There are two main categories of immigration Visas available to anyone who wants to be an American citizen, the employment based and the family based Green Cards.

Together they have a total of 10 subcategories, 9 of which are limited by quotas: in the family based immigration category there are five categories. Four of them are limited by quotas. The five categories are made up of one immediate relative category and four preference categories.

There are also five employment based immigration categories.

As mentioned above, there is no limit on the number of Green Cards available for the "immediate relative" immigration category under family based immigration (see next post). All other immigration categories have annual quotas which are divided as follows:

The number of visas issued annually for the employment based categories is approximately 140,000.

The number of visas issued annually for the family based immigration categories is approximately 480,000.

Another important fact with regard to the number of visas available for each category each year: a maximum of 7% of the worldwide available Green Cards can be issued to any single country, no matter how many applications come from there. This means that Green Cards issued to nationals of any single country during one year cannot be more than 7% of all Green Cards issued that year to all countries. As a result of this rule, applicants from countries such as Mexico, the Philippines and India, which produce large numbers of immigration applications each year, generally have to wait a longer time than other immigrants to receive their Green Cards.