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New Delhi: The latest US Visa Bulletin for January 2026 has once again highlighted the scale of immigration backlogs faced by Indian applicants, with wait times for several family- and employment-based green card categories stretching from over a decade to nearly 25 years, making India one of the most affected countries under the current US immigration system.

India continues to figure among the four most oversubscribed countries for US immigrant visas, along with China, Mexico and the Philippines. However, a closer reading of the data shows that Indian applicants, particularly skilled professionals, face significantly longer delays than their Chinese counterparts, even though both countries are subject to the same statutory per-country limits.

Under US law, no single country can receive more than seven percent of the total annual allotment of family-sponsored and employment-based immigrant visas, irrespective of population size or application volume. This cap, embedded in the Immigration and Nationality Act decades ago, has resulted in long queues for countries with sustained high demand such as India.

In family-sponsored categories, the backlog for Indian applicants is particularly severe.

For unmarried adult children of US citizens, applications filed after September 2006 are yet to be considered, implying a wait of close to 19 years.

For siblings of US citizens, the cut-off date for India stands at April 2001, translating into a wait of almost 25 years.

In comparison, applicants from many other countries are several years ahead in the same categories due to lower overall demand.

Employment-based visas, which cover a large number of Indian engineers, doctors, IT professionals and other skilled workers, show a similar pattern.

In the EB-2 category for advanced degree holders and individuals of exceptional ability, Indian applicants face a cut-off date of July 2013.

In the EB-3 category for skilled workers and professionals, the cut-off is November 2013. This means many Indian professionals sponsored by US employers have already spent 12 to 13 years waiting for permanent residency, often remaining on temporary visas for much of their working lives.

China, despite having comparable statutory limits, is several years ahead of India in most employment-based categories. Immigration experts attribute this divergence not to any preferential treatment, but to differences in the timing and trajectory of migration flows.

China’s large-scale skilled migration to the US peaked earlier, primarily in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over the past decade, new green card demand from China has slowed as domestic economic opportunities expanded, return migration increased, and fewer Chinese students and professionals opted for long-term settlement in the US.

As a result, fresh inflows from China are closer to the number of visas issued annually, allowing existing queues to move forward gradually. India’s demand, by contrast, surged later and continues to grow.

A steady pipeline of H-1B workers, a large base of Indian students transitioning into the US workforce, and strong employer sponsorship in technology and healthcare mean that new Indian applications continue to far exceed the annual visa allocation, causing the backlog to compound rather than ease.

Differences in category composition have also widened the gap. Indian applicants are heavily concentrated in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories, which are the most congested. Chinese applicants are more evenly distributed across categories, including EB-1, which typically faces shorter or no backlogs.

The prolonged delays have tangible consequences for Indian families and professionals, including long separations, children aging out of dependent status, restricted job mobility, and prolonged uncertainty over long-term settlement. Despite repeated calls from industry bodies and some US lawmakers to reform the system, particularly by removing or relaxing per-country caps, no major legislative changes have been enacted so far.