How long does it take to get a green card?

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How long it takes to get a green card depends entirely on the path taken, the applicant's country of birth, and when the applicant began processing. For example, a person who qualifies in the employment based first preference classification, or who is an immediate relative of a US citizen could obtain lawful permanent resident ("green card") status in six to nine months - start to finish. On the other hand, most other employment based applications take a minimum of nine to twelve months even under the best of circumstances, and generally take upwards of three years. Non-immediate relative family based immigration can take between five and fifteen years - depending upon the preference classification and country of charge.

For employment based applicants, immigration is usually a three step process. First, there is the foreign labor certification (PERM). Department of Labor processing times have been all over the map in the last three years, ranging from three weeks to fourteen months. Following PERM approval, the next step is the immigrant preference petition (I-140). This can take between two weeks (if you pay an extra $1,000 for premium processing) to six months. Once this second step is complete, the applicant must wait until his or her place in line on the quota waiting list becomes current. When an applicant first applies for an immigration benefit, that filing date becomes known as the applicant's priority date. Places on the quota waiting list are ordered by priority date. For more information about this, please click here.

The final step involves filing an application for adjustment of status with the USCIS, or filing an immigrant visa application with a US Department of State consular office abroad. Consular immigrant visa processing rarely takes more than six months. Adjustment of status, historically, has taken between three and five years.

Family based immigration involves two steps: the filing of the preference petition (I-130) and the application for immigrant status. When an I-130 petition is filed, the filing date becomes the immigrant's priority date. When the priority date becomes "current" then the applicant may file for immigrant status through adjustment of status or overseas consular processing. Because of the severe backlogs in all family based categories, applicants other than immediate relatives should expect to wait many years before becoming eligible to apply for immigrant status.