvenile: the valid state juvenile court order containing the required findings on reunification and custody; evidence of state court jurisdiction; evidence of the beneficiary's age and marital status at filing.
• Form I-485 with the applicable fee, filed only once the priority date is current under the applicable chart.
• Medical examination on the current civil surgeon form, completed by a USCIS-authorized civil surgeon.
• Derivative documents for accompanying spouses and unmarried children under 21, including marriage and birth certificates.
• Translations for any document not in English, with a certification of accuracy.

For a filing-ready version of this checklist formatted by case type, use our visa document checklist tool, and confirm the current form editions at USCIS before filing.

Frequently Asked Questions