How to Read the Visa Bulletin (Philippines Edition)

Every month a group chat somewhere in America lights up with a screenshot of a table nobody can read, followed by “so is Ate’s petition current na?” The table is the visa bulletin, published by the State Department around the middle of each month, and it decides when a petitioned relative can actually move forward. Learning to read it takes ten minutes and ends years of guessing.

The idea in one paragraph

A US citizen or green-card holder files a petition for a relative. The day it’s filed becomes the relative’s priority date — their place in line. Most family categories have more people waiting than there are visas in a year, so a queue forms. The bulletin publishes, for each category and each country, a cut-off date: if your priority date is earlier than the cut-off, you’re “current” and can proceed to the visa stage. If it’s later, you wait.

That’s the whole mechanism. Everything else is detail — but the details are where families get hurt.

The categories

Code	Who it covers	Petitioner
IR (immediate relative)	Spouse, unmarried child under 21, parent (petitioner 21+)	US citizen only
F1	Unmarried son or daughter, 21 or over	US citizen
F2A	Spouse, unmarried child under 21	Green-card holder
F2B	Unmarried son or daughter, 21 or over	Green-card holder
F3	Married son or daughter	US citizen
F4	Brother or sister (petitioner 21+)	US citizen

Immediate relatives don’t appear in the bulletin at all — no cap, no queue, only processing time. That’s why petitioning a parent takes a year or two while petitioning a sibling takes a generation.

Why the Philippines has its own column

The law caps any single country at roughly 7% of the family-preference visas each year. Four countries routinely exceed that share — Mexico, India, China and the Philippines — so each gets its own column with its own, slower cut-off dates. A Filipino sibling and a Brazilian sibling filed on the same day do not wait the same time. Always read the Philippines column, never “All Chargeability Areas.”

The two charts

Since 2015 the bulletin has carried two tables per category:

• Final Action Dates — when a visa can actually be issued. This is the one that matters for the interview in Manila.
• Dates for Filing — an earlier date that lets you submit documents to the National Visa Center (or, some months, file for adjustment inside the US) before a visa is available, so the paperwork is ready when your turn comes.

Which chart applies to adjustment-of-status cases inside the US is decided month by month by USCIS on its “visa bulletin” page. For a relative in the Philippines, watch Final Action for the real timing and Dates for Filing for when the NVC will start asking for papers.

Where the lines stand — and what that means in years

Philippines column, Final Action Dates, October 2026 bulletin:

Category	Cut-off	Rough wait today	Moved since September
F1 — unmarried adult child of citizen	1 Nov 2013	~13 years	forward 6 months
F2A — spouse/minor child of green-card holder	22 Sep 2026	processing time, roughly	forward 1 month — still not current
F2B — unmarried adult child of green-card holder	1 Oct 2013	~13 years	forward 4 months
F3 — married child of citizen	22 Jul 2006	~20 years	forward 5 months
F4 — sibling of citizen	15 May 2008	~18 years	forward ~9 months

Every Philippine family category moved forward this month, after every one of them went backwards in September. October opens the US government’s new fiscal year, and the State Department’s own note on this bulletin says dates advanced “with the availability of FY 2027 immigrant visa numbers.” But not every category got all the way back. F4 is now ahead of where it stood in August and F2B has returned to it; F3 is nearly there; F1 is still about a year and a half behind its August date, and F2A has not returned to current. A date that looked reachable in August is not necessarily reachable again just because the bulletin moved forward — check your own category before anyone books a flight or gives notice at work.

The “rough wait” is simply today minus the cut-off. It is a floor, not a forecast: cut-offs advance more slowly than the calendar, so a petition filed today will likely wait longer than the number shown. Use it to set expectations, not to plan a move.

Two things worth noticing. F2A is close to current, but it is not current. Its cut-off is 22 Sep 2026, only weeks behind today. The separate Dates for Filing chart does list F2A as current, which means applicants can submit their documents to the NVC once it notifies them, whatever their priority date — but a visa still waits on the Final Action Date. Before September a green-card holder’s spouse and minor children had essentially no queue; there is a short one now. And F3 is the longest line, longer even than siblings: marrying before the petition is approved moves a son or daughter from F1 to F3 and can add years. Families planning a wedding should know that before the date is set.

The moves that change your category

• The petitioner naturalizes. F2A becomes immediate relative (queue disappears). F2B becomes F1 — which is usually faster for the Philippines but not always. In the October 2026 bulletin it is — F1 (1 Nov 2013) is a month ahead of F2B (1 Oct 2013). But the two swapped places in September 2026, when naturalising would have moved that son or daughter backwards. Compare the two dates at the time rather than assuming — there is a rule (CSPA “opt-out”) that lets you stay in F2B when it is ahead.
• The beneficiary marries. F1 → F3 (longer). F2A/F2B → petition dies — a green-card holder cannot petition a married child at all.
• The beneficiary turns 21. Child → adult category, unless the Child Status Protection Act freezes their age; the CSPA arithmetic is genuinely technical, and it’s the one place here where a lawyer’s hour pays for itself.
• The petitioner dies. The petition generally dies too, with narrow humanitarian exceptions — the grim reality of an eighteen-year line.

Retrogression, and why predictions are not plans

Cut-offs can move backwards. When too many people in a category become eligible at once — often near the end of the fiscal year in September — the date retrogresses and people who were weeks from current fall back months. Often it eases when the new fiscal year’s visas arrive in October, but not always all the way: after September 2026’s retrogression, October moved every Philippine category forward, yet F1 stayed about a year and a half behind its August date. That is why the rule is: don’t resign, don’t sell the house, don’t book the one-way ticket on a prediction. Act when the official bulletin shows you current, and when the NVC or embassy actually schedules you.

How to check, every month, in two minutes

1. Around the 15th, open the State Department’s current bulletin (travel.state.gov → Visa Bulletin).
2. Find the family table, Philippines column, your category, Final Action chart.
3. Compare to your priority date on the I-797 receipt notice — or let the Visa Bulletin checker do the arithmetic for you. If you are following a case over years rather than checking once, the petition case file remembers where you got to and tells you how far the cut-off moved since your last visit.
4. Earlier than the cut-off? You’re current — expect NVC contact, and make sure your address and email on file are right. Later? Note the movement and check again next month.

We track Philippine-column movement in the monthly digest with the source linked, so the group chat can stop guessing.

Official resources

• State Department — Visa Bulletin (current month)
• USCIS — which chart to use for adjustment of status
• National Visa Center — immigrant visa process
• USCIS — Child Status Protection Act

Dates are from the October 2026 visa bulletin and change monthly — always confirm against the current bulletin before acting. General information, not legal advice; for CSPA questions, deaths of petitioners, or anything unusual, an immigration attorney’s hour is cheap insurance.