How long is the processing time for I-130?

They are two separate processes. The first is the I-130 processing and that can take anywhere from 4-12 months. However, for this preference category, spouse of a green card holder, even if the I-130 is approved, a visa cannot be issued unless and until the priority date is current. You can check the priority date processing on the visa bulletin, published monthly by the US Dept of State.

Currently the wait time after filing the I-130 until you can apply for the green card is about two years. This can alter at any time however, so continually check the visa bulletin at the Department of State website for updates each month.

Processing of an application starts once CIS receives a properly filed application or petition from the person who submitted it to the appropriate CIS office. To be properly filed, an application must be signed and the correct fee is included. Your boyfriend cannot file an I-130 petition for you until you are married. The petition is in the F2A category [spouse, not girlfriend of an LPR] Normal processing time of petitions in that category takes about 18 months. By way of comparison, the most current petition in that category which has now been approved were filed in Oct 2011. An approved I-130 petition is just the first step in the process of becoming a green card holder. If you are overseas, you must undergo consular processing at a US embassy overseas. If you are in the US, you must undergo adjustment of status. So, you must add another 8 months or so for that particular process. Note also that not every petition is approved by CIS and even after approval, the applicant must undergo a lot of background check so that unless cleared an approved petition may not necessarily result in issuance of a green card.

The day your husband's petition for your gets received by USCIS is called "the priority date" because it marks your place in the queue of the people who wait for the same benefit. There is no significant delay between the day USCIS receives your husband's petition and the priority date that gets assigned to your case (sometimes, a couple of days will pass before the Service issues and sends you a filing notice with a receipt number and the priority date). After the petition is received, USCIS will process it and approve it (if all the documents were correctly prepared and submitted, and if there are no problems preventing approval of the petition). Right now, this process takes about 15 months. However, this time is not very important because you cannot receive an immigrant visa when the petition is approved until your priority date becomes current. The concept is a bit difficult, so let me explain. The number of immigrant visas that can be issued in each category is limited. Spouses and children of permanent residents receive 87934 visas a year. Number of petitions is much larger; so there is a queue, and your place in it is determined by the date when your petition was filed. When visas become available for people who filed petitions on a certain date, we say that their priority date became current. Right now, visas are being issued in your category to the beneficiaries of the petitions filed on June 8, 2011. It means that, after your husband files a petition for you, you will have to wait for a visa for about 2 years. This waiting time is counted from the date when your petition is filed, not from the date when it gets approved; this is why I said that it hardly matters how many months USCIS will take to process your husband's petition - you will have to wait 2 years to get your visa even if USCIS will approve your husband's petition in 1 day. After your husband's petition gets approved, USCIS sends a notice of approval to your husband and transfers the case to the National Visa Center of the U.S. Department of State. Shortly before your priority date will become current, National Visa Center will send your husband a letter asking him to file visa application forms and filing fees. After receiving the applications and the fees, NVC will send your case to the U.S. Embassy in your country. The Embassy will send you an invitation to come for an interview with a consul. If you bring to the interview everything the consul needs to see, and if there are no problems preventing your admission to the United States, consul will give you an immigrant visa. This part of the process takes time in addition to the 2-year waiting period; how much time it will take in your case will depend on in which country you live and how busy the U.S. consul will be at that moment; generally, you can expect from 2 to 6 months. If you husband will become a U.S. citizen sometime during the 2-year waiting time, he will ask USCIS to upgrade your case to the "Immediate Relative" category; your waiting time will stop, and USCIS will send your case to the NVC immediately (but the rest of the process will not change - NVC will send your husband a request for applications and fees, then send the case to U.S. Embassy in your country; and the Embassy will call you in for a visa interview).

Count from the date the I-130 is filed.