EAD (Form I-765) Processing Time
Your Employment Authorization Document timeline depends almost entirely on the eligibility category you filed under, not your local field office — USCIS processes I-765 centrally. Pick your category and filing date for a personal estimate and to see whether you can already submit an inquiry.
I-765 — Application for Employment Authorization · official USCIS data published October 19, 2026.
Estimate your completion window
Service Center Operations (SCOPS)
An I-765 received January 1, 2025 is estimated to finish between July 16, 2026 and October 16, 2026.
Posted range for this category: 18.5 months – 21.5 months.
✓ Your case is older than USCIS’s posted timeframe — you can submit a “case outside normal processing time” inquiry now (cases received on/before January 26, 2025).
Estimates apply USCIS’s own published range to your date — they are not a prediction of your individual case or legal advice. See the methodology.
Current posted ranges (October 19, 2026)
| Category | Office / center | Range | Inquiry if received on/before |
|---|---|---|---|
| Based on being an H-4 spouse of an H-1B nonimmigrant (filed with I-539 H4) [(c)(26)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 6.5 months – 10 months | January 13, 2026 |
| Based on being an L-2 spouse of an L-1 nonimmigrant [(a)(18)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 18 months – 28 months | July 10, 2024 |
| Based on being admitted as a Refugee [(a)(3)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 18.5 months – 21.5 months | January 22, 2025 |
| Based on an approved asylum application [(a)(5)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 2.5 months – 17 months | June 16, 2025 |
| Application for Suspension of Deportation/Sec.244/NACARA/Cancel of Removal [(c)(10)] | National Benefits Center | 10 months – 24 months | November 13, 2024 |
| Based on parole | National Benefits Center | 13.5 months – 18 months | May 16, 2025 |
| Alien with Final Order of Deportation Under an OSUP [(c)(18)] | National Benefits Center | 16.5 months – 18.5 months | May 3, 2025 |
| Based on being an H-4 spouse of an H-1B nonimmigrant (Standalone; not filed with I-539 H4) [(c)(26)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 17.5 months – 19 months | April 9, 2025 |
| Based on a request by a qualified F-1 academic student [(c)(3)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 5 months – 6.5 months | May 2, 2026 |
| Based on a pending asylum application [(c)(8)] -renewal/replacement | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 18.5 months – 21.5 months | January 26, 2025 |
| Based on a pending asylum application [(c)(8)] – Initial Application | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 27 days – 1 month | October 10, 2026 |
| Based on a pending I-485 adjustment application [(c)(9)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 12.5 months – 16 months | July 14, 2025 |
| Based on a pending I-485 adjustment application [(c)(9)] | National Benefits Center | 12 months – 16.5 months | July 3, 2025 |
| Based on TPS for El Salvador [(c)(19), (a)(12)] | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 18.5 months – 19.5 months | April 4, 2025 |
| All other applications for employment authorization | National Benefits Center | 10.5 months – 14.5 months | August 22, 2025 |
| All other applications for employment authorization | Service Center Operations (SCOPS) | 16 months – 19 months | April 8, 2025 |
“Inquiry if received on/before” is the date USCIS will accept a case-outside-normal-processing-time inquiry for.
Related
Sources & verification
Compiled and reviewed by the GreenCard Radar editorial team · Data as of October 19, 2026
- USCIS Check Case Processing Times (official)(Authoritative source, published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.)
- jzebedee/uscis — daily processing-time dataset (third-party mirror)(Open dataset we ingest, so our figures trace back to the official USCIS publication date.)