Employment-Based Green Cards (EB-1 to EB-5)

About 140,000 employment-based green cards are available each year, split among five preference categories. EB-1, for priority workers, covers people of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, who may petition for themselves, along with outstanding professors and researchers and multinational executives and managers. EB-2 covers professionals with advanced degrees and people of exceptional ability, and EB-3 covers skilled workers, professionals with bachelor's degrees, and other workers. Each of the first three receives about 28.6 percent of the total.

Most EB-2 and EB-3 cases require an employer to first obtain a labor certification from the Labor Department showing that no qualified U.S. worker is available, a process called PERM. An EB-2 applicant can skip that step with a national interest waiver by showing that their work has substantial merit and national importance, under a test set in the 2016 case Matter of Dhanasar. EB-4 covers special immigrants such as religious workers and certain juveniles, and EB-5 grants green cards to investors who put at least 1.05 million dollars, or 800,000 dollars in targeted areas, into U.S. businesses that create at least 10 jobs, under rules updated in 2022.

Because spouses and children count against the caps and no country may use more than 7 percent of them, applicants born in India and China can wait years or even decades, mostly while working in the United States on temporary visas. Supporters of expanding these categories say they attract talent that drives innovation and growth, while critics say the system can let employers hold down wages and that the investor program has been prone to fraud. A 2025 gold card program offering expedited consideration for payments of 1 million dollars or more faced lawsuits questioning its legal basis.