October 2026 Visa Bulletin: India unreserved reopens at 01 Dec 2023
Updated October 20, 2026
Corrected Oct 20, 2026
October 2026 EB-5 visa bulletin. USCIS says employment-based filings use Dates for Filing: China 01 March 2021, India 01 May 2024, other countries Current. Set-asides are Current on both charts.
For October 2026, USCIS says employment-based filings use Dates for Filing. China unreserved is 01 March 2021, India unreserved is 01 May 2024, and other countries are Current. Set-asides are Current on both charts.
What moved, and what did not
The October 2026 Visa Bulletin is a fiscal-year reset bulletin for EB-5 unreserved India. Everything else on the EB-5 Final Action Date chart is a hold.
Reserved categories (rural, high-unemployment (HUA), and infrastructure) remain Current for every country of chargeability, including China and India. China’s unreserved Final Action Date holds at 01 December 2016. India’s unreserved Final Action Date is 01 December 2023 (it was Unavailable in September). Rest of world unreserved is Current.
Current on the Final Action Date chart means visa numbers are available in that category for that country this month. A Final Action Date of 01 December 2023 means numbers are available only if the priority date is earlier than that date. Those are bulletin mechanics. They are not a green-card date, and they are not a promise the next chart looks like this one.
For October 2026, USCIS says employment-based adjustment of status filings must use the Dates for Filing chart. For EB-5 unreserved, that chart shows China 01 March 2021, India 01 May 2024 and Current for all other countries. The set-aside categories are Current on both charts. USCIS can choose a different chart next month, so check its filing-charts page before you file. Source: https://www.uscis.gov/visabulletininfo. That is a USCIS filing-chart choice for the month. It is not a new Visa Bulletin row.
For the live table instead of this monthly recap, see https://verascap.com/visa-bulletin. The September 2026 recap is at https://verascap.com/news/september-2026-visa-bulletin.
Next month: November 2026 Visa Bulletin.
October 2026 tables in prose
Dates for Filing is the chart for October 2026 employment-based filings. Unreserved: China 01 March 2021, India 01 May 2024, all other countries Current. Rural, high unemployment, and infrastructure are Current for every country on that chart.
Final Action Dates are the other chart. They show when a visa number can be issued. They are not the chart for an October adjustment filing.
Rural, HUA, and infrastructure: Current for every country, including China and India. Unchanged from September.
Unreserved, China: 01 December 2016 on Final Action Dates. Unchanged from September.
Unreserved, India: 01 December 2023 on Final Action Dates. Moved from Unavailable in September (FY2026 exhaustion) to a date under FY2027 numbers.
Unreserved for all other countries (and Mexico / Philippines): Current. Unchanged from September.
That split is the story. Reserved and unreserved are different lines. A rural-sounding name does not put a filing in the reserved pool. The project has to actually qualify as rural, HUA, or infrastructure. If it does, you are reading the reserved row. If it does not, you are reading unreserved. Do not mix the rows.
Do not treat the India reopen as a guarantee your case can file or finish this month. Do not treat Current on rural as a reason to skip underwriting the project. The bulletin is a monthly chart. Read the next one when it publishes.
Rural TEA is a jobs-and-green-card queue apart from the unreserved line. Priority processing and project qualification sit in that reserved pool. They are not a substitute for diligence on jobs, capital path, and the regional center. A pitch deck that says “rural” is a claim. The census map, the I-956F, and the job-creation analysis are the evidence.
Visa numbers and USCIS processing are different clocks
Visa numbers and USCIS processing are different clocks. The bulletin answers whether a number is available. Processing answers when the agency looks at your papers. Do not mix them, and do not use “two clocks” to mean 2026 versus 2027 sunset. We laid the bulletin-versus-processing split out here: https://verascap.com/eb-5-processing-time/two-clocks
If you want the live table instead of this recap, that is the point of the page.
https://verascap.com/visa-bulletin
Read your country of chargeability, usually country of birth, and the category of the project you actually invested in, or are evaluating, not the one in a screenshot from last month. Then look at Dates for Filing. That is the chart USCIS chose for October 2026 filings.
Educational only. Not legal or immigration advice. Outcomes depend on USCIS adjudication, State Department visa availability, and project performance. Nothing here is a guarantee of timing, approval, or capital return.