Form I-485 Processing Time — Green card application (adjustment of status)

What the numbers say right now

Across all 90 field offices publishing a range, the median window is 16–32.8 mo. Your office is what actually matters — find it in the table, then read the +N mo / −N mo marker to see whether it is getting better or worse.

"Inquire after" is USCIS's service-request threshold for that office: if your receipt date is older, a case inquiry through official channels is reasonable. Sort any column; numbers show months.

Working and traveling while you wait

The I-485 queue is long enough that most applicants keep living their lives inside it: the I-765 work permit (category (c)(9)) and the I-131 advance parole document exist exactly for this window. File them with the adjustment application, not after — the published ranges on those pages are the reason. Leaving the U.S. without advance parole in hand abandons the green card application; this is the single most expensive mistake in the whole process.

Other I-485 categories

Reading the table like an insider

Three habits make this table genuinely useful. First, compare your office against neighbors in the same state — local interview capacity dominates, and the directory makes the spread visible in one screen. Second, watch the trend marker rather than the raw range: an office that improved two months in a row is a different animal from one that slipped, even at the same window. Third, sanity-check your own file hygiene before blaming the queue: address changes reported, notices answered, biometrics attended — a lost notice is the most common self-inflicted delay.

None of this requires a lawyer. But if your case is well past the upper bound, your inquiry went nowhere, or an RFE turned into something worse, that is the moment a licensed immigration attorney earns their fee — and this site, again, is not one.