October 2026 Visa Bulletin: India EB-5 Unreserved Moves From Unavailable to December 1, 2023

For Indian EB-5 investors, fiscal year 2026 ended with the door shut, and fiscal year 2027 opened with it wider than at any point over the past twelve months. The October 2026 Visa Bulletin EB-5 rows give India a final action date of December 1, 2023, in the unreserved category, which had been unavailable since July. For an Indian-born investor with an unreserved priority date before December 1, 2023, a visa number is reachable again for the first time since June. USCIS is accepting October adjustment filings under the dates for filing chart (Chart B), so more Indian investors can file this month than can be approved. China’s unreserved final action date holds at December 1, 2016.

The rural, high unemployment, and infrastructure set-aside categories are technically current for every country on both charts, as they have been in all thirteen bulletins from October 2025 through this one. Our read of the August 2026 bulletin covered the closed-category period. This piece covers what the full year showed and what the reset means.

Every FY2026 India unreserved date in one table

We tracked both charts and the EB-5 notes in all thirteen bulletins from October 2025 through October 2026. The table shows the full year at a glance.

Two things stand out. First, the final action date advanced thirty-four months over the year, from February 1, 2021, to December 1, 2023, with a three-month closure in the middle. Second, the dates for filing chart moved only once, in January, then held for nine straight bulletins.

How the warnings escalated over about sixty days

An investor watching only the chart had no warning that July was coming. The signal lived entirely in the narrative sections that most readers skip. March and April carried only a general note under Section D that dates had been advanced across categories and that “retrogression may be necessary later in the fiscal year to keep issuances within annual limits.”

May added the first India-specific EB-5 section. Section E of the May 2026 bulletin stated that “Sufficient demand and increased number use by India in the EB-5 unreserved visa categories may make it necessary to retrogress the final action date or make the category unavailable to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the FY 2026 annual limit.”

June carried the same sentence with a deadline attached. Section H warned that the category could be made unavailable “in the next month to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the FY 2026 annual limit.” The State Department then confirmed that, as of June 5, 2026, it had issued all available EB-5 unreserved visas for applicants chargeable to India for the fiscal year, in a news release posted on June 10.

July recorded the closure. Section I stated that “India’s pro-rated EB-5 unreserved limit was reached and the category is unavailable for the remainder of FY 2026,” and set the expectation for the reset: “It is likely that in October the final action date will advance to at least the final action date announced in the June 2026 Visa Bulletin; however, the date is dependent on the demand for EB-5 unreserved numbers by Indian applicants and the FY 2027 annual limit on employment-based preference visas.”

September widened the same language to every country. Section G stated that “Sufficient demand and increased number use in the EB-5 unreserved visa category may make it necessary to retrogress the final action date or make the category unavailable before the end of the fiscal year.”

Looking back, the first India-specific warning came roughly sixty days before the closure. The practical lesson for anyone tracking a priority date is that the tables report what already happened and the narrative sections describe what could happen next.

Chart B has not moved since January, and that is the tell

India’s dates for filing cutoff has been May 1, 2024, in every bulletin since January 2026. The State Department sets that chart as its estimate of where documentarily qualified demand runs out. The final action date swung from May 1, 2022, to unavailable and then to December 1, 2023, yet the filing date held at May 1, 2024, in ten straight bulletins. That tells us the department’s estimate of total Indian unreserved demand did not change. What changed was how fast the department was willing to issue against it.

The gap between the two charts is the part worth watching. From January through June the final action date sat twenty-four months behind the filing date. In October that gap is five months. On the first day of the new fiscal year, the department moved the final action date almost all the way to its own estimate of where the queue ends. Read Chart B as a demand forecast and the October move makes sense: there was about two years of room between the charts, and most of it is now used up.

Where December 1, 2023 sits against the RIA line

The Reform and Integrity Act took effect on March 15, 2022. India’s unreserved final action date crossed that line in January 2026, when it moved to May 1, 2022. The pre-RIA Indian unreserved queue has been reachable since then. October pushes it nineteen months further, to December 1, 2023.

That changes what “the India backlog” means. For an Indian-born investor deciding today, the live question has moved past the pre-RIA queue to where post-RIA unreserved filers from 2023 and 2024 stand, and whether the Chart B estimate holds. Investors who filed before March 15, 2022, are working under a different set of rules, which we covered in our analysis of pre-March 2022 petitions and the old rules.

Why October dates are a provisional reset

October bulletins rest on two things: the statutory minimum number of visas and demand counted before the fiscal year begins. The October bulletin records that allocations “were made, to the extent possible, in chronological order of reported priority dates, for demand received by September 4th.” It sets the worldwide employment-based level at “at least 140,000,” with a per-country limit of 25,620.

Those are floors, and FY2026 closed well above them. The September bulletin put the FY2026 worldwide employment-based preference limit at 186,317 and the per-country limit at 28,862, adding that “these figures do not account for carryover provisions in accordance with INA 203(b)(5)(B)” and that “With these carryover visa numbers included, the per-country limit is 29,136.”

The gap between the October floor and the final number is procedural. The State Department cannot calculate the real annual limit until USCIS supplies its data, so the Visa Office “bases allocations on reasonable estimates of the anticipated amount of visa numbers to be available under the annual limits, in accordance with Section 203(g) of the INA.” For FY2026 that data arrived on July 24, ten months into the year. October dates are set against an estimate, and the official figure follows much later.

FY2026 shows what can happen in between. January brought an aggressive advance. A warning followed four months later, and the category closed two months after that. The October bulletin carries no EB-5 warning. Its only caution is that some employment-based categories for “Rest of World” countries “have retrogressed, and these retrogressions are necessary to keep visa issuances within FY 2027 quarterly and annual limits,” a sign the department is rationing numbers from the first month. We track the sequence in our running list of key EB-5 dates for 2026 and 2027, and the underlying allocation behavior in our analysis of how unused numbers move between categories.

Whether you can file the I-485 on it is a USCIS question

The bulletin sets visa availability. Each month, USCIS separately decides which chart adjustment applicants may use. For October 2026, USCIS chose the dates for filing chart. In FY2026 the agency allowed the dates for filing chart for employment-based adjustment for the first part of the year, then moved to final action dates for the rest of the fiscal year. Indian unreserved applicants with priority dates before May 1, 2024, can file. Approval still waits on the December 1, 2023, final action date.

The concurrent filing mechanics have not changed. We covered the discretion standard in our analysis of PM-602-0199 and EB-5 adjustment of status, and what a well-built record looks like in strengthening a concurrent EB-5 I-485. Confirm the chart determination with your immigration attorney before filing.

Set-asides stayed current through the entire cycle

Across all FY2026 bulletins and into October, the rural, high unemployment, and infrastructure categories read current for India on both charts. Indian unreserved investors felt the per-country limit in real time. Set-aside investors never encountered it.

That difference is structural, in how the two pools are fed, and it predicts nothing about either. Current means a number is available now. The supply is still finite: the reserved pools draw on an annual allocation and on carryover, and demand against them has been growing. We walk through the arithmetic in the set-aside visa math, and the difference between adjudication speed and visa availability in petition priority does not equal green card priority.

What the October 2026 Visa Bulletin EB-5 reset means by priority date

If your unreserved priority date is before December 1, 2023, a number is reachable now. You can file in October if your record is ready. If your date falls between December 1, 2023, and May 1, 2024, you sit between the two charts: within the department’s demand estimate, outside the current final action cutoff, so you can file this month but cannot be approved until the final action date reaches you. If your date is after May 1, 2024, Chart B does not yet reach you. Watch how the dates move over the coming year.

Investors who filed in a set-aside category are asking a sharper version of the same question: if my rural or high unemployment petition has a priority date before December 1, 2023, can I be issued an unreserved green card? Generally, yes. Post-RIA set-aside approvals carry two codes, one for the set-aside category and one for unreserved, which we first reported in our January 2024 Visa Bulletin analysis. With the final action date now about twenty months past the March 15, 2022 RIA line, that second code matters for India. The unreserved path turns on the priority date, so it helps any set-aside investor whose date is before December 1, 2023, however long the petition itself took to approve. What matters is the final action date in effect when the case is decided, and it can move before an officer picks up the application.

Where the case is decided may matter as well. Our FOIA review of FY2024 adjustments found that USCIS automatically assigns an unreserved number to a domestic filer when one is available. We do not know how State Department consular processing times will run this year. Domestic adjustments, which often proceed without an interview, may clear faster relative to demand, which would make adjustment in the United States the most direct route for Indian set-aside investors to reach the unreserved numbers October opened.

That points to a quieter piece of news for India. Each pre-December 2023 set-aside investor who is issued an unreserved number is one fewer draw on the reserved pools. The effect is small but real, and it could ease some of the post-RIA pressure on the set-aside categories.

If you are considering EB-5 now rather than holding a pending petition, the set-aside categories remain the lane where a number is available today, and the comparison against the EB-2 and EB-3 backlog is where most of our conversations start. Source-of-funds preparation is the step that most often sets the real timeline, which we cover in our guide to EB-5 source of funds.

If you are new to the program, our guide to how to invest in EB-5 covers the sequence from subscription through conditional residence. If you are further along, bring your priority date and your timeline to a consultation, and we will walk through what the October 2026 Visa Bulletin EB-5 reset changes for your position and which projects are open. Talk with your immigration attorney about filing strategy, and reach our team here to start on the project side.

Important Disclosures

This article is provided for general educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, investment, or immigration advice. EB-5 eligibility, project risks, and immigration outcomes depend on specific facts, evolving USCIS policy, and individual legal strategy. Visa Bulletin availability changes monthly. Investors should consult their own qualified immigration and securities counsel regarding how these concepts apply to their particular circumstances. References to USCIS, precedent decisions, or attorney commentary are descriptive only and do not imply any guarantee of outcome in any specific case.