Key Takeaways
- The national interest waiver approval rate dropped from 95.7% in FY2022 to roughly 42%–55% in recent quarters, with FY2026 Q3 at 55.3%.
- USCIS does not publish an official approval rate. The figures here come from decided cases only and do not predict any single petition.
- Approval rates fell because filing volume tripled and USCIS now expects quantitative evidence of national importance instead of narrative claims.
- The aggregate rate mixes strong and weak filings together. Your odds depend on your profile and evidence quality, not the headline number.
Get Your EB-2 NIW Profile Reviewed
The Data: EB-2 NIW Approval Rate By Fiscal Year
The table below shows how the calculated EB-2 NIW approval rate fell from 95.7% in FY2022 to roughly 49% across the first three quarters of FY2026. Read it as a trend line across decided cases, not as a forecast for any new filing.
| Fiscal Year | Approvals | Denials | Calculated Approval Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | 10,316 | 468 | 95.7% |
| FY2023 | — | — | ~79.6% |
| FY2024 | — | — | ~71% |
| FY2025 | 19,532 | 15,863 | ~55.2% |
| FY2026 (Q1–Q3, Partial) | 9,238 | 9,585 | ~49.1% |
Source: USCIS I-140 Adjudication Data Compiled By Manifest Law. Calculated as approvals ÷ (approvals + denials). Pending cases are excluded from the denominator; 82,812 NIW petitions were pending at the end of FY2026 Q1 and are neither approvals nor denials.
The trend line is steep but has begun to recover. FY2026 Q3 marked the third consecutive quarterly increase from the 35.7% low recorded in Q4 FY2025, the first quarter in recent memory when denials outnumbered approvals. The aggregate rate still blends every decided petition into a single figure that does not describe any one person’s case.
See How Jumpstart Reads The Data For Your Case
The Problem: Why The National Interest Waiver Approval Rate Fell
The steep decline in the table above has two main causes that reinforce each other. The first is volume: USCIS received 66,276 EB-2 NIW applications in FY2025, three times the 21,973 received in FY2022. When filing volume triples, the decided pool includes a much larger share of premature, generic, and thin petitions. That mix shift pulls the aggregate rate down even when strong cases face the same legal standard.
The adjudication environment also tightened independently of volume. Administrative Appeals guidance issued in December 2024 recorded, across all USCIS service centers, the expectation that national importance be established through quantitative evidence rather than narrative assessment. After that guidance, a recommendation letter praising the importance of a petitioner’s field no longer counts as sufficient for EB-2 NIW. Officers now expect measurable indicators that show the petitioner’s individual contribution.
The data cannot show whether the bar went up or the filings got weaker, and both forces likely play a role. USCIS publishes approvals, denials, and pending counts, but it does not reveal why cases were denied. The denial could stem from weak recommendation letters, an unclear proposed endeavor, or evidence that never connects to the legal standard. Dividing approvals by receipts does not produce a valid approval rate because receipts and decisions are different populations.
How The Aggregate National Interest Waiver Approval Rate Relates To Your Case
The aggregate rate describes a pool. That pool includes every decided petition, including filings that were premature, boilerplate, or structurally incomplete. The relevant question is where your profile sits within the pool.
The Accelerator-Credentialed Founder
A Y Combinator or residency alum with venture backing, media coverage, and independent recognition usually arrives with strong Prong 2 evidence. That traction shows the petitioner is well positioned to advance the endeavor. The structural risk for this profile sits in Prong 1. When the endeavor is framed as “grow my company” instead of a bounded mission with national implications, USCIS has no basis to find substantial merit and national importance for that person. Employer-only impact framing, where impact is described entirely through one company’s products or revenue, reads as private benefit rather than national benefit. That framing problem also undermines Prong 3, which needs its own affirmative argument instead of a pointer back to Prongs 1 and 2.
The Cited Researcher
Publications, citations, patents, and academic affiliation often support Prong 1 and, when citation records show independent reliance, Prong 2. The recurring failure mode is conflating the importance of the field with the petitioner’s individual contribution. USCIS treats the national importance of fields like oncology research, cybersecurity, or renewable energy as given and then looks for evidence that this specific petitioner is doing work within that field that rises to substantial merit. For early-career EB-2 NIW researchers with modest citation counts, a petition built around a backward-looking metric defense instead of a forward-looking research blueprint almost always fails.
The Advanced-Degree Employee Without A Standout Record
A master’s degree meets the EB-2 entry requirement. It does not satisfy Prong 2, which examines what the petitioner has done. Files resting on education and titles without executed work are the group that most often receives an RFE. This profile sits below the aggregate rate because the petition cannot construct the national-interest anchor that the self-petition framework requires.
Check Your EB-2 NIW Eligibility
What Happens If Your EB-2 NIW Is Denied
A denial does not create a permanent bar or remove the petitioner from the EB-2 category. Three routes remain open:
- Refile A Strengthened New I-140. No filing deadline applies. This route is most common because it allows you to rebuild the record from the ground up without arguing against a prior decision.
- File A Motion To Reopen Or Reconsider On Form I-290B. The deadline is 30 calendar days from the date USCIS issued the decision, or 33 calendar days if the decision was mailed. A motion to reopen introduces new facts. A motion to reconsider argues legal error on the existing record.
- Appeal To The Administrative Appeals Office. The AAO conducts de novo review but sustains only approximately 2.2% of EB-2 NIW appeals, with the process routinely taking many months. Refiling is often faster when the denial identified substantive gaps.
A denied petition does not preserve a priority date, so a refile starts a new place in line. That distinction matters most for applicants from backlogged countries, where Indian-born EB-2 applicants face waits exceeding a decade at the I-485 stage. Because a refile resets that clock, the strongest strategy is to plan for a second attempt before the first one is filed.
How To Strengthen Your Case Before Filing
Evidence quality matters more than volume, and the credential types that map most directly to the Dhanasar prongs are the ones that show measurable results:
- Independent expert letters that identify which prong they serve and describe a concrete contribution with a measurable result, rather than letters from supervisors writing as a professional courtesy
- Objective corroboration such as publications, citation records, patents, contracts, adoption of the work by other institutions, media coverage in recognized outlets, and competitively reviewed grants
- A bounded endeavor statement naming the specific problem, approach, expected outcome, and timeline, instead of “I plan to conduct research in artificial intelligence to advance the field”
For a detailed breakdown of prong mechanics and the most common denial reasons, see Jumpstart’s guide to EB-2 NIW denial reasons and prong failures. [link]
One adjacent comparison helps frame the category landscape. EB-1A currently approves at roughly 66.9%, higher than EB-2 NIW’s approximately 55.2%, even though EB-1A is marketed as the harder category, while EB-3 requires employer sponsorship and labor certification rather than self-petition.
Jumpstart files U.S. visa and green-card petitions for founders, executives, and operators worldwide. Our methodology is trained directly on USCIS adjudicator decisions. Jumpstart’s approval rate is 98%.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are the questions readers ask most often about the EB-2 NIW approval rate and what it means for their case.
What Is The Current NIW Rejection Rate?
The NIW rejection rate is the inverse of the calculated approval rate. As noted above, the denial rate has hovered around 45% in recent periods. These figures are calculated as denials divided by approvals plus denials, with pending cases excluded from the calculation.
What Are The Most Common Reasons NIW Petitions Get Denied?
The most common denial reasons cluster around five failure modes:
- A vague or overly broad proposed endeavor that gives USCIS no basis to evaluate the waiver for that specific person
- Conflating the importance of a field with the petitioner’s individual contribution, since USCIS accepts that oncology, cybersecurity, and clean energy matter nationally and then asks what this petitioner has done within that field
- Generic recommendation letters that praise credentials without addressing the Dhanasar prongs or the specific proposed endeavor
- Neglecting Prong 3, which needs its own affirmative argument for why waiving labor certification benefits the United States, rather than a restatement of Prongs 1 and 2
- Employer-only impact framing, where impact is described entirely through one company’s products, revenue, or internal goals, which reads as private benefit rather than national benefit
What Happens If My EB-2 NIW Is Denied?
As outlined above, you can refile, file a motion, or appeal. AAO appeals in EB-2 NIW cases are sustained in roughly 2% of cases and routinely take many months, so refiling is often faster when the denial identified substantive gaps. A denied petition does not preserve a priority date, so a refile starts a new place in line, which is a significant consideration for applicants from backlogged countries.
Is EB-2 NIW Hard To Get?
Difficulty depends on the profile. The aggregate approval rate reflects the entire pool of decided petitions, including cases filed prematurely, without sufficient evidence, or with boilerplate endeavor statements. A well-prepared petition from a petitioner with verifiable traction, independent recognition, and a bounded endeavor statement usually sits above the aggregate. A petition built on an advanced degree and a corporate role without publications, patents, or independent recognition usually sits below it. The number functions as a pool statistic, not a personal probability.
Is EB-2 NIW Harder To Get Than It Used To Be?
Yes. The approval bar is meaningfully higher than in FY2022, driven by a surge in filing volume that introduced a larger share of thin petitions into the decided pool and by stricter application of the Dhanasar framework. As discussed earlier, the December 2024 guidance raised the evidentiary bar by formalizing the expectation that national importance be shown through quantitative evidence. A recommendation letter praising the importance of a petitioner’s field no longer counts as sufficient; the petitioner’s individual contribution must be documented through measurable indicators.
Conclusion: Read The Number, Then Make The Decision
The national interest waiver approval rate is often misread as a personal probability. It is a methodology artifact: approvals divided by approvals plus denials, across every decided petition in a reporting period. The 82,812 pending cases are excluded from the denominator entirely. The number describes a pool that includes premature filings, boilerplate endeavor statements, and thin evidence records. It does not describe a well-prepared petition from a credentialed founder, a cited researcher, or a specialist with verifiable national-level impact.
The correct evaluation sequence is methodology first, then profile fit, then prong evidence. Once you understand what the denominator excludes and where your profile sits relative to the aggregate, the approval rate stops functioning as a verdict and becomes a filing decision you can act on. That decision includes planning for the second attempt before the first one is filed.
Start Your EB-2 NIW Strategy Session
