Part 3: The EB-3 Category, the Visa Backlog, and What Realistic Timelines Actually Look Like
- Jun 4
- 4 min read
Parts 1 and 2 covered why H-2B employers think about PERM and how the PERM process works. Part 3 is the part most people want to skip to — the timeline. How long does this actually take?
The honest answer is: longer than most people expect when they start, and worth understanding clearly before you commit.
The EB-3 category
The EB-3 immigrant visa category covers three subcategories: professionals with bachelor's degrees, skilled workers requiring at least two years of training or experience, and other workers — positions requiring less than two years of training or experience. For H-2B employers, the relevant subcategory is almost always other workers. Landscapers, hospitality workers, seafood processing workers, movers — most of the positions that drive H-2B filings qualify here.
The employer must be able to offer a full-time, permanent position — not seasonal, not temporary. This is where employers sometimes assume PERM is only viable for senior staff or management roles, and that assumption is wrong.
H-2B can be filed on a peak-load basis — meaning the position exists year-round in the business but volume peaks during the busy season. If your laborers, groundskeepers, or housekeepers work for you year-round and the H-2B filing reflects a peak-load need rather than a purely seasonal one, those same workers may be candidates for PERM sponsorship. The position just needs to be genuinely permanent and full-time.
In practice, this means more of your H-2B workforce may be eligible for sponsorship than you might assume. The question is not whether someone is a manager. The question is whether the position is real, year-round, and appropriately scoped. You can certainly sponsor managers as well or those with 24 months of experience or more. However, experience must have gained been in a different position or with another employer.
The priority date and the Visa Bulletin
Once DOL certifies the PERM labor certification, the employer files the I-140 immigrant petition with USCIS. The date the PERM application was filed with DOL becomes the worker's priority date — their place in line for an immigrant visa number. That date matters enormously because the EB-3 Other Workers category is oversubscribed, meaning more people want immigrant visas in this category than Congress has allocated to be issued each year.
Each month, the State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin — a chart showing which priority dates are currently eligible for visa issuance. For the EB-3 Other Workers category for Mexico and most of the world, the current Final Action Date as of May 2026 is February 1, 2022. That means a worker whose PERM was filed in early 2022 is only now becoming eligible for a visa. Workers whose PERM was filed in 2024 or 2025 are waiting for that date to advance before anything can happen at the consular or adjustment of status stage.
Two additional notes on the Visa Bulletin worth understanding. First, the State Department has been advancing dates more aggressively in recent months partly because immigrant visa processing for certain nationalities has decreased under current administration policies — creating more available numbers for other applicants. The bulletin itself notes that as additional immigrant visa demand materializes or administration actions are amended, retrogression may be necessary later in the fiscal year. Dates that are advancing now may not stay there. Second, USCIS switched back to requiring Final Action Dates for employment-based adjustment of status filings in May 2026, tightening eligibility relative to prior months. Both of these factors underscore why tracking the Visa Bulletin monthly — and working with counsel who does the same — matters throughout this process.
What the full timeline actually looks like
Let's be direct about this. The total elapsed time from starting the prevailing wage request to a worker arriving as a permanent resident runs approximately four to five years under current conditions — sometimes longer.
The DOL stage alone — prevailing wage determination, recruitment, PERM filing, and certification — takes 18 months or more under current processing times, with no premium processing option available. The I-140 stage adds another two to nine months depending on whether premium processing is used. Then the Visa Bulletin backlog adds the remaining years. A priority date established today in the EB-3 Other Workers category for Mexico will not be current for approximately two to three additional years based on the current pace of advancement — and that pace is not guaranteed to hold.
The total process has two to three years of government processing followed by two to three years of waiting for the priority date. You are committing to a five-year strategy. Employers who go in with that expectation tend to execute well. Employers who expect workers to arrive in 18 months get frustrated and disengage from the process before it delivers.
Why start now if it takes that long?
Because the pipeline rewards early action. Every year you delay is a year further back in line. Employers who started PERM filings for their best H-2B workers in 2022 and 2023 are now watching those priority dates approach currency. Employers who are starting to think about it today will be watching that happen in 2029 or 2030.
The employers who run PERM as a strategic program — filing for a handful of positions each year, building a rolling pipeline — are the ones who start seeing workers arrive as permanent residents consistently, year over year, after the initial investment period clears. That is what a workforce strategy looks like. Not a one-time filing, but a deliberate annual process that compounds over time.
Part 4 covers running H-2B and PERM in parallel — including what changed with the H-2 Modernization Rule and how to sequence both programs without jeopardizing either.
Meagan Kirchner, Esq., Kirchner Law PLLC
**This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading or interacting with this post does not create an attorney-client relationship. Immigration outcomes depend on individual facts, timing, and government action; nothing in this article should be interpreted as a guarantee of any result.
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