Retrogression is an inventory event, not a judgment about any individual case. When the number of applicants ready to receive a visa exceeds the visas available under the annual limits, the State Department moves priority date cutoffs backward, holds them in place, or marks a category unavailable entirely.
Fiscal year 2026 produced a clear example of how that works in EB-5, and the pattern it revealed is worth understanding before the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2026.
How the Numbers Work
Two limits govern supply. The first is the annual employment-based ceiling, normally 140,000 across all five categories. EB-5 receives 7.1 percent of that total. The second is the 7 percent per-country cap that applies across all employment-based and family-sponsored visas, prorated by category.
Within EB-5, the RIA splits the allocation further. Sixty-eight percent is unreserved. Twenty percent is reserved for rural areas, 10 percent for high unemployment areas, and 2 percent for infrastructure projects. Each of those pools fills independently, which is why they can move very differently in the same month.
FY2026 Ran Larger Than Normal
FY2026 was not a typical year for supply. Because family-sponsored usage fell roughly 46,000 short of its cap in FY2025, those numbers rolled into the employment-based limit, raising the FY2026 employment total to 186,000.
That produced 13,206 newly available EB-5 visas for FY2026, about 3,266 more than a standard year, split between 8,980 unreserved and 4,266 reserved. A larger pool did not prevent retrogression. It simply changed where the pressure landed.
What Happened to India
On June 10, 2026, the State Department announced that as of June 5, all EB-5 unreserved visas available to applicants chargeable to India for FY2026 had been issued. The category became unavailable immediately and stays closed through September 30, 2026.
Embassies and consulates cannot issue EB-5 unreserved visas to Indian applicants for the rest of the fiscal year, and USCIS cannot approve adjustment applications in that category, though it continues accepting filings that are current. Limits reset on October 1, 2026. EB-2 India had reached its own limit weeks earlier, in late May.
Where the Categories Stand
The August 2026 Visa Bulletin shows EB-5 unreserved current worldwide, with China at a December 1, 2016 final action date and India listed as unavailable. On the Dates for Filing chart, China sits at March 1, 2017 and India at May 1, 2024.
All three set-aside categories remain current for every country on both charts, as they have throughout FY2026. USCIS has required employment-based adjustment applicants to use the Final Action Dates chart since May 2026.
Why Set-Asides Stayed Current
A category stays current when qualified applicants do not exceed visas being issued. In the set-asides, both halves of that equation have been unusually low.
Only 922 reserved visas were issued through consular processing in FY2025, roughly 13 percent of what was available. Low I-526E approval volume is a large part of the reason, since investors cannot become qualified applicants until their petitions are approved. Estimates place more than 30,000 people in the set-aside pipeline against roughly 7,634 reserved visas available in FY2026.
The Carryover Rule
Unused reserved EB-5 visas do not disappear the way most employment-based numbers do. Under the RIA, a reserved visa unused in one year carries into the same reserved category the following year. If it goes unused a second time, it is released in the third year to the unreserved pool.
That rule explains why roughly 7,634 reserved visas are available in FY2026 despite only 4,266 being newly allocated, and why as many as 10,000 visas could reach the unreserved category this year against a normal allocation of 6,760.
Reading the Warning Signs
Several indicators reliably precede a movement. Bulletin note sections are the most direct: when the State Department writes that retrogression may become necessary, that language often precedes action within one or two bulletins. The August 2026 bulletin carries exactly that warning for multiple categories.
Timing matters as well. Retrogression clusters in the second half of the fiscal year, when the remaining annual balance is thinnest. Derivative counts accelerate it, because spouses and children draw against the same numbers. A separate signal is the gap between adjudication speed and issuance, since a petition can be approved promptly and still wait for a number.
What the Next Year May Hold
India unreserved reopens on October 1, 2026, when FY2027 limits take effect. Whether it stays open depends on demand and on the size of the FY2027 pool, which again turns partly on how many family-sponsored numbers go unused.
The set-asides are the category to watch. They have stayed current on low issuance rather than low demand, and the pipeline behind them is large. If EB-5 processing times improve and approval volume rises, the pool of qualified applicants could grow quickly enough to trigger cutoffs in categories that have never had them.
Key Takeaway
Retrogression follows arithmetic. FY2026 showed that a larger than normal visa supply does not prevent a category from closing when per-country demand concentrates, and that a category showing as current is not evidence that no backlog exists.
For EB-5 investors, the practical distinction is between adjudication speed and number availability. Those are separate clocks, and in FY2026 the second one closed the EB-5 green card path for Indian applicants in the unreserved category while their petitions continued to be processed normally.
All figures are current as of August 2026 and reflect the August 2026 Visa Bulletin. Visa issuance figures reflect full-year FY2025, the most recent complete year published by the State Department.
Sources
U.S. Department of State, Visa Bulletin for August 2026 (final action dates, dates for filing, and allocation rules). https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2026/visa-bulletin-for-august-2026.html
U.S. Department of State, India Per-Country Limit Reached in the EB-5 Unreserved Category (announced June 10, 2026). https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/india-per-country-limit-reached-in-the-eb-5-unreserved-category.html
IIUSA, DOS Publishes FY2026 Annual Immigrant Visa Limits (FY2026 EB-5 allocations and reserved carryover). https://iiusa.org/dos-publishes-fy2026-annual-immigrant-visa-limits-13206-new-eb-5-visas-available-this-year/
IIUSA, EB-5 Visa Issuance in FY2025 (reserved and unreserved utilization rates). https://iiusa.org/eb-5-visa-issuance-in-fy2025-trends-in-unreserved-and-reserved-categories/
USCIS, Adjustment of Status Filing Charts from the Visa Bulletin (monthly chart designation). https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates/adjustment-of-status-filing-charts-from-the-visa-bulletin
Lucid Professional Writing, EB-5 set-aside backlog analysis (pipeline estimates and Visa Bulletin history). https://blog.lucidtext.com/category/eb-5-statistics/