The easiest way to figure out how many I-485 applicants are waiting in front of you is to use our Green Card Tracker. It automatically calculates the number for you. But if you are interested in the data, here is how to read the tables:

The example below contains all EB-2 applicants from mainland China who have pending I-485 (green card) applications, grouped by priority date. So if you are from China, and your immigrant petition is in employment-based second preference category (EB2), you should use this table to find your place in line.

Let's say your priority date is April 10, 2006. The green cell in the table is where you are, which indicates that there are a total of 493 China EB2 applicants whose I-485 cases are still pending. All of them have a priority date in April of 2006.

To calculate how many people are ahead of you, use the following two-step process:

Step 1: Add up all pending cases with earlier priority dates than yours. In this case, all the yellow cells:

0 + 1 + 1 +2 + 13 + 20 + 35 + 123 + 4,084 + 509 + 508 + 713 = 6009

Step 2: The Department of State sets the visa cutoff date on the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd of each month. Since your PD is April 10, it means the first bracket (April 1st to 7th) contains people who are ahead of you. Assuming an even distribution, approximately one fourth (1/4) of the total applicants should be counted:

493 x ¼ ≈ 123

Add them up to get the total number of I-485 applicants who are ahead of you:

6009 + 123 = 6132

Pending I-485 Applications based on Priority Date for China EB-2 (as of 9/2009):

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