Everything You Want to Know About Case Transfer
Why Are Cases Transferred?
When filing a form to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the applicant will have a receipt number starting with 3 characters and usually indicates the responsible service center. Due to the backlog, USCIS may transfer some ongoing cases between service centers to promote timely processing. Once a case gets transferred, the applicant will receive one or multiple transfer notices about the next service center and the exact reason for the transfer. The receipt number of your case will not change.
The reasons for transfer usually include but are not limited to service center workload, jurisdiction, interview necessity, relocation, or other clerical issues. Therefore, case transferring is a possible and normal step during the case processing period. Applicants do not need to worry and there is usually nothing much you can do unless USCIS assigns further instructions.
More information about case number: What is the Green Card Number?
The Fiscal Year 2022 Overview
In FY 2022 (October 1, 2021 ~ September 30, 2022), more than 194K cases were transferred, representing approximately 2.26% of the total number of cases in progress. Following are the most common transfer notices, and a transferred case may receive one or more consecutively. In general, nearly 42% of our users directly received a decision on their case after the transfer notice. You can use our USCIS Case Status Message Explorer to check the next step information of a specific case category.
Over 70% of transferred cases are from Texas Service Center (SRC) or Nebraska Service Center (LIN), and the remaining may be from National Benefits Center (MSC) or other centers. For transfer rate within each service center, Texas Service Center (SRC) and Nebraska Service Center (LIN) are also at the top level. A noteworthy point is that Potomac Service Center (YSC) cases have a relatively higher transfer rate, even though its transfers do not account for a significant portion of the total number of transferred cases.
For ongoing cases, the top three case types are I-765, I-131, and I-485, which cover 18%, 10%, and 9% of the total amount respectively. As to the transferred cases, I-485 occupies as high as 74% portion and the transfer rate is also the second highest. Though I-824, I-751A, and I-485J cases have less than 4% in the overall transferred cases, their transfer rates are at a high level.
What’s the next step after transferring? Check USCIS Case Status Message Explorer!
