The EB-2 and EB-3 categories are the two employment-based immigrant classifications that lead directly to the green card, that is, to lawful permanent residence, and they are the route by which most Brazilians who move legally to the United States for professional reasons get there. The difference between them lies in the qualification the job requires: EB-2 covers positions that call for an advanced degree or exceptional ability, and EB-3 covers the skilled worker, the professional with a bachelor’s degree and, in a subcategory of its own, the worker without formal qualification. In both, the rule is that a U.S. employer petitions for the immigrant; the exception, which exists only in EB-2, is the National Interest Waiver, in which the professional self-petitions without an employer.
Three things have changed since 2025 and shape any plan for an employment-based green card for a Brazilian. The first is the backlog: the EB-2 and EB-3 categories, which were current for Brazilians a few years ago, have cutoff dates again, and the Other Workers subcategory now waits more than four years. The second is the rigor USCIS applies to the NIW, whose approval rate fell from above 90 percent to around half, and which since August 2026 can be denied without a prior Request for Evidence (RFE). The third is cost, with new and higher fees at every step. This article walks through the whole path, from qualification to the green card, with the figures in force on the date of publication, so that the employer and the professional know where they stand and how much time and money separate them from the move.
The employer’s side of the procedure, the labor certification before the Department of Labor and the I-140 petition, is described in the firm’s article on the PERM labor certification and the I-140 petition, and this text assumes it. The legal framework is section 203(b)(2) and (3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations, parts 204 and 245, the labor certification rules in title 20, part 656, the precedent Matter of Dhanasar for the NIW, and the Department of State’s monthly Visa Bulletin.
Which category do I qualify for?
The category is defined by the position and by the qualification it requires, whatever the candidate’s résumé. EB-2 requires, for the position, an advanced degree, that is, a master’s or a doctorate, or a bachelor’s degree followed by at least five years of progressive experience in the profession, or else exceptional ability in the sciences, the arts or business, shown by at least three of a list of regulatory criteria, among them a degree, ten years of experience, a professional license, commensurate remuneration, membership in professional associations and recognition by peers. The engineer with a master’s degree, the physician, the researcher and the executive with a bachelor’s degree and a long career belong here. What decides the question is whether the employer can show that the role requires that level.
EB-3 has three subcategories with different consequences. The skilled worker holds a position that requires at least two years of training or experience; the professional holds a position that requires a bachelor’s degree, with no master’s degree or long experience needed; and the other worker, called unskilled in the jargon and in the advertisements for the EB-3 unskilled worker visa, holds a position that requires less than two years of training. The first two subcategories share the same backlog; the third, Other Workers, has its own and much slower one, because the law reserves ten thousand visas a year for it, reduced to about five thousand by statutory offsets. The nursing technician, the experienced cook and the mechanic tend toward EB-3 skilled worker; the analyst with a bachelor’s degree, toward EB-3 professional; the hotel worker, the production operator and the caregiver, toward EB-3 Other Workers.
The distinction matters because it is common for a candidate with EB-2 qualifications to be placed in EB-3 because the position offered requires less, and so to enter a longer backlog; and the reverse is common too, the attempt to classify as EB-2 a position that does not require it, which the Department of Labor and USCIS refuse. The choice must be made at the origin, when the position is designed with the employer, with the job description and the minimum requirements that the U.S. market practices for that occupation.
The National Interest Waiver is a variant of EB-2. Whoever requests it must first meet the EB-2 requirements of an advanced degree or exceptional ability, and only then show that their professional endeavor in the United States has substantial merit and national importance, that they are well positioned to advance it and that, on balance, waiving the labor certification benefits the country. It is the path for the professional who has no employer willing to sponsor, or who prefers to depend on none, and it is today the most closely examined of all.
Do I need a U.S. employer?
In EB-3, always; in EB-2, yes, except in the National Interest Waiver. With an employer, the path has three linked steps: the PERM labor certification, in which the employer shows the Department of Labor, through real and documented recruitment, that no qualified U.S. worker is available for the position and that the wage offered is the prevailing wage for the occupation in the region; the I-140 petition to USCIS, in which the employer proves the immigrant’s qualification and its own ability to pay the wage from the date of the filing; and the closing, by consular processing or by adjustment of status, when the turn in the backlog arrives. The date the PERM is filed is the immigrant’s priority date, and it marks the position in the backlog; that is why the clock starts with the employer.
The employer is the hardest part to obtain and the easiest to lose. It must exist, operate, have a payroll and financial statements that support the wage, and must be willing to conduct recruitment with advertisements and interviews that can take months, to pay the costs the law assigns to it in the PERM and to keep the position open for as many years as the backlog lasts. A candidate who receives an EB-3 offer through an intermediary should know the employer, the worksite, the prevailing wage and the company’s financial health before paying any amount, because the approved petition of an employer that closes or withdraws serves only to preserve the priority date, and the immigrant will have to start over with another. The steps and timelines of the PERM labor certification for a worker in Brazil and of the I-140 are described in detail in the firm’s article on the PERM labor certification and the I-140 petition.
Without an employer, the National Interest Waiver lets the professional file the I-140 petition on their own behalf, waiving the PERM and the job offer. What USCIS requires, under the precedent Matter of Dhanasar and Policy Alert PA-2025-03 of January 15, 2025, which calls for proof of EB-2 eligibility before the waiver itself is analyzed, is a concrete professional endeavor in the United States, described with goals, means and timeline, whose importance reaches beyond the employer or the immediate clientele; proof that the candidate has the training, track record and resources to carry it out, with expert letters, contracts, publications, patents or results; and a showing that waiving the labor certification benefits the country. A statement that the field is important falls short; the petition must show what the person will do, for whom and with what measurable effect.
The rigor has grown. By USCIS quarterly counts, with the rate calculated by U.S. firms as approvals over approvals plus denials, the NIW fell from close to 96 percent in fiscal year 2022 to 55 percent in fiscal year 2025, stood at 42 percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 and 48 in the second, and returned to 55 in the third, with RFEs in a significant share of cases. Since the Policy Alert of August 5, 2026 on evidence, Requests for Evidence and Notices of Intent to Deny (NOID), identified as PA-2026-05, the officer may deny the petition outright when the required initial evidence is missing or the record as filed fails to establish eligibility, without first issuing an RFE or a NOID, including in petitions already pending on that date. A NIW petition in 2026 therefore has to be complete at the first filing, and the professional who prepares it alone from templates circulating on the internet is among those who receive the most denials.
How long is the backlog for Brazilians?
The backlog is the part of the process the candidate does not control, and in November 2026 it exists for every category that matters to Brazilians. The annual cap on employment-based green cards is split among categories and countries of birth, and when demand exceeds the quota the Visa Bulletin sets a cutoff; only those with a priority date earlier than the final action date can receive the green card. A Brazilian falls in the Rest of World (ROW) group, which includes every country without a backlog of its own; China, India, Mexico and the Philippines have separate dates.
In the November 2026 Visa Bulletin, the final action date for EB-2, which includes the NIW, is April 1, 2025 for Rest of World, after being current in September and retrogressing to January 1, 2025 in October, when EB-3 also moved back; for EB-3 skilled workers and professionals it is June 15, 2024; and for EB-3 Other Workers it is June 1, 2022. Whoever filed the PERM or the NIW before those dates can close the process now; whoever filed later waits, and the waiting time is, roughly, the distance between the priority date and the final action date, plus the pace at which the date advances, which in 2026 has been weeks to a few months per month. In the Visa Bulletin EB-3 Rest of World column for Other Workers, the wait exceeds four years, and that is the number the EB-3 advertisements for hospitality and service jobs rarely mention.
The Visa Bulletin has a second chart, the dates for filing, which in November 2026 stand at March 15, 2026 for EB-2, August 1, 2024 for EB-3 and July 1, 2022 for Other Workers. When USCIS authorizes use of that chart, as it did in November, anyone in the United States in lawful status with a priority date earlier than those dates can file the adjustment of status application, obtain the employment authorization document (EAD) and advance parole, and wait for the rest of the backlog to clear inside the country. For someone in Brazil that chart changes nothing; the consulate only schedules the interview when the final action date reaches the priority date.
Waiting legally in the United States requires a status of its own, independent of the green card application. An approved I-140 petition gives no right to enter or to stay, and a tourist visa cannot be used to wait out the backlog. Families who need to be there during the wait do so on a temporary work visa, such as the H-1B, the L-1 or the E-2, or on a student visa, and move to adjustment of status when the date arrives; those without such status wait in Brazil and close through the consulate. The order of the steps is therefore decided together with the choice of category: a couple with a teenage child, for example, must calculate whether the EB-3 backlog reaches the priority date before the child turns twenty-one, because the protection of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) subtracts from the child’s age only the time the I-140 petition was pending, with the age calculated when the visa becomes available, under the final action dates chart for applications filed on or after August 15, 2025, and a child who reaches that age during the wait ages out of the parents’ case.
How does the process close, and does the family come along?
The process closes in one of two ways, depending on where the immigrant is when the date arrives. For the professional already in the United States in valid status, the closing is the adjustment of status: Form I-485 is filed with USCIS when the date in the applicable chart reaches the priority date, and it can be filed concurrently with the I-140 when the date is current, so that the petition and the application travel together in a single package. In November 2026, with USCIS honoring the dates for filing chart, that means an EB-2 priority date earlier than March 15, 2026, an EB-3 date earlier than August 1, 2024 or an Other Workers date earlier than July 1, 2022. With the I-485 go the applications for the employment authorization document (EAD) and for advance parole, which allow the applicant to work and to travel abroad while the application is under review; the interview, when one is scheduled, takes place at the local USCIS field office. Adjustment requires that the immigrant entered with inspection and maintained status, with the tolerance of up to 180 days of status violations that section 245(k) grants to the EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 categories; those who exceed that limit or who entered without inspection cannot adjust and must leave for the consulate, which, depending on the length of the unlawful stay, triggers a bar on reentry and requires the waiver described in the firm’s article on inadmissibility waiver applications.
For the candidate in Brazil, the closing is consular processing in Rio de Janeiro: USCIS sends the approved petition to the National Visa Center (NVC), which collects the fees and receives Form DS-260 from each family member along with the civil documents, and, when the final action date reaches the priority date, schedules the interview at the U.S. Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro, the only post in Brazil that issues immigrant visas. The medical exam is done by a physician approved by the consulate, in Rio de Janeiro or in São Paulo, days before the interview, with the required vaccines up to date. Approved at the interview, the immigrant receives the visa in the passport, pays the USCIS Immigrant Fee and has six months to enter the United States; on entry, the immigrant becomes a permanent resident, and the card arrives by mail at the U.S. address.
The spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one accompany the principal immigrant as derivatives, with the same priority date and the same green card, with no petition of their own; the marriage must exist before the principal becomes a resident, and a child born during the process is included. Each person’s documents, birth and marriage certificates, the Brazilian Federal Police criminal record certificate and the equivalent from every country where they lived for more than six months after age sixteen, diplomas and passports, go in with a certified translation into English.
The interview, at the consulate or at the USCIS field office, covers identity, the family relationship, the job offer and inadmissibility: criminal records, prior unlawful stays, misrepresentation in past visa applications and the public charge test, by which the officer assesses whether the family has the means to support itself; in the employment-based categories a job offer at the prevailing wage usually satisfies that point, and the NIW requires a showing of resources of its own. From then on, the new permanent resident must keep an actual residence in the United States; long absences, above all those over a year, put the green card at risk.
How much does it cost, how long does it take, and what are the risks?
The cost in government fees is modest beside the total cost, which includes legal fees, translations, exams, trips to Rio de Janeiro and, on the employer path, the recruitment advertisements, which the law assigns to the employer. On the date of publication, under the USCIS fee schedule of October 26, 2026, the I-140 petition costs $715 on paper and $665 online, plus the Asylum Program Fee of $600 for the ordinary employer, $300 for the small employer and for the NIW self-petitioner, and zero for nonprofit entities; premium processing, which binds USCIS to decide within fifteen business days on employer petitions and forty-five business days on the NIW, costs $2,965 and leaves the rigor of the review unchanged. Adjustment of status costs $1,440 per person on paper, with $260 for the employment authorization document and $630 for advance parole while it is pending; the new fees created by the budget law of July 2025 reach asylum, parole and temporary visas and leave the EB-2 and EB-3 candidate out. In consular processing, the DS-260 costs $325 per person and the USCIS Immigrant Fee, paid to USCIS after the visa, $235. These amounts are revised often and must be checked on the day of payment.
The total time is the sum of three periods. The Department of Labor’s, which on October 21, 2026 was reviewing PERM certifications filed in January 2026, with an average of 303 days, and prevailing wage determinations received in June, which adds up to more than a year, or the NIW preparation period, which depends on the candidate; USCIS’s for the I-140, which without premium processing takes months and must be checked in the USCIS processing times tool on the date of filing; and the backlog, described above, which runs in parallel from the priority date and is today the longest of the three for EB-3 and the only one that no fee can buy. A Brazilian family that starts an EB-3 skilled worker case in November 2026 should plan the move on a horizon of three to four years; in EB-3 Other Workers, longer; in EB-2 and the NIW, two to three, if the petition is approved at the first filing.
The risks are concentrated at three points. The first is the intermediary who sells the position: the Department of Labor prohibits the employer from receiving any payment from the worker for the PERM, directly or indirectly, and a purchased position is void and exposes the immigrant to a fraud finding that follows them into every future application; an offer that asks the candidate for tens of thousands of dollars for the position, with no interview and no contact with the employer, should be refused. The second is denial of the petition, which in the NIW now happens without a prior RFE and which, in EB-2 and EB-3 with an employer, stems above all from the ability to pay the wage and from the qualification required for the position; the petition must be assembled with complete evidence from the start. The third is the candidate’s own inadmissibility, from a prior unlawful stay, from false information in a tourist visa application or from a criminal record, which surfaces only at the interview if it was left unexamined before and which requires a waiver.
For orientation, the so-called Gold Card, created by Executive Order 14351 of September 19, 2025 and open to applications since December 10, 2025 through Form I-140G, is a standard of proof of its own within EB-1 and EB-2 NIW: the candidate makes a gift of one million dollars to the U.S. government, or two million when a company sponsors, plus one million for each accompanying dependent, pays a fee of fifteen thousand dollars per person to the Department of Commerce and goes through the same backlog and the same closing by consular processing or by adjustment. For the Brazilian professional who qualifies for EB-2 or for the NIW, it buys only the waiver of proving the qualification, and at a price that rarely pays off.
How does the firm handle these cases?
The work begins before any form, with a reading of the case. In the first consultation, conducted by one of the partners in Curitiba or by videoconference, the firm examines the education, career and immigration situation of the candidate and of the family, including prior trips and visas, and says which category actually fits, whether the EB-2 NIW is viable for a professional in Brazil or already in the United States with that profile or whether the path runs through an employer, and what the real time horizon is given that month’s backlog. That reading avoids the costliest mistake, which is to enter the wrong category and find out years later.
Once the strategy is set, the firm conducts the whole process from Brazil, with the partners it keeps in the United States for the acts that require an attorney admitted there. On the employer path, that includes assessing the sponsoring company and the position, guiding the employer on what the Department of Labor will require of it and conducting the certification and the petition together with the U.S. attorney. In the NIW, the firm assembles the petition, defining the professional endeavor, selecting and obtaining the evidence and the expert letters and writing the case in the form USCIS has required since 2025, so that the first filing is the definitive one.
At the consular stage, the firm prepares the civil documents of the whole family, follows the case at the National Visa Center, examines any ground of inadmissibility in advance and files the waiver when needed, and prepares the candidate for the interview in Rio de Janeiro. For those already in the United States, it handles the adjustment of status and the EAD and advance parole applications that go with it. The firm works in Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and Italian, in its immigration and global mobility practice, and charges fixed fees per stage, presented in writing after the initial consultation, so that the family knows from the outset the total cost of the chosen path.
Sources consulted on November 1, 2026: USCIS, G-1055 fee schedule, edition of October 26, 2026; USCIS, Visa Bulletin charts applicable to adjustment of status; USCIS, Policy Alert PA-2025-03, EB-2 eligibility in NIW petitions; USCIS, Policy Manual, age under the Child Status Protection Act; USCIS, Form I-140G instructions; Department of Labor, PERM and prevailing wage processing times; Fragomen, November 2026 Visa Bulletin; Ogletree, November 2026 Visa Bulletin; Colombo & Hurd, November 2026 Visa Bulletin; Manifest Law, NIW approval rate in the third quarter of fiscal year 2026; Ashoori Law, NIW approvals by fiscal year from USCIS data; International Evaluations, Policy Alert PA-2026-05 and what the NIW requires in 2026; Global Citizen Solutions, 2026 EB-2 NIW guide with fees and timelines; Gozel Law, the Gold Card in 2026 and Form I-140G; firm’s article on the PERM labor certification and the I-140 petition.
