Indian EB-2 green card wait could stretch to 179 years; NFAP cites 140,000 cap as too low for skilled workers

An Indian professional applying for an EB-2 green card may face an estimated wait of 179 years due to a massive immigration backlog, according to a report by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

The analysis reveals that nearly 1 million Indians are currently stuck in the employment-based immigration backlog, which constitutes 79 percent of the total green card stockpile as of December 2025.

The report estimates that a highly skilled worker from India with a labor certification application or employment-based immigrant petition filed in January 2026 could face a wait of 4 to 5 years for EB-1, 179 years for EB-2, and 38 years for EB-3 visa categories.

In contrast, Chinese nationals applying for the same categories would wait 5 years for EB-1, 25 years for EB-2, and 7 years for EB-3.

The NFAP attributes the backlog to a cap of 140,000 green cards set by Congress in 1990, which is deemed too low for the number of skilled foreign nationals sponsored for permanent residence. Additionally, the per-country limit means that India and China receive the same number of green cards as smaller countries like Iceland and Luxembourg.³

In FY 2016, 47,601 applications under the EB-2 category were approved for Indians, translating to an estimated 98,594 people when dependents are included, yet only 4,407 were granted permanent residence in that category.