EB-5 Filing Volume vs Approval Rate: FY2026 Q1 Analysis

Editor's note: This article originally analyzed the Q3 FY2025 quarterly release and was later rewritten around the FY2026 Q1 release (October to December 2025). FY2026 Q1 is no longer the latest data. See the FY2026 Q3 update below.

Update, November 7, 2026 (FY2026 Q3, April to June 2026): The latest USCIS quarterly report shows 1,599 I-526E receipts, 687 approvals and 217 denials in the quarter, so approvals were 76 percent of the 904 completions (denials 24 percent). Year to date through June 30, 2026, USCIS approved 2,258 and denied 592 I-526E petitions. Pending I-526E petitions reached 11,192 at June 30, 2026 (12,050 including standalone I-526). The quarterly median for completed I-526E cases rose to 13.6 months, from 8.4 months in Q1 and 11.7 months in Q2. The denial share did not revert toward the FY2025 pattern; it rose.

The FY2026 Q1 USCIS quarterly statistics show 1,667 I-526E receipts and an 81.3 percent approval share of completed cases (764 approved, 176 denied, 940 completions). Filing volume remains strong; the approval share fell sharply from FY2025's 94.2 percent. It is the first quarter under the Reform and Integrity Act with a material denial share.

That pairing has been read two ways in the practitioner community. The optimistic read is that volume is holding near record pace into the grandfathering year and one quarter of elevated denials is noise, or a cohort effect from older and weaker cases finally being decided. The pessimistic read is that adjudication standards have tightened just as the pre-deadline surge begins. Both reads have merit, and the public data cannot yet separate them. This article walks through the numbers, the lag, and what the volume-vs-rate gap actually tells investors.

The headline numbers#

USCIS FY2026 Q1 statistics, released June 2026 (Blue tier), I-526E unless noted:

Combined new-law figures for the quarter (I-526E plus standalone I-526): 1,765 receipts, 769 approvals, 181 denials, 950 completions, an 80.9 percent approval share.

The receipts side shows sustained volume after FY2025's record 6,660 new-law filings. The completions side shows USCIS deciding more cases than in any pre-FY2025 period. The pending inventory keeps growing because receipts still outpace completions by roughly 1.9 to 1.

The 81.3 percent approval share: what it actually measures#

The approval share is calculated as approvals divided by completions in the reporting period, where completions are approvals plus denials. Withdrawals and rejections are reported separately by USCIS.

For FY2026 Q1: 764 approvals of 940 completions equals 81.3 percent. The 176 denials in a single quarter nearly match the 195 I-526E denials in all of FY2025.

Two caveats before drawing conclusions:

One quarter is not a trend. The new-law series ran 96.5 percent in FY2024 (1,080 of 1,119 completions) and 93.1 percent in FY2025 (3,201 of 3,439). A single quarter at 80.9 percent combined could mark a durable shift or a one-time batch of weak cases reaching decision. USCIS does not publish denial reasons at a statistical level, so the driver cannot be measured from public data.

The completed pool is not a random sample. Completions skew toward whatever queues USCIS is prioritizing, currently the statutory rural priority queue, which USCIS kept as a separate queue in the inventory-management approach it announced in late February 2026 (effective March 30, 2026). The cases decided in any quarter are not representative of the cases being filed in that quarter.

The lag, measured honestly with two metrics#

USCIS publishes two different I-526E processing-time metrics, and conflating them produces nonsense:

Quarterly median for completed cases: 13.6 months in FY2026 Q3. Half of the cases USCIS completed in the quarter were decided within about 13.6 months of filing, which reflects the prioritized (largely rural) queue moving fast.

Broader geography. Full-year FY2025 data, published after this analysis window, shows China's share of new I-526E receipts fell to 48 percent (3,017 of 6,307, USCIS by-country data) as India (1,812), South Korea (279), Vietnam (202), and Taiwan (201) grew from smaller bases. The wider base has supported total volume even as China-side capital controls damp unreserved demand.

Check Case Processing Times tool 80 percent range: 34.5 to 36.5 months, as published June 23, 2026. This is the tool's measure of how long 80 percent of recently completed cases took, and it is dominated by older, non-prioritized cases.

The distance between those two numbers is the real story of the adjudication queue: new priority cases are being decided in under a year while older and non-priority cases wait years. An investor's own position depends heavily on category and filing date, and the USCIS tool has no rural, HUA, or unreserved split, so no category-specific range can be quoted.

What is sustaining filing volume#

Three drivers, in rough order of magnitude:

The grandfathering deadline. September 30, 2026 was the grandfathering cutoff under the RIA, and it has passed. Filing pressure built through FY2025 and into 2026: USCIS received 3,437 new-law petitions in FY2026 Q2 and Q3 (January to June 2026). Q4 FY2026 receipts (July to September 2026) have not been published yet.

Rural set-aside availability. Rural projects, with the $800,000 TEA minimum, statutory priority processing, and a visa category that is Current for all countries, took 2,781 of 4,829 I-526E receipts (about 58 percent) through Q3 FY2025 per the USCIS set-aside receipts data. HUA took 1,906; unreserved receipts were nearly zero (32).

Behavioral precedent. The FY2024 fee increase pulled 1,926 I-526E petitions into a single quarter (a 110 percent jump over the prior quarter's 919, about 42 percent of that year's 4,620 I-526E receipts). Investors and attorneys learned that deadlines are real, which argued for filing earlier rather than into the final weeks before September 30, 2026. The same logic applies to the next threshold change, the inflation adjustment to the investment amounts that takes effect January 1, 2027.

What the falling approval share does not signal#

The 81.3 percent figure does not mean an individual investor's odds are 81.3 percent. Approval shares aggregate across project type, country of birth, source-of-funds complexity, and counsel quality. Individual case probabilities vary significantly. Marginal cases (incomplete source-of-funds documentation, weak project diligence) face lower individual probabilities in any quarter; well prepared cases fare better than the population number in any quarter.

Worth noting: not all denials are about petition quality. A material change to the project during pendency, a failure by the project to meet job creation targets, or a regional center termination can produce denials for reasons unrelated to the investor's original filing quality.

What the pending inventory growth signals#

Pending I-526E inventory grew from 9,005 at the end of FY2025 to 9,734 at the end of FY2026 Q1 (10,470 including standalone I-526). Receipts continue to outpace completions at roughly 1.9 to 1, the same ratio as FY2025 (6,660 received against 3,439 completed).

What happened next: by June 30, 2026 (end of FY2026 Q3), the new-law inventory had already reached 12,050, including 11,192 I-526E petitions. Q4 receipts, which include the final weeks before September 30, 2026, are still unpublished. For investors filing now, adjudication queues are unlikely to shorten soon.

FAQ: FY2026 Q1 EB-5 statistics#

Q: Does the 81.3 percent approval share apply to my case?

A: It applies to the population of I-526E cases USCIS completed in FY2026 Q1, which is a prioritization-skewed slice of the queue. Your case's individual probability depends on case-specific factors (project quality, source of funds completeness, counsel preparation). Use the population figure as context, not as personal odds.

Q: Why did the approval share fall from 94 percent to 81 percent?

A: USCIS does not publish denial reasons at a statistical level, so no one outside the agency can measure the cause. Candidate explanations include a cohort of weaker or older cases reaching decision, tightened adjudication under the RIA integrity framework, and ordinary quarter-to-quarter noise on a 940-completion base. Later quarters will distinguish between them.

Q: What is happening to the legacy I-526 backlog?

A: The pre-RIA legacy queue continues to wind down: zero legacy receipts in FY2026 Q1, 29 approvals, 41 denials, and 1,071 still pending, with a 93.2-month median processing time for cases completed in the quarter. Legacy outcomes are a separate series from the new-law figures above and should never be blended with them.

Q: What does "completions" include?

A: In this series, completions are approvals plus denials. Withdrawals (an investor pulling the petition before adjudication) and rejections (procedural intake failures such as fee errors) are reported separately by USCIS and are excluded from the approval-share calculation.

Q: Will the FY2026 full-year numbers tell us more?

A: Yes, but with a lag. FY2026 ended September 30, 2026, and the Q4 data has not been published yet. Q3 data is out: 1,599 I-526E receipts and a denial share of 24 percent of completions, higher than Q1's 19 percent, so the denial share has not reverted toward the FY2025 pattern. Q4 receipts will show the size of the final pre-deadline surge.

Methodology#

USCIS quarterly statistics cited above come from the USCIS all-forms quarterly workbook for FY2026 Q1 (October to December 2025), published June 2026, and the corresponding FY2023 to FY2025 releases (Q4 year-to-date columns for full-year figures). Blue tier on receipts, approvals, denials, completions, pending, and median processing times.

Set-aside category receipts come from the USCIS I-526E receipts-by-category data through Q3 FY2025. Blue tier. The FY2024 fee-surge figures come from the USCIS I-526/I-526E FY2022 to FY2024 receipts compilation file. Blue tier.

Processing-time figures use the two published USCIS metrics, named on every use: the quarterly median for completed cases and the Check Case Processing Times tool 80 percent range (published June 23, 2026). The USCIS tool has no category-level split for Form I-526E.

FY2026 Q3 figures in the update note come from the USCIS all-forms quarterly report for FY2026 Q3 (April to June 2026). Blue tier. Remaining forward-looking comments are editorial. Orange tier.

This article is not legal advice. Investors should consult immigration counsel for case-specific filing strategy.

What to read next#

• FOIA data page: live USCIS quarterly data and historical trends.
• EB-5 Set-Aside Categories Explained: how the category split drives filing volume.

Check your project's risk profile. The Denial Risk Analyzer evaluates your case against common denial drivers and scores your probability.