Reading the Visa Bulletin without a decoder ring

Short answer: The Visa Bulletin tells you whether a green card number is available for your category and country this month. If the date listed for your category is later than your priority date — or the entry says "C" for Current — a number is available. If it's earlier, you wait.

The four terms

Priority date. Your place in line. For family-based cases it's the date USCIS received the I-130 petition; for most employment-based cases it's the date the labor certification was filed, or the I-140 if no certification was needed (USCIS, visa availability and priority dates). It never changes once set.

Final Action Date. The State Department's monthly cutoff: cases with a priority date before this date can be approved this month. This is the chart people usually mean when they say "the bulletin moved" (State Department Visa Bulletin).

Dates for Filing. A second, usually later, cutoff. If USCIS announces for a given month that it's using this chart, applicants whose priority date is before it may file an adjustment application even though a number isn't available yet for approval. USCIS posts which chart applies each month (USCIS filing charts page).

Current ("C"). No backlog. Every qualified applicant in that category and country has a number available, regardless of priority date.

Why the same category has five columns

The bulletin lists "All Chargeability Areas" plus separate columns for China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines. That's because per-country limits in the law mean demand from those four countries exceeds their annual share, so their cutoff dates are usually further back. Your column is determined by chargeability — normally your country of birth, not citizenship.

Forward, back, and "retrogression"

Dates usually move forward month to month, but not always. When more people become eligible than the annual allocation can cover, the State Department can move a cutoff backward — retrogression. A case that was inside the cutoff last month can fall back outside it. That's not a decision on your case; it's the math of the annual cap.

How to read it for yourself, in three steps

1. Find your preference category on the family- or employment-based chart.
2. Find your chargeability column.
3. Compare the date shown to your priority date. Earlier than yours: wait. Later than yours, or "C": a number is available this month.

Then check USCIS's filing-charts page for the same month to see whether the Final Action or Dates for Filing chart governs adjustment filings.

CaseWhy's own Visa Bulletin page reproduces the current month's Final Action Dates with month-over-month movement markers, and always links to the official bulletin. Confirm anything you rely on for a filing decision against the State Department's page — the bulletin, not any summary of it, is the source of truth.