I-129F 2026 Slowdown: USCIS Processing Slows Again

For most of this year, the K-1 visa community has been riding the ups and downs of the I-129F processing slowdown at USCIS. In our April 13th article, we broke down how processing activity fell off sharply in early March 2026 after nearly a year of stable, consistent progress. Then, in our May 29th article, we shared some relief: USCIS was slowly getting back to their pre-slowdown output and the Front of the Line was advancing consistently again. It looked like the worst was behind us.

Unfortunately, as of early June 2026, the data has started to tell a different story. Over the past several weeks, I-129F processing has slowed again; and the current numbers appear to be worse than what we saw during the initial slowdown. The rebound we noticed in May 2026 has unfortunately not held.

Current Processing Numbers

At Track My Visa, one of the key metrics we monitor to understand these shifts is the USCIS processing activity. We carefully track how many cases (from our userbase) USCIS is approving or otherwise processing on a given working day.

To understand the current processing volume, we need to take a look at the I-129F USCIS processing volume over the last few months:

• Before March 2026: 200+ Track My Visa cases per week
• March & April 2026: 100 to 150 cases per week
• May 2026: ~200 cases per week (strong rebound)
• After mid-June: ~100 cases per week

The current working week (July 20 to July 24), despite having another few hours left of work (at the time of writing) is likely to have a record low number of approvals for this year, well below 100 cases.

USCIS is now processing cases at roughly half the rate we saw just two months ago. This is a clear step backward from the improvement we reported in May, and our I-129F estimates have pulled back sharply in response.

Department of State Transfers

During the March and April slowdown earlier this year, USCIS managed to keep the I-129F processing time mostly constant because, despite rapidly increasing wait times for the initial approval, USCIS brought post-approval DOS transfer wait times down from 2 months to just a few days. The net effect was that the slowdown was offset by the DOS transfer improvement. You can see in the chart below how aggressively USCIS was transferring cases to the Department of State in March and April.

Unfortunately, USCIS has essentially paused DOS transfers in July. In fact, although the end of the month is quickly approaching, cases approved on July 1st are still waiting to be transferred.

Earlier this year, improved DOS transfer times were compensating for slow approvals. This time around, the current DOS transfer stall is combined with even lower approval numbers, putting joint pressure to push end-to-end I-129F wait times higher. With approvals taking ~9 months and DOS transfers taking approximately 1 month, most cases leaving the I-129F process right now waited about 10 months total.

What's Causing This?

As with the earlier slowdown, the honest answer is that we don't know. We can observe the effects clearly in the data, but USCIS has not communicated any reason for the change. Our working assumption remains that something has shifted internally at USCIS, whether in staffing, systems, priorities, or process, but we can't point to a confirmed cause.

While there are federal holidays around the end of June and the start of July, the impact of those holidays is likely minimal. A holiday or two doesn't explain the multi-week decline in approval volume or the stall in DOS transfers.

On July 22nd, there was a widely-reported I-130 issue at USCIS, where applicants erroneously saw Approvals on their myUSCIS dashboards. While this issue has been discussed within the K-1 community, this technical issue is very unlikely to have directly impacted K-1/K-2 cases. That said, it's one more data point suggesting there may be broader internal activity at USCIS right now.

What Comes Next?

We've said it before and it still holds: USCIS slowdowns always eventually reverse. We saw exactly that this spring, when a discouraging stretch gave way to a real recovery. The frustrating part is that recovery didn't stick, which is a good reminder that these trends can move in both directions and that a few good weeks don't guarantee a stable new normal.

For now, the most important signals we're watching are whether the DOS phase starts moving again and whether daily processing volume climbs back up towards 150–200 per week or stays flat around 100.

We know how draining this uncertainty is for applicants who are simply trying to plan their lives. We'll keep monitoring USCIS processing activity closely, across both the Received and DOS phases, and we'll share updates as the picture becomes clearer.

— Track My Visa Team