The State Department, working in close collaboration with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is pleased to announce the issuance of all available visas in the Employment-Based Fourth Preference (EB-4) category for fiscal year (FY) 2024.  Maximizing these visas facilitates legitimate travel for a wide variety of special immigrants, including religious workers, special immigrant juveniles, certain U.S. government employees, certain international organization retirees, and certain international broadcasting employees, among others.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) limits the number of employment-based preference immigrant visas that may be issued within a fiscal year.  Specifically, INA 203(b)(4) provides that the annual limit for EB-4 visas is 7.1 percent of the worldwide employment limit.

Since all available EB-4 visas for FY 2024 have been used, embassies and consulates may not issue visas in these categories for the remainder of the fiscal year.  The annual limits will reset with the start of the new fiscal year (FY 2025) on October 1, 2024.  At that point, embassies and consulates may resume issuing immigrant visas in these categories to qualified applicants.