USCIS EB-1A Approval Rates FY2025: The Complete Quarterly Data

The FY2025 numbers for EB-1A petitions tell a story that the annual average obscures. The full-year approval rate of 66.9% looks manageable. The quarterly breakdown is not.

In Q1 (October–December 2024), 74.7% of adjudicated EB-1A petitions were approved — roughly three in four. By Q4 (July–September 2025), that rate had fallen to 53.4%: just over one in two. Filing volume held flat throughout the year. Denials nearly doubled. This is the picture that should inform how immigration attorneys prepare and file EB-1A petitions today.

The Quarterly Breakdown: A Declining Approval Rate

USCIS publishes quarterly I-140 adjudication data by form type, case status, and preference category. The FY2025 Q4 release — the most recent available as of May 2026 — covers all four quarters of FY2025 in a single file.

For EB-1A (Alien of Extraordinary Ability, code E11), the quarterly figures are:

Quarter	Period	Receipts	Approvals	Denials	Approval Rate
Q1	Oct–Dec 2024	7,370	3,227	1,091	74.7%
Q2	Jan–Mar 2025	7,277	3,402	1,276	72.7%
Q3	Apr–Jun 2025	7,471	3,508	1,765	66.5%
Q4	Jul–Sep 2025	7,464	2,331	2,033	53.4%
FY2025 Total		29,582	12,468	6,165	66.9%

Source: USCIS Form I-140 FY2025 Q4. Approval rate = approvals ÷ (approvals + denials); pending excluded.

Two numbers define this table. First: receipts barely moved — 7,370 in Q1, 7,464 in Q4, a range of less than 100 petitions per quarter. Demand for EB-1A was stable throughout FY2025. Second: denials went from 1,091 to 2,033 — an 86% increase in one year, against flat filing volume.

The full-year figure of 66.9% is a weighted average across a dramatically non-uniform year. An attorney filing in October 2025 should not use 66.9% as their working probability. The operative benchmark is Q4: 53.4%, and the trend line has not reversed.

The Denial Acceleration: Flat Filings, Rising Rejections

A rising denial rate driven by flat filings has a specific interpretation: the petitioner pool did not suddenly get worse. Something in the adjudication process changed.

Denial volume by quarter:

• Q1: 1,091
• Q2: 1,276 (+17%)
• Q3: 1,765 (+38%)
• Q4: 2,033 (+15%)

Receipts over the same period varied by less than 2%. This is not a volume problem on the applicant side. Denials accelerated in Q3 and Q4 of FY2025 — the April–September 2025 period — regardless of incoming petition count.

The USCIS performance data does not disclose the specific grounds for denials. What it rules out is any explanation based on demand: attorneys cannot attribute this shift to more applicants or lower-quality cases as a class. The EB-1A bar effectively moved.

The Growing Pending Backlog

Pending EB-1A cases at USCIS grew substantially throughout FY2025:

Quarter End	Pending Cases
End Q1 (Dec 2024)	13,526
End Q2 (Mar 2025)	16,093
End Q3 (Jun 2025)	18,081
End Q4 (Sep 2025)	21,157

The pending inventory grew by 7,631 cases — a 56% increase — over FY2025. Each quarter added more to the pending pile than it cleared, because receipts exceeded the pace of adjudications.

At Q4's adjudication pace (approximately 4,364 total decisions per quarter), the existing 21,157 pending cases represent roughly five additional quarters of backlog — around 15 months of adjudication capacity just to process what's already in queue, before counting new filings.

Premium processing (Form I-907) provides a contractual 15-business-day initial action guarantee for I-140 petitions. For petitioners who can afford it, premium processing sidesteps the backlog question on processing time, though it does not affect the substantive adjudication standard.

EB-1A by Country: Who Files and Who Gets Approved

The FY2025 Q4 data includes receipts and approvals broken down by beneficiary country of birth. For Q4 specifically:

Receipts (Top 10 by filing volume):

Country	Q4 Receipts	Q4 Approvals	Approval-to-Filing
China	1,840	460	25.0%
India	1,613	598	37.1%
Nigeria	638	144	22.6%
Brazil	595	101	17.0%
Russia	215	78	36.3%
Ukraine	208	64	30.8%
Venezuela	198	43	21.7%
Korea, South	160	76	47.5%
Iran	109	56	51.4%
Kazakhstan	98	—	—

Note: Approval-to-filing ratio for Q4 is approximate; approvals in a given quarter may relate to petitions filed in prior periods.

Two country-level patterns are notable. First, India had more Q4 approvals (598) than China (460) despite China having more Q4 filings (1,840 vs 1,613). India's apparent approval-to-filing ratio in Q4 was approximately 37%, versus China's 25%.

Second, Nigeria was the third-highest country both in filings (638) and approvals (144), reflecting the significant volume of Nigerian professionals — particularly medical researchers and engineers — pursuing EB-1A. Brazil ranked fourth in filings but had a relatively low apparent conversion rate.

These ratios are approximate and should not be interpreted as direct approval rates by nationality — USCIS does not adjudicate based on nationality for EB-1A, and the approvals in a given quarter may relate to receipts from prior periods. The pattern is directional, not precise.

NIW: An Even Steeper Decline

The National Interest Waiver (NIW), which falls under the EB-2 second preference, experienced more severe deterioration than EB-1A in FY2025.

Quarter	NIW Receipts	NIW Approvals	NIW Denials	NIW Rate	EB-1A Rate
Q1	20,141	4,683	2,790	62.7%	74.7%
Q2	17,610	6,591	3,206	67.3%	72.7%
Q3	14,542	5,290	4,511	54.0%	66.5%
Q4	13,983	2,968	5,356	35.7%	53.4%
FY2025	66,276	19,532	15,863	55.2%	66.9%

Source: USCIS Form I-140 FY2025 Q4.

In Q4, USCIS denied more NIW petitions (5,356) than it approved (2,968). NIW is no longer the comparatively safer path. It was briefly above EB-1A in Q2 (67.3% vs 72.7%), but collapsed in Q3 and Q4.

The full-year NIW picture — 55.2% approval against 66,276 receipts — means roughly 29,000 NIW denials in FY2025. Pending NIW cases at year-end: 74,392.

For attorneys advising clients who qualify for both EB-1A and NIW, the Q4 data creates a clear current preference: EB-1A had a 53.4% single-quarter approval rate; NIW had 35.7%. See our NIW vs EB-1A strategy guide for 2025 for a full client-profile analysis.

Data Methodology and What This Dataset Does Not Cover

The USCIS I-140 performance data is published quarterly and covers all four quarters of the fiscal year in the Q4 release. Key methodology points:

Approval rate formula. This article calculates approval rate as: approvals ÷ (approvals + denials). Pending cases are excluded. A large pending inventory means receipts in a given quarter will significantly exceed dispositions — this is expected and does not distort the approval rate calculation.

Fiscal year vs. calendar year. USCIS uses the federal fiscal year (October 1 – September 30). "FY2025" means October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025. This article does not use calendar-year framing to avoid confusion.

What is NOT in this data:

• RFE rates — Not reported in the public performance data. Third-party estimates (eb1aexperts.com, Boundless) place the EB-1A RFE rate at 40–50% but this figure does not appear in USCIS published statistics.
• Service center breakdown — The FY2025 Q4 I-140 file reports national totals and state/country breakdowns; it does not show approval rates by service center for EB-1A in this format.
• Reasons for denial — USCIS does not publish denial reason breakdowns in the public performance data. Patterns require analysis of AAO non-precedent decisions.
• RFE outcomes — Petitions that received an RFE and were subsequently approved or denied are counted in the final outcome column, not tracked separately.

Data system. The FY2025 Q4 file was queried from the CLAIMS3 and ELIS systems in October 2025 (reference PAER0019077). Counts may differ from earlier releases due to system updates and post-adjudicative outcomes.

What This Means for Attorneys Filing in 2026

Three practical conclusions follow from this data:

Plan for a 53% baseline, not 67%. The operative approval rate for EB-1A today is Q4 FY2025: 53.4%. Every petition that does not meet the current adjudication standard has roughly even odds. The full-year average reflects conditions that no longer exist. Attorneys should calibrate case assessment accordingly.

Evidence quality is the variable that matters most. When the adjudication environment tightens and filing volume holds flat, the cases that cross the threshold are the ones with stronger evidence architecture — particularly independent external evidence rather than employer-provided documentation. See our EB-1A evidence architecture guide for current evidence hierarchy standards.

Pending backlog means longer waits even with premium processing. Premium processing guarantees initial action in 15 business days but does not guarantee an approval. A petition that enters an RFE cycle exits the premium timeframe. Budget for extended overall timelines regardless of I-907 filing.

NIW as a secondary path carries more risk than before. The Q4 NIW rate of 35.7% makes NIW a significantly weaker fallback option than it was in FY2024. Attorneys advising clients on path selection should explicitly note this shift.

The data is directional, not deterministic. A well-prepared EB-1A petition can still be approved in the current environment — 2,331 were in Q4 alone. But the margin for weak evidence, thin expert letters, or incomplete Step 2 argumentation has effectively disappeared. For current filing strategy, see how attorneys must respond to the approval rate decline and the Mukherji v. Miller ruling on Kazarian Step 2 challenges.

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Data source: USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data, Form I-140 by Fiscal Year, Quarter and Case Status (FY2025 Q4). Immigration Copilot will update this article when USCIS releases FY2026 Q1 data. Sign up at /sign-up to receive updates.