EB-2 NIW in 2026: Requirements, Approval Rates, and What Has Changed

Contributors

Burcu Yildiz

Published

September 27, 2026

Reading time

17 min read

The EB-2 National Interest Waiver, usually shortened to NIW, is one of the few ways to earn a U.S. green card without an employer sponsoring you. If your work benefits the United States in a way that reaches beyond a single employer, you can petition for yourself and skip the Department of Labor's lengthy labor certification process. That flexibility has made the NIW very popular with researchers, engineers, physicians, and entrepreneurs.

It has also made the category far more competitive. Filings have roughly tripled since 2022, USCIS reviews these petitions more strictly than it used to, and 2026 brought new rules on evidence, fees, and the green card stage itself. This guide explains how the NIW works, what the most recent numbers show, and what you should know before you file.

What Is the EB-2 National Interest Waiver?

EB-2 is the second employment-based green card preference. Normally an EB-2 case starts with a U.S. employer offering you a permanent job and completing a labor certification (often called PERM), which shows that no qualified U.S. worker is available for the position. The NIW waives both the job offer and the labor certification when doing so serves the national interest.

As USCIS explains on its EB-2 overview page, NIW petitioners may file Form I-140 on their own behalf, and once the petition is approved, a spouse and unmarried children under 21 may also be eligible to immigrate.

The NIW is not a separate visa with its own quota. NIW petitioners draw from the same pool of EB-2 visa numbers as employer-sponsored EB-2 applicants, so they face the same Visa Bulletin waits.

Who Qualifies for an NIW?

An NIW petition has to clear two separate hurdles, and USCIS looks at them in order.

Hurdle One: Qualifying for EB-2

You must first qualify for the underlying EB-2 category in one of two ways:

• Advanced degree professional. You hold a U.S. master's degree or higher (or a foreign equivalent), or a bachelor's degree followed by at least five years of progressive experience in your specialty.
• Exceptional ability. You have expertise significantly above what is ordinarily encountered in the sciences, arts, or business, supported by evidence meeting at least three of the regulatory criteria, such as licenses, memberships, recognition, or salary.

When USCIS updated its NIW guidance in January 2025, it clarified that officers will consider whether the occupation tied to your proposed work is actually a "profession" and, for the bachelor's plus five years route, whether those five years were truly in the specialty. A graduate degree alone will not carry the petition if the proposed work is in a field that does not normally require one.

Hurdle Two: The Three-Part Dhanasar Test

If you qualify for EB-2, USCIS then decides whether to waive the job offer using a three-part test that comes from a 2016 precedent decision, Matter of Dhanasar. The test now lives in the USCIS Policy Manual chapter on advanced degree and exceptional ability petitions.

1. Your proposed endeavor has substantial merit and national importance. Merit can be shown in many areas, including business, science, technology, health, culture, and education. National importance is where many petitions stumble. USCIS looks at the potential impact of your specific endeavor, not at how important your field is in general. "Cancer research matters" is not the argument. The argument is how your particular project advances that work and why its impact reaches beyond one employer, clinic, or community.

2. You are well positioned to advance the endeavor. USCIS considers your education, skills, record of success in similar work, your plan for the future, progress you have already made, and interest from customers, investors, users, or other parties. For entrepreneurs, the Policy Manual notes that past achievements which back up your projections count in your favor, while claims without corroborating evidence are not enough.

3. On balance, waiving the job offer benefits the United States. Here USCIS weighs whether it would be impractical for you to go through labor certification, whether the country benefits from your work even if other qualified U.S. workers exist, and similar factors. USCIS has said this benefit weighs especially heavily for STEM work that supports national security or economic competitiveness, and that letters from interested government agencies can be helpful.

The Latest EB-2 NIW Statistics

The NIW's popularity shows clearly in USCIS's own filing data. According to USCIS's Form I-140 report for fiscal year 2022, the agency received 21,973 NIW petitions that year. Later editions of the same quarterly series, available on the USCIS immigration data page, show receipts climbing to 39,803 in fiscal year 2023 and 63,549 in fiscal year 2024. The pace barely slowed after that: USCIS received 52,286 NIW petitions in just the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025 (October 2024 through June 2025).

Approval rates moved in the opposite direction. USCIS publishes counts of approvals and denials but not an approval rate, so the rates below are calculated as approvals divided by all petitions decided in the period. By that measure, about 95.7 percent of decided NIW petitions were approved in fiscal year 2022, about 79.6 percent in fiscal year 2023, and about 71.0 percent in fiscal year 2024.

The sharpest drop came in 2025. Forbes, reporting on an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, found that the NIW denial rate rose from 38.8 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 to 64.3 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, while the number of pending NIW cases grew by 69 percent.

Since then, approval rates have recovered for three straight quarters. In the most recent quarter with published data (April through June 2026), USCIS approved 3,835 NIW petitions and denied 3,103, which works out to an approval rate of about 55 percent. That was the first quarter in a year in which approvals outnumbered denials. The backlog keeps growing, though: by June 30, 2026, USCIS had 96,297 NIW petitions awaiting a decision, about 40 percent more than the 68,837 pending a year earlier.

The chart below shows the quarterly approval rate, calculated from USCIS's published counts. The July to September 2025 figure comes from the National Foundation for American Policy analysis cited above.

The recovery is real, but approval rates remain far below where they were in 2022, and a much larger pool of people is competing for the same attention from adjudicators. At the same time, thousands of NIW petitions are still approved every quarter. The difference usually comes down to how clearly a petition defines the endeavor and how well the evidence supports each prong.

What the Data Shows for Applicants Born in Türkiye

USCIS also breaks down its I-140 data by country of birth, which makes it possible to look at NIW activity among applicants born in Türkiye (Turkey). The figures below add up USCIS's quarterly country reports for each fiscal year, which runs from October through September.

*Partial year. USCIS has not published country data for October to December 2023 or July to September 2025, and data for July to September 2026 has not been released yet.

Filings by Türkiye-born applicants jumped by about half between fiscal years 2022 and 2023 and have stayed high since, at roughly 470 to 500 petitions every nine months. That has kept Türkiye consistently around 15th among all countries of birth. Approvals, by contrast, fell sharply in 2024 and 2025, in line with the national tightening described above.

The fairest comparison is between the two most recent periods, since both cover the same nine months (October through June). Filings dipped slightly, from 505 to 472, while approvals rose from 208 to 225. That moved Türkiye-born applicants from 13th to 9th among all countries in NIW approvals, their first time in the top 10 in these reports.

There are two limits to keep in mind. USCIS does not publish denials by country, so there is no official approval rate for Türkiye-born applicants. And because approvals in any quarter include petitions filed months or years earlier, dividing approvals by filings would not produce a meaningful rate either.

Waiting times are better news for Türkiye-born applicants. Türkiye falls under the "all chargeability areas" column of the Visa Bulletin, which was current for EB-2 in September 2026, so Türkiye-born applicants have not faced the multi-year per-country backlogs affecting applicants born in India and China.

What Changed in 2025 and 2026

Sharper Guidance on Evidence (January 2025)

Beyond the EB-2 clarifications described above, the January 2025 guidance explains how USCIS evaluates national importance and how it weighs letters of support and business plans. In practice, recommendation letters now work best when they explain and confirm independent evidence, such as publications, patents, grants, contracts, or measurable business results, rather than standing in for that evidence.

Higher Premium Processing Fee (March 2026)

Premium processing is available for NIW petitions and guarantees that USCIS will take action (an approval, denial, request for evidence, or notice of intent to deny) within a set period. A final rule published in the Federal Register raised the fee for NIW petitions from $2,805 to $2,965 for requests postmarked on or after March 1, 2026. USCIS's premium processing page sets the NIW timeframe at 45 business days, and that clock stops and restarts if USCIS asks for more evidence. Premium processing buys a faster answer. It does not change the legal standard or make approval more likely.

Denials Without a Request for Evidence (August 2026)

On August 5, 2026, USCIS issued Policy Alert PA-2026-05, updating its guidance on evidence, requests for evidence (RFEs), and notices of intent to deny (NOIDs). The update restores officers' full discretion to deny a petition outright, without first issuing an RFE or NOID, when required initial evidence is missing. It applies to petitions already pending as well as new filings.

The policy also changes what happens once an RFE arrives. Twelve weeks is now the maximum time to respond, not the standard, so officers may set shorter deadlines. USCIS no longer adds 14 extra days when a notice is mailed outside the United States, which matters for petitioners living abroad. And any response, even one that answers only part of the request, is treated as a request for USCIS to decide the case on the record as it stands.

New Scrutiny at the Green Card Stage (May and September 2026)

An approved NIW petition is not the green card itself. Most people in the U.S. finish the process by filing Form I-485 to adjust status, and in May 2026 USCIS announced that it would grant adjustment of status only in extraordinary circumstances, describing it as discretionary relief rather than an entitlement. For NIW petitioners in the U.S. on F-1, H-1B, or other temporary visas, this makes your immigration history and how you have maintained status much more important at the green card stage. USCIS also issued new public charge guidance for adjustment applications that took effect on September 18, 2026.

People completing the process abroad face their own uncertainty. The State Department's September 2026 Visa Bulletin acknowledged that immigrant visa issuance fell during fiscal year 2026, partly because of administration policies adopted since January 2025 and partly because some consulates have limited or suspended operations.

If you will finish the process at a U.S. embassy or consulate, check that post's website and the State Department's visa news shortly before your interview, since consular operations and appointment availability can change quickly.

What Does an EB-2 NIW Cost?

Government filing fees for the petition stage are set by the USCIS fee schedule:

The Asylum Program Fee is a separate surcharge USCIS adds to employment-based petitions to help fund asylum processing. Self-petitioners pay the reduced $300 rate, while a nonprofit employer filing on your behalf, such as many universities, pays nothing. Filing online also saves $50 on the base fee.

These figures cover only the petition. Adjustment of status or consular processing, medical exams, translations, and attorney fees are separate.

How Long Does the EB-2 NIW Process Take?

Two separate clocks determine your timeline.

The first is the time USCIS takes to decide your I-140 petition. As of late September 2026, USCIS's processing times tool showed that 80 percent of NIW petitions were decided within 30 months. That figure looks back at recently completed cases, so it is a guide rather than a promise, and it changes as USCIS works through its backlog. Premium processing is the only way to put a firm deadline on this first step.

The second clock is visa availability. Your priority date is generally the date USCIS receives your NIW petition, and you cannot receive the green card until that date is "current" under the State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin. Because the United States caps employment-based visas and limits how many can go to people born in any one country, applicants born in India and China often wait years after their petitions are approved.

Here is where EB-2 stood in the September 2026 Visa Bulletin, the last bulletin of fiscal year 2026:

India's EB-2 category was unavailable because the country's share of fiscal year 2026 visas had been used up. The same bulletin warned that heavy demand could force EB-2 dates to move backward.

Why NIW Petitions Get Denied

Based on how USCIS describes its review, most weak petitions share a few recurring problems:

• A vague proposed endeavor. Describing a whole career ("I work in artificial intelligence") instead of a specific, forward-looking project makes national importance almost impossible to show.
• Confusing an important field with an important endeavor. The question is the impact of your work, not the importance of your industry.
• Letters doing all the work. Letters that praise you without pointing to independent evidence carry little weight on their own.
• Unsupported entrepreneurial claims. Broad statements about job creation or economic growth, without investment, revenue, contracts, or other traction, rarely persuade.
• A shaky EB-2 foundation. If your degree or experience does not clearly match the proposed work, the petition can fail before the Dhanasar test even begins.
• Missing initial evidence. Under the August 2026 policy, a missing document can now lead directly to a denial.

Is the NIW the Right Path for You?

The NIW tends to fit people with a well-defined project, a documented record of progress, and a credible story about why their work matters to the country. It is not the only employment-based route. An employer-sponsored PERM case, or the EB-1A category for people with extraordinary ability, may be a better fit or a useful parallel filing depending on your profile. It is worth settling on the category before you invest in a petition.

How We Can Help

Immigration is governed by federal law, so ByLaw can help NIW petitioners wherever they live in the United States. We help clients decide whether the NIW is the right category, define a proposed endeavor that USCIS can evaluate, build the evidence for each prong, and plan the green card stage that follows. Because USCIS policy has changed several times in 2026, it is worth having the petition reviewed before you file. Contact ByLaw to schedule a consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

The content of this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed by use of this site. Laws, regulations, and individual circumstances change over time, so please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.