I-140 Total Wait Falls to 22 Days, Nearly Half Last Year's Pace

The 22-day total wait median is 43.6% below the 39-day figure recorded in the same week last year (based on 3,997 approvals). Among the 3,553 approved cases with a known filing date this week, 1,963 (55%) were approved within 45 days of filing, while 280 (8%) waited more than a year, a reminder that the distribution is wide. The median sits well below the tail. Separately, 220,260 cases remain pending across all filing months as of Oct. 26, up from 208,074 on Sept. 28. Approved-case medians describe only the cases that already cleared; they say nothing about how long those 220,260 pending cases have been waiting.

Looking at the 12-week total wait series, medians held between 42 and 48 days from the week of Aug. 17 through Sept. 28, then fell to 26 days in both the Oct. 5 and Oct. 12 readings before reaching 22 days this week. The 25th percentile (p25) has been notably stable throughout, ranging from 17 to 20 days across the full 12-week window and sitting at 18 days this week. The 75th percentile (p75) of 100 days this week is a reminder that a meaningful share of cases waits considerably longer than the median. Separately, the time from the last status update to approval (the final-stage wait) is 17 days this week, down from a 12-week high of 27 days in late August, consistent with the improving slope of -1.3 days per week over the past eight weeks (R²=0.72).

According to the Stage durations (30-day raw) data, the largest group of tracked I-140 cases, 58% of the roughly 334,000 cases observed, sits at 'USCIS Is Currently Processing the Case' status, with a median of 81 days at that stage (25th percentile 45 days, 75th percentile 149 days, across 194,195 cases). The RFE (Request for Evidence) stage holds 17.7% of cases at a median of 82 days (p25 56, p75 92) across 59,360 cases. Cases that have already submitted an RFE response are at 28 days median (p25 14, p75 50) across 39,266 cases. An RFE is not a denial signal; USCIS uses it as a standard follow-up for missing documents, and most cases that receive one are still approved. This week, the RFE comparison shows an unusually even result: cases with and without an RFE response both cleared at a median of 19 days.