In January 2017, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began using a new format aimed at providing processing times that are timelier and easier to understand. Based on the new format, if the receipt date on the applicant’s I-797 (Notice of Action) is before the dates that USCIS lists on the Immigrant Investor Processing Times (IPO) webpage, USCIS is working on average towards processing those dates.As of May 31, 2017, USCIS is processing I‐526 petitions that it received before October 18, 2015. Currently, the average I-526 processing time is around 20 months, a minor increase from last month and 18% increase year-over-year. On average USCIS is processing I‐829 petitions that were received before December, 3 2014. Currently, average I-829 processing times are around 30 months.
