FAQ

Standard (non-audit) cases are landing roughly 14–18 months from filing in 2026. Audited cases add 6–12+ months. Your individual case depends on which office processed it (100/200/300/400) and your employer's name (DOL goes alphabetically within a submit month). The currently-processing banner on the tracker page shows what month DOL is presently working through.

We blend two signals: (1) DOL's published average for your submit month, and (2) a queue model based on your alphabetical position and the recent 21-day processing rate. The result is a directional estimate — typically within ±3 weeks for cases that don't get audited, and meaningfully off for cases that do. We show both an estimate and an upper bound; treat the upper bound as the realistic worst case for non-audit scenarios.

Two sources, both public:

1. DOL quarterly disclosure files — every PERM case DOL has decided, published as an XLSX. Lags ~12–18 months.
2. DOL FLAG case-status API — the same endpoint flag.dol.gov uses. We poll active cases daily for status changes.

Cases that aren't in any disclosure yet (i.e., still in flight) are discovered by probing nearby case numbers in FLAG. See About PERM for more.

Within a single submit month, DOL processes cases roughly alphabetically by the employer's legal name. So if you and a coworker file the same week — your employer being "Adobe" means your case is decided weeks before someone at "Yahoo." The size of this effect is real but modest: typically 30–40 days across the full A→Z range within a month.

Case numbers look like G-100-25031-657972:

• G — visa type prefix (PERM)
• 100 — DOL processing center: 100=Atlanta, 200=Chicago, 300=Dallas, 400=legacy/small. Atlanta handles ~75% of filings.
• 25031 — filing date in YYDDD format. 25031 = 31st day of 2025 = Jan 31, 2025.
• 657972 — global DOL counter. Not per-day; it just increments across all PERM filings everywhere.

DOL pulls a percentage of cases for additional review — sometimes random, sometimes triggered by specific patterns (e.g., a job title with unusual requirements, a small employer with many filings). When a case is audited, the employer gets a notice asking for documentation. Audited cases leave the main queue and join a slower one; expect 6–12+ extra months. The status on FLAG will read "In Process" the entire time — you only know you're audited because your attorney got the notice.

Yes — once you're signed in, the tracker has a "Track my case" form that accepts one or more case numbers. We poll each daily and surface status changes. There's no cap on how many you can track.

A few possibilities:

• It was filed within the last few weeks and we haven't discovered the case-number range for that day yet.
• It was filed under an unusual office code we don't track.
• The case number you have is a USCIS receipt number (starts with EAC, WAC, SRC, or NBC) — that's for I-140/I-485, not PERM. PERM numbers start with G-.

If your case has a G- number and is older than a month, you can add it via the "Track my case" form. We'll fetch its status from FLAG immediately and pick up changes daily.

These are sequential steps in the employment-based green-card process:

1. PERM (DOL) — proves no qualified US worker is available. ~14–18 months.
2. I-140 (USCIS) — petition by the employer asking USCIS to classify you as eligible. ~6–12 months without premium processing.
3. I-485 (USCIS) — your application for a green card. Can only be filed when a visa number is available (depends on your country of birth and category). ~6–24 months from filing.
4. Green card — issued after I-485 is approved.

This site only tracks the PERM stage.

No. We're an independent project that aggregates publicly-released DOL data and displays it. The official source is flag.dol.gov. For your specific case, always defer to FLAG's status and your attorney.

Aggregate stats (backlog, daily volume, processing-time medians) update as our daily snapshotter runs. Per-case statuses are polled daily for active cases, and the per-case detail page has an on-demand refresh button if you want the absolute latest.