Short answer: the month you may file is decided by a chart that changes every month, not by how long you have been married. A U.S. citizen's spouse is an immediate relative, outside the yearly numbers, so there is no line. A permanent resident's spouse is in the second family preference, F2A, which has a yearly limit, so a visa number has to be available before the adjustment application can be filed at all. The government publishes that availability each month in the Visa Bulletin. When your category is open and you otherwise qualify to adjust inside the United States, everything can go in together; when it is not open, the petition goes in and the rest waits. As of September 2026.
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Where the difference comes from
The law sets yearly numbers for the family categories. Spouses and children under 21 of permanent residents share the second preference with unmarried sons and daughters who are 21 or older, and the statute reserves at least 77 percent of that category's numbers for the spouses and the younger children. Even a reserved share is a share, which is why the category can close.
There is a second difference that decides more cases than the calendar does. The law bars adjustment inside the United States for people who worked without permission, who have no valid immigration status on the day they file, or who did not keep lawful status continuously, and the only spouses written out of those bars as a class are the spouses of U.S. citizens. A permanent resident's spouse gets no automatic exemption. Narrower exceptions exist and each carries conditions; the 180-day allowance people sometimes hear about is not one of them, because it applies to employment-based cases. If there is any gap in your status history, that question comes before the chart.
Your priority date is the day the petition was filed
The priority date is the day the I-130 petition was filed, not the wedding day and not the approval day. It is the date you compare against the chart each month, and it is what an approved petition carries. If the petition is denied, there is no place in line to keep. Filing the petition early therefore does one concrete thing, and it does it even in a month when nothing else can be filed.
The charts, and how to find your row
Each monthly Visa Bulletin has two charts for every preference category. One is Final Action Dates, which governs when a case can be approved. The other is Dates for Filing, which can let an application be submitted earlier. In a given month one of them applies to adjustment filings, and USCIS says which on its own filing charts page, usually within a week of the bulletin. For September 2026, for example, USCIS designated the Dates for Filing chart for all family-sponsored preference categories. Each month's designation goes up on that same page, so that is the page to check. There is an exception worth knowing: if a category is current on the Final Action chart, or its Final Action date is later than its Dates for Filing date, applicants in that category may file on the Final Action chart that month.
Finding your row takes two steps, not one. Read down to F2A, then read across. The chart gives a few countries their own columns and everyone else shares the first one, and the F2A row is not always identical across those columns. As a rule, the column that is yours is decided by where you were born, not by where you live now.
Then read the box. A date means your priority date has to be earlier than that date. The letter C means current, which is that chart saying there is no line this month. On the filing chart, C means you may file now; it does not mean a decision is available now.
What an open month actually lets you do
When the chart that governs this month reaches your priority date, and you meet the other filing requirements, the adjustment application can be filed, either with the I-130 at the same time or after the petition. When the chart has not reached you, only the petition can be filed. The petition proves the family relationship. By itself it gives you no status in the United States and no permission to work, however long it has been pending.
You may also apply for a work permit once the adjustment application is on file. That is a separate application with its own review, and the permission begins when it is granted, not when the case is filed.
That is the whole reason an open month matters. It is not that the case is decided faster. It is that the adjustment stage can begin.
Filing is one gate. Approval is another.
An open month lets the application be filed. It does not decide it. By regulation, an adjustment application from someone in a preference category cannot be approved until the Department of State has actually allocated an immigrant visa number for that person. So a case can be properly filed and pending, waiting for a number, while the interview and the rest of the review go forward.
Where the answer splits
- The chart can move backward. Availability is judged as of the day you file, so a later chart moving backward does not undo a filing that was proper when it was made. The case waits for a number. Other things can still end it: as a rule, leaving the country while the case is pending counts as abandoning the application, unless travel permission was granted first or a narrow exception applies, such as certain workers returning in the same status.
- If you have children, waiting carries a deadline of its own. The law freezes a child's age using the month a number becomes available, subtracts the time the petition spent under review, and protects that frozen age only if the green card is pursued within a year of that availability. Which chart marks that month has moved with policy. A child anywhere near 21 is the reason to run this calculation before deciding to wait.
- If the sponsoring spouse naturalizes, the spouse's line disappears. On the day a permanent resident petitioner becomes a citizen, an F2A petition for the spouse and for unmarried children under 21 moves into the immediate relative classification. The change takes effect that day, but nothing tells the agency for you, so the naturalization certificate has to reach the office holding the case, and a petition still under review still has to be approved. Two things are easy to miss. Immediate relatives have no derivative beneficiaries, so a child who was included on the spouse's F2A petition needs a petition of their own, and the rules for petitioning a spouse's child apply again to that new petition. An unmarried son or daughter who is already 21 or older does not become an immediate relative; that petition converts to the first preference, which still has a line, and the law lets that person decline the conversion in writing and keep the priority date either way.
- The chart is not the only condition. Availability decides when you may file. How you entered, your status today, and your history decide whether you can adjust inside the United States at all.
What does not change your place in line
- The wedding date. It is not the priority date, and it does not move the chart.
- How long you have lived together, or whether you live together now.
- Being physically in the United States. That matters for other questions.
- A pending petition. Until the chart reaches your priority date, an approved I-130 waits the same as one still under review.
FAQ
Does an open month mean we will be approved quickly? No. It means the application can be accepted. Approval is a separate gate, and in a preference category it requires a visa number to be allocated for you.
What happens if the category closes after we file? Availability is judged as of the day of filing, so a later chart moving backward does not make a proper filing improper. The case waits for a number.
My spouse's naturalization is pending. Should we wait for it? Naturalization removes the spouse from the numbered category, which is a real advantage, but its own timing is uncertain and it does not carry children along automatically. What to do in the meantime depends on your status and your history, not on the chart alone. It is worth mapping both paths before choosing one.
Where do I look each month? The Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin, and USCIS posts which chart family preference filings use that month. Both are free and public. This is the rule for adjusting status inside the United States; a case going through a consulate abroad follows a different process.
General information only — not legal advice for your case. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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