DOL PERM Processing Times October 2026: Average Analyst Review Hits 300–360 Days as DOL Scraps Queue-Month Reporting
Updated: 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON, D.C., 13 November 2026 — The Department of Labor has published its October 2026 processing time data for PERM labor certifications and prevailing wage determinations, revealing a format change that removes the filing-month queues applicants previously relied on to track their cases. The update, current as of 31 October 2026, is available on the official DOL FLAG processing times page.
PERM Analyst Review: 300 to 360 Days
DOL now reports only Analyst Review for PERM and does so by average processing time for applications adjudicated within the last 30, 90, and 180 days. The averages range from 300 to 360 calendar days.
Reporting Period | Average Processing Time |
Last 30 days | 300 days |
Last 90 days | 315 days |
Last 180 days | 360 days |
DOL states that averages for Audit Review and Supervised Recruitment are not published because those cases represent a “significantly small percentage” of the current PERM workload. No reconsideration figure appears on the FLAG page either.
What the Format Change Means
Until the 21 October 2026 data, DOL’s page showed the filing month each PERM queue was working on. The 31 October 2026 update replaces queue months with average days, and the queue months are no longer displayed. The last published queue months were January 2026 for analyst review, December 2025 for audit review, and May 2026 for reconsideration requests.
For applicants who previously compared their filing month against DOL’s posted queue, that tracking method is no longer available through the FLAG page. The average-days approach shows how long decided cases took but not where the queue currently sits. The 30-day average of 300 days suggests recent decisions are being reached faster than the 180-day average of 360 days, indicating that older cases in the decided pool took longer than newer ones.
Prevailing Wage Determinations: August and July 2026 Receipts
As of 31 October 2026, DOL was issuing PWDs for:
PERM OEWS-based requests filed in August 2026
PERM non-OEWS requests filed in July 2026
H-1B OEWS and non-OEWS requests filed in July 2026
For redeterminations, DOL was processing PERM requests from August 2026 and H-1B requests from September 2026. For Center Director Reviews, the agency was processing PERM cases from September 2026 and H-1B cases from October 2026.
The FLAG page also shows remaining requests by receipt month. For PERM, 14,925 requests from August 2026 remained in the queue as of 31 October, alongside 14,400 from September 2026 and 13,179 from October 2026. H-1B showed 191 remaining from August 2026 and 200 from September 2026.
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What Employers and Applicants Should Do
Employers and foreign nationals awaiting PERM decisions should adjust planning assumptions to reflect the new reporting format. The 300-day recent average and 360-day 180-day average provide a range for analyst review, but they do not indicate when a specific case filed in a given month will be reached. The prevailing wage stage must still be completed before PERM filing, and the PWD receipt months shown on FLAG indicate that August 2026 PERM OEWS requests are only now being decided—roughly three months after receipt for that queue.
For case-specific tracking, applicants should rely on DOL FLAG updates and employer or attorney case management systems rather than the queue-month comparison that the October update removed. The FLAG page is updated at the close of business of the first work week of each month for data ending at midnight Eastern Time on the first of the month.
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