The Green Card Visa Bulletin is a monthly report from the U.S. State Department that tells you whether your priority date is current, meaning you may be eligible to move forward with your green card application. Missing a monthly update can mean missing your window, sometimes by months or even years.
Why the Visa Bulletin Is So Easy to Miss
The bulletin comes out once a month, usually in the third or fourth week. There is no push notification. No reminder. You have to remember to check the USCIS website yourself, every single month, or risk being caught off guard.
For people waiting on a green card, that monthly check becomes a ritual. And it is exhausting. You might check it five times in one week, then forget entirely the next month.
What Is a Green Card Priority Date?
Your priority date is the date your immigration petition was filed. The Visa Bulletin shows which priority dates are "current" for each country and visa category. If your date is on or before the cutoff listed, you can take the next step in your application.
The cutoffs change every month. Sometimes they move forward. Sometimes they retrogress (move backward). And sometimes they stay the same. Every change matters.
How to Track the Visa Bulletin Without Checking Manually
You can set up an automated alert so you get a plain-English summary delivered to your inbox the moment it matters, without visiting any website yourself.
Here is exactly how to do it with AIDular:
- Go to aidular.com and create a free account.
- Create a new tracker and type your instructions in plain English.
- Set it to run monthly.
- AIDular searches the web on your schedule and emails you a clean, sourced report.
Example prompt you can copy and paste:
"Check the latest USCIS Visa Bulletin and report the priority date cutoffs for the Employment-Based EB-2 and EB-3 categories for India and China. Note any changes from last month and whether dates moved forward or retrogressed."
You can swap in your own visa category and country. AIDular will pull the current bulletin each month and send you a summary, so you never miss a shift.
What to Include in Your Tracker
Depending on your situation, you might want to track:
- Your specific visa category (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, F-2A, and so on)
- Your country of chargeability (usually your birth country)
- Both the "Final Action Dates" and "Dates for Filing" charts, since USCIS sometimes accepts one over the other
- Any policy news from USCIS that could affect processing times
All of that can go into a single prompt. You write it the way you would explain it to a friend.
Why This Beats Checking Manually
Checking the USCIS website yourself works, but it is easy to forget, and the site is not exactly designed for quick scanning. Setting up an automated monthly report means:
- You get a summary in your inbox, not buried in a government PDF
- You see only what changed, not a wall of tables
- You stop worrying about whether you remembered to check
The Lite plan on AIDular is free, so you can set this up right now without spending anything.
One More Tip
If you are also working with an immigration attorney or consultant, forward them the monthly report. It gives everyone the same information without anyone having to dig for it.
Your green card journey is already stressful enough. Let the checking part run on autopilot. Set up your Visa Bulletin tracker at aidular.com and get back to the things that actually move your case forward.