October 2026 Visa Bulletin: the Other Workers date moved backwards for most countries

The Department of State has published the Visa Bulletin for October 2026, the first issue of fiscal year 2027. For applicants on the EB-3 unskilled route the relevant line is Employment Third Preference, Other Workers, and in this issue that line moved backwards for most of the world.

This is the opposite of what people expect from an October issue, so it is worth being precise about it.

What the October bulletin says

In the final action dates chart, the Other Workers row reads 1 January 2022 for all chargeability areas except those listed separately. In the September issue that same cell read 1 April 2022. The date has retrogressed by three months.

The separately listed countries did not all move the same way. China-mainland born advanced from 1 May 2019 to 1 October 2019. India did not move at all and stays at 1 January 2014. The Philippines advanced from 1 December 2021 to 1 January 2022, which places it level with the worldwide column this month. Mexico reads 1 January 2022.

Bangladesh is not separately listed, so an applicant chargeable to Bangladesh reads the all chargeability areas column. That is the 1 January 2022 line, and it is three months earlier than last month.

• Priority date earlier than 1 January 2022 → current under this bulletin, and your case can move.
• Priority date between 1 January 2022 and 1 April 2022 → you were current in September and you are not current in October. This is the group this issue actually affects.
• Priority date later than 1 April 2022 → you were waiting before and you are still waiting.
• No priority date yet → nothing on this chart applies to you until a labour certification is filed on your behalf.

The bulletin explains why, in its own words

Section B of this issue says that with FY 2027 numbers becoming available, dates for filing and final action dates have advanced across various categories, but that some employment-based categories for Rest of World countries have retrogressed, and that those retrogressions are necessary to keep visa issuances within the FY 2027 quarterly and annual limits. It adds that the situation is being continually monitored and adjustments will be made accordingly.

That is the whole mechanism. A new fiscal year releases a fresh annual allocation, but the allocation is also spread across quarters. When demand at the old date would consume the year’s numbers too quickly, the date is pulled back so issuance stays inside the limits. It is a throttle, not a punishment, and the department has said it is watching it.

It is also worth knowing that the Other Workers subgroup has a hard ceiling of its own: no more than 10,000 of the third preference numbers may go to Other Workers in a year, and under NACARA that ceiling is reduced each year. This issue puts the FY 2027 reduction at approximately 150.

If you are filing through a consulate, watch the other chart too

The dates for filing chart is separate, and for Other Workers it reads 1 June 2022 for all chargeability areas except those listed, 1 October 2020 for China-mainland born, and 15 January 2015 for India. Mexico and the Philippines both read 1 June 2022.

That chart governs when the National Visa Center will invite you to assemble and submit documents, which happens before a visa number is available to you. So a case can legitimately be moving on documents while the final action date is still behind you. For adjustment of status inside the United States, USCIS says which chart applies each month on its own website.

What retrogression does not mean

It does not cancel anything. A priority date you already hold is not lost, reduced or reissued. If your date fell behind the new cut-off this month, your case waits rather than ends.

It does not mean a mistake was made in your case, and nobody needs to be paid to fix it. There is no filing, no fee and no expedite that moves a final action date — it is set centrally for everybody in the category each month.

It is also not necessarily permanent. Dates retrogress and advance again as demand and the quarterly allocation change. What it does mean is that any timeline you were working to should be treated as provisional, and that anybody contacting you this month claiming your case has jumped forward is telling you something this bulletin contradicts.

Read it yourself, every month

This note records what one issue said on one date, and the date we checked it is at the top of this page. We do not publish a running cut-off date anywhere on this site, because a stale one read as current is worse than none at all. The bulletin is the authority; the link is below.