The best F2B profile tracking app for Vietnamese people: Track Priority Date, Visa Bulletin and NVC
The best F2B profile tracking app for Vietnamese people: Track Priority Date, Visa Bulletin and NVC
The F2B profile is a sponsorship for an unmarried son or daughter, 21 years of age or older, of a legal permanent resident in the United States.
USCIS identifies F2B as Family-Sponsored Second Preference. The Department of State also allocates a portion of the annual number of Family Preference visas to F2B.
A special feature of F2B is that applicants often have to wait for a long time. So, just using a USCIS Case Status checker is not enough.
A realistic F2B tracker needs to track at least:
USCIS
Priority Date
Visa Bulletin
Approval
NVC
CEAC
Documentarily Complete
Interview
Priority Date is the most important data that needs to be saved in the first place.
F2B AND PRIORITY DATE
Priority Date is an important date to determine the position of the application in the visa preference system.
When the number of applications exceeds the number of available visas, the Department of State uses cut-off dates in the Visa Bulletin to manage visa issuance.
This makes it impossible for F2B file holders to just look at the USCIS status and know when the file may be complete.
Need to monitor at the same time:
Priority Date of the profile
Final Action Date of F2B
Dates for Filing when applicable
Visa Bulletin change history
National chargeability
This is why an F2B tracking application should consider Priority Date as the central data of record.
HOW WILL THE F2B BULLETIN VISA CHANGE?
Visa Bulletin is published monthly by the Department of State.
For example, the August 2026 Visa Bulletin is listing F2B with a Final Action Date of 01JAN19 for the All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed group. Countries listed separately have different dates.
This shows that there should not be a single F2B day for everyone.
A tracker must know which chargeability group a profile belongs to before comparing the Priority Date with the Visa Bulletin.
More importantly, dates in the Visa Bulletin may change from month to month.
Can advance.
Can stand still.
May be delayed.
May vary significantly as visa demand is allocated during the financial year.
Therefore, an application should not tell the user that:
“Your application will definitely arrive in month X of year Y.”
A more reliable approach is to display official, historical data and reference ranges.
SHOULD F2B ONLY USE USCIS CASE TRACKER?
Are not.
USCIS Case Status Online is useful to check petition status by Receipt Number.
But Receipt Number only reflects part of the journey.
For example, the application may have been approved by USCIS but the user still has to continue following the steps afterward.
If the application is processed consularly, the next stage may involve NVC and CEAC.
Therefore, a good F2B tracker needs to monitor from the time USCIS receives the petition until the visa stage.
AFTER F2B IS APPROVED, WHAT TO TRACK?
Once the petition is approved by USCIS, users should not stop tracking.
Information that needs to be further managed may include:
Approval Date
NVC Case Number
InvoiceID
CEAC
DS-260
Affidavit of Support
Financial Documents
Civil Documents
Documentarily Complete
Interview
NVC has its own process for immigrant visa applications and provides instructions regarding payment of fees, DS-260, Affidavit of Support and civil documents.
Therefore, a good F2B tracker must be able to forward data from the USCIS stage to the NVC.
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE OF F2B TRACKER?
Not a “Case Updated” message.
For F2B, the greatest value lies in the ability to connect multiple data.
For example:
Priority Date → Visa Bulletin
USCIS Approval → NVC
NVC → CEAC
CEAC → Documentarily Complete
Documentarily Complete → Interview
If these data are in separate systems, users must remember and check each place themselves.
A good tracker should turn them into a single timeline.
HOW SHOULD F2B TRACKER TRACK VISA BULLETIN?
It should not only display the current date.
A good system should save a month-by-month history.
For example:
Last month
F2B: day A
This month
F2B: B day
Then system c