EB-4 Green Card for Special Immigrants, Including Religious Workers

A few older groups (such as certain Panama Canal employees and physicians licensed before 1978) still exist in the law but apply to very few people today. Abused spouses and children of citizens use Form I-360 too, but under VAWA, which is family-based, not EB-4.

You may qualify if:

1. For at least 2 years right before the petition, you have been a member of a religious denomination that has a bona fide nonprofit religious organization in the US.
2. You are coming to work as a minister, or in a religious vocation (such as a nun or monk) or religious occupation (a job mainly about carrying out the religious creed, such as a cantor or religious instructor).
3. You have worked continuously in that religious work for at least 2 years right before filing. The work can be abroad.
4. A US religious organization offers you a compensated job, and it files the petition. You cannot self-petition.

USCIS may inspect the organization's site before or after approval.

The non-minister sunset

The part of the program for non-ministers (religious vocations and occupations) is not permanent. Congress must renew it from time to time, usually in federal funding laws, and it can lapse. Non-ministers are also capped at 5,000 green cards a year. Before filing, check the current expiry date on the USCIS religious worker page. Ministers are not affected by the sunset.

Many religious workers first come on the temporary R-1 visa.

Afghan and Iraqi special immigrant visa (SIV) applicants follow a separate State Department process with their own numbers and steps. Check the State Department SIV pages rather than relying on this summary.

EB-4 gets 7.1% of employment-based green cards, about 10,000 a year. Demand, largely from special immigrant juvenile cases, has been much higher than that for several years, so EB-4 has had a cutoff date for all countries. Applicants born in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador have often faced later dates than others.

Your priority date is the date USCIS received your I-360. Check the Visa Bulletin and the Visa Bulletin tracker each month. Any EB-4 numbers left unused at the end of a year fall down to EB-1.

• Adjustment of status (Form I-485) if you are in the US and a visa number is available.
• Consular processing (DS-260 and a consulate interview) if you are abroad.

Religious workers in R-1 status can apply to adjust once a visa number is available, but R-1 time is limited to 5 years in total, so the EB-4 backlog can create gaps. Talk to an immigration lawyer if your R-1 time will run out before your date is current.

The 2026 adjustment of status memo. On May 21, 2026, USCIS issued a policy memo (PM-602-0199) that treats adjustment of status as a discretionary benefit. USCIS said that people who are in the US on a temporary visa and want a green card should expect to apply from their home country, except in extraordinary circumstances. The memo applies to pending and new Form I-485 filings. Meeting the legal requirements is now treated as the minimum: officers weigh your whole record, including whether you used your visa for its stated purpose. Legal challenges were expected, so check the current position before you file.

The 2026 interview freeze. Since August 25, 2026, the State Department has paused scheduling of immigrant visa interviews worldwide while consular officers train on public charge screening. No restart date had been announced as of September 22, 2026. Track it on our immigrant visa pause page.

Travel ban. Nationals of the 39 countries covered by the travel ban (Proclamation 10998, in effect since January 1, 2026) generally cannot receive immigrant visas abroad, and USCIS has held many pending applications from those countries for extra review.

Public charge. A new public charge rule took effect on September 18, 2026. It replaces the 2022 rule with a broader "totality of the circumstances" test of whether you are likely to rely on government support.

Government fees as of September 2026, from the USCIS fee schedule:

Use the USCIS fee calculator to confirm the right fee for your group.