N400 Processing Times - Historical Perspective

[N400questions]

Here is the graph showing data published by USCIS. Things changed significantly around the time of the 2016 Presidential Election.




N400 Processing Times
People often ask questions like:
"How long will the N400 process take?"
"Why is it taking so long?"
"Has it always been like this?"

The USCIS used to publish a monthly report showing the national average N400 processing time calculated for that month.
They stopped doing that around the time of the 2016 Presidential election
Since that date, the only national data I have been able to find is published annually for the prior Fiscal Year.

I went through about 200 links and extracted the data and I present it here in a graph using Excel.
I was careful not to make any transcription errors and I believe I got the numbers right.
I cannot upload an Excel xlsx file onto the forum so I am uploading an image of that graph instead.

References:
Monthly Reports Here: https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archiv...-test-archives
5 Year Annual Reports Here:https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt

Please note that the USCIS Fiscal Year for 2019 actually runs October 2018 to September 2019.
That explains why the calendar year axis is offset by 3 months.


Miscellaneous events:

USCIS Mission Statement:
The USCIS mission statement changed in 2018.
It removed the phrase "USCIS secures America's promise as a nation of immigrants.."
It also removed reference to applicants being treated as "customers"
More Details Here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...nts-uscis-says

Senators complaining about processing delays:
This link shows several letters from Senators to USCIS Director and/or Acting Director in recent months
Scroll down on that page to see the complaints in early August 2019

https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/electronic-reading-room

Executive order 13780:
Applicants from the following countries might anticipate additional delays.
Iran,Libya,Somalia,Sudan,Syria,Yemen,Iraq (special case)
If the link gets censored because it references w-i-k-ipedia simply google for "Executive Order 13780"
https://en. ******** *.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13780


Data specific to your Field Office:
See post #2 and #4 for all Field Offices ranked from Worst to Best
This tool allows you to check the expected processing times for an individual Field Office

https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

An example may look like this:




Dates and estimates shown on USCIS Online Account Portal:

People are putting way too much trust in those status messages and often ask:

"How accurate are the completion times on the USCIS website?"
"What does expected wait time mean on the USCIS website?"
"Why are my dates not changing?"
"Why did my dates suddenly change?"
"Why did my Estimated Completion Date just disappear?"
"My estimated wait time clock is counting down 30,29,28,27 days - What does it mean?"
"I used to get a generic email every two weeks but now they've stopped... why?'
"I've already had my interview but the status still shows 'interview scheduled' - why has it not changed?"


I have not found any published definitions describing what these numbers and dates are.
Neither have I found any description of the statistical techniques used to predict these dates.
Therefore I don't pay much attention to them. They do seem to confuse a lot of applicants. I consider them to be useless. Ignore them.
If I find any definitive answers I will come back and update this section...until then... I've no idea what they are.

One example of how unreliable these numbers are comes from a post I just saw today (8/17/2019)...
"Estimated wait time: the countdown started at 30 days and finally reached 0 and now it's showing "We are taking longer than expected to process your case""
That seems like a fairly useless and anti-climactic end to a 30 day countdown.


Future Updates:
I may come back and update this post if I find any new data over the coming weeks.
At some point, this post may become read-only and I will not be able to update it.
If that happens... I may need to resort to adding a "Reply" to give updated data (if I find any).

This post was as accurate as I can make it on the following date: 8/17/2019

[N400questions]

Reference: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-...topic_id=20709

This next post tries to analyze the data for each Field Office and ranks them according to how bad their situation was on 3/31/2019

Here's what I did
1) Take the number of cases Approved and the number of cases Denied and add them
2) This gives a measure of the "Throughput" for the office
3) Now take the Backlog and divide it by Throughput to get a Rank
4) Finally, sort the table putting the worst offices at the top of the list

These are the results based on the data available for 3/31/2019
All numbers are cases handled per Quarter.


The worst office is Seattle (Maybe lots of Microsoft and Boeing people trying to get their N400 cases handled)
The best office is Greer (at the bottom of the table)

If your office is near the top of the list.... it may begin to explain why things are not moving too well.
Maybe.. Maybe not.

You can also get a feel for whether your Field Office is sinking or swimming.
If the number of new Applications is bigger than their Throughput... they are sinking.
So if we look at Seattle, they are already at the top of the list (which is bad) and they are also sinking.

For people with a deeper interest in statistics..
We can also quantify how badly an office is sinking by paying attention to the actual numbers.
Percentage Rate of Sinking = -1 * 100 * ( Applications - Throughput ) / Throughput
Large positive numbers are bad.
Once again, we notice Seattle is in trouble.

% Rejections is also computed in the far right column

[N400questions]

Bump
(Trying to get this made into a sticky... no one is replying to my emails)

[N400questions]

In this post, I clicked on about 200 links to accumulate the current average processing times for N400 for each Field Office
You can get that data here: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

Each Office estimates the time taken (in months) to process 50% of their cases and the time taken to process 93%.

I took the average of these two numbers to get a "rank" which allows me to sort the Field Offices from Worst to Best
If your Field Office is near the TOP of the list or has red colors... it is one of the worst offices.

For example:
If you want to speed up your N400.... Move to Tampa FL or Albuquerque NM. (See green colors at bottom of the list).
Stay away from New York or Minneapolis St Paul. (See top of the list).
Tucson is a bit weird, lots of cases are handled in only 5 months (green) but the ones that drag on can drag on for 36 months.
In this case I suspect that the 36 month number may actually be an error... who knows?
EDIT: See next post... the numbers for Tucson suddenly fix themselves.... I was right.... 36 really WAS an error.

Personally, I don't trust the entries that say "10months 18months".
I suspect that these are convenient values used when the true statistics are not available. There are too many offices quoting 10/18 to be real.





Data was accumulated by me on : 8/15/2019

[N400questions]

The field offices are now reporting new data.

I still don't trust some of the numbers. However, I once again went through about 200 links to see what time periods they are all reporting.

As always, you can check the data by using this tool: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

These tables show the numbers they were reporting two weeks ago on 8/15/2019 and the numbers they are reporting today.

Once again the table is sorted so that the worst offices are at the TOP of the list and contain RED colors.
Conversely, the best offices are at the bottom and contain green colors.

I do not trust offices that are currently reporting 11/17 months. I think these are just convenient numbers that they insert when the true numbers are not available.

Data Correct as of Date : 8/29/2019

[homeiswhereyoustand]

I signed up just show my appreciation for your analysis. Personally I would review the data myself just to be sure, but given that I was caught in the middle of this mess and had my own naturalization delayed massively, I have no need. Again, great work!

[N400questions]

I signed up just show my appreciation for your analysis. Personally I would review the data myself just to be sure, but given that I was caught in the middle of this mess and had my own naturalization delayed massively, I have no need. Again, great work!

Thanks for the kind words.
I hope this is useful for people and helps to give some perspective to what is going on.
I provided links for all my data sources so that people can sanity-check or fact-check as needed.

The main points that can be drawn from these data are..
1) If you are frustrated by large delays... don't take it too personally or become too paranoid.... things are not running smoothly these days.
2) If you are being handled by one of the red-colored offices at the top of my lists... this can explain a lot of your delays.
3) The Presidential Election in 2016 correlates strongly with the sudden increase in processing times. However, correlation is not the same as causation.

[N400questions]

The field offices are now reporting new data.

I still don't trust some of the numbers. However, I once again went through about 200 links to see what time periods they are all reporting.

As always, you can check the data by using this tool: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

These tables show the numbers they were reporting on three different dates in the past few months.

Once again the table is sorted so that the worst offices are at the TOP of the list and contain RED colors.
Conversely, the best offices are at the bottom and contain green colors.

I do not trust offices that are currently reporting 10.5 and 16.5 months. I think these are just convenient numbers that they insert when the true numbers are not available.
Indeed, many cities using those "false" numbers have been using "false" numbers each time I checked over the past few months.
USCIS don't seem to be focused on reporting accurate statistics for all offices.... I wonder why?

EDIT: One example showing that the 10.5 and 16.5 numbers are probably "false" comes from this post in the "Experiences" side of this website.
https://www.immihelp.com/experience/....html#comments
In that post, two independent applicants took only 3 months from start to finish for their N400 application. This does not match the prediction of 10.5 to 16.5 months.
If your field office has reported "10/18" followed by "11/17" followed by "10.5/16.5" then these predictions are probably "false".
I have used bold red font whenever I see one of these potentially "false" numbers to make them easier to spot.

Data Correct as of Date : 9/22/2019

[Chicagochachacha-N400]

I filed in the Chicago office December 2018, Biometrics January 2019, interview/test scheduled in February which I passed on March 23rd but a decision could not be made.
May 15 my application was approved and was placed on a queue for oath ceremony and have been stuck there since then with no update. I placed a couple inquiries, to which I received a letter saying "you're still in a queue waiting for an oath ceremony." My attorney said I could write our senator and ask for assistance but say what, my wife and I have our honeymoon in February 2020 and I've been in the queue for an oath ceremony date since May?
I'm so frustrated with how smooth & fast all started and out of the blue, it all came to an abrupt halt.
Does anyone have any information regarding oath ceremonies delays?

[c00lone]

Very interesting analysis, thank you for that. Would you be able to share the files itself? The pictures are not very clear. Also when you refer to throughput - what is the time period? Is that per month?

[N400questions]

Very interesting analysis, thank you for that. Would you be able to share the files itself? The pictures are not very clear. Also when you refer to throughput - what is the time period? Is that per month?

Sorry for the delay. I have not been looking at this forum for many weeks.
When I first applied I got super-interested in trying to reverse-engineer how the system works and was very active answering people's questions.
At some point I decided to "get a life" and simply wait for my interview which is coming up in December 2019.

The website won't allow me to upload my XLS file and I haven't updated it since September 2019 so it's a little stale now.
I expect that most of the worst offices are still in the "red" category and most of the best offices are still in the "green" category but their position in my league table may have changed by a few slots in the meantime.

I suggest you'd do best to pay attention to your own Field Office using the links I provided earlier.

You could generate your own data by clicking on 200 links for every Field Office if you think that's worthwhile.
Generally speaking, my "ranking" will probably hold approximately true for the next 6 or 12 months or so.
If some Field Offices suddenly find the money to recruit new staff or maybe offload some of their cases to "nearby" offices, that may help that specific office.

I guess things may change in November 2020 if there's another change in President with a different approach to immigration... otherwise... probably not.

The "throughput" was per quarter.
Check out this link to see where I got that data from.
Reference: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-...topic_id=20709
The data posted on September 17 2019 is here: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/...y2019_qtr3.pdf
The September 17th data is actually covering data retrospectively for the previous quarter ie April 1 - June 30, 2019
This means that the published data is always 3 to 6 months stale.
I am guessing their NEXT update will be published in mid to late December 2019.... maybe the 17th.

Good luck with your application and Happy Holidays to all.

[N400questions]

This may be the last time I log in to this site.

I hope this thread was useful to get a feel for how the system works.

I answered lots of questions early on but it's now time to move on.

I applied on 8th July 2019 and the Oath will be on 9th January 2020

From start to finish the N400 process took me 6 months & 2 days in the Denver CO area.

I guess the Oath Ceremony might get cancelled between now and then... but I'm assuming it won't. :-)






Good luck to you all and Happy New Year.

[N400questions]

I attended the Oath Ceremony today.

See previous post for full history with dates
6 months & 2 days start to finish in Denver Colorado Field Office

I hope this thread helped you get a feel for how the system is working these days.

Good luck to everyone.

[luckycharm4111]

Congratulations !!!!

Now you don't have to worry about any immigration stuff.

I am happy for you!

[N400questions]

Attended Oath Ceremony: 01/09/2020
Applied for Passport: 01/10/2020
Date of Issue of Passport: 01/22/2020
Passport Received in mail: 01/25/2020

I used the basic non-priority passport service at a local Post Office with basic (zero cost) USPS shipping.
It took 15 days start to finish to get the passport.

Presumably the Certificate of Naturalization will arrive back shortly.