The PERM Green-Card Path From H-1B

The stages before an immigrant petition

Most H-1B workers who go on to permanent residence do so through an employer-sponsored, employment-based green card. The H-1B visa itself does not lead to a green card automatically — a separate process starts with the employer's sponsorship for the job the worker holds. The Department of Labor's PERM program is the labor-certification stage that sits at the center of that process, and it produces most of the paperwork a reader can look up in public disclosure files. This guide walks through the stages in order, states who files what, and explains what a PERM record in the public files can and cannot tell you. For a plain description of the H-1B petition itself, see the guide to how the H-1B process works.

Prevailing wage determination

Before an employer can recruit for a green-card sponsored position, it asks the Department of Labor's National Prevailing Wage Center to set a prevailing wage for the job — a wage floor tied to the occupation, the geographic area of employment, and the position's stated requirements. The employer must eventually offer at least this wage to the sponsored worker. This step happens before any recruitment and can take a meaningful amount of processing time; the current schedule is published on the Department of Labor's site rather than restated here, since it changes with agency workload.

Recruitment

Once a prevailing wage is set, the employer must test the U.S. labor market for the position. For most professional roles this means a defined set of recruitment steps — job postings, print or internet advertising, and (for professional occupations) additional recruitment activities from a longer list set by regulation — conducted within specific windows before the PERM application is filed. The employer keeps a recruitment report documenting who applied and why any U.S. applicants were not hired for the role. This report is not published publicly; only the fact that a PERM application was later filed, and its outcome, appear in the disclosure data.

PERM filing

If recruitment does not identify a qualified, willing U.S. worker, the employer files ETA Form 9089 with the Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification. This is the PERM application itself. It states the job's requirements, the prevailing wage, the recruitment conducted, and the beneficiary's qualifying experience and education. The employer is always the filer of record on PERM — the case cannot be filed by the worker directly, though a worker's attorney or the employer's counsel typically prepares it. DOL's PERM program page describes the current filing process and forms in full.

I-140 immigrant petition

A certified PERM application is a labor certification, not a green card and not an immigrant petition. The employer must still file Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, with USCIS, attaching the PERM certification as its underlying labor certification for the employment-based categories most H-1B workers use. USCIS adjudicates the I-140 on the merits of the job offer, the employer's ability to pay the offered wage, and the worker's qualifications. See USCIS's Form I-140 page for the current requirements and filing instructions.

Adjustment of status or consular processing

An approved I-140 establishes a priority date but does not itself grant permanent residence. The worker becomes eligible to apply for the actual green card only once a visa number is available for their category and country of birth — the subject of the companion guide on timelines and backlog. At that point, a worker already in the United States typically files Form I-485 to adjust status; a worker outside the United States goes through consular processing at a U.S. embassy or consulate instead. Both routes lead to the same outcome — lawful permanent residence — through different procedural doors.

Who files what

Across every stage, the pattern is consistent: the employer is the petitioner and the worker is the beneficiary. The employer files the prevailing wage request, conducts and documents recruitment, and files the PERM application and the I-140. The worker generally files only the final step — the I-485 adjustment application, or the visa application at a consulate — plus supporting documents such as medical exams and biographic forms. A worker cannot self-sponsor a PERM case for an employer that is unwilling to file one, which is why an employer's PERM filing history is a meaningful, checkable fact about how it has actually supported past sponsorship, separate from anything said in an offer letter or interview.

What PERM disclosure data shows — and does not

The Department of Labor publishes PERM case data, including the employer name, job title, worksite, wage, and case outcome, on a public disclosure schedule. VisaBench's PERM follow-through benchmark (see methodology G2) uses this data to approximate how often an employer that wins H-1B petitions later starts a green-card case for that role, and its advanced-degree and backlog-exposure benchmarks draw on the same files. A few limits matter when reading these numbers. A certified PERM case is a labor certification, not a completed green card — the I-140, and later the immigrant visa or adjustment of status, still have to happen. A filing also reflects one point in a case that can take a long time to resolve, and one certification can be associated with only one intended beneficiary at a time. Readers researching a specific employer can see its PERM volume and follow-through rate on that employer's page, alongside its H-1B approval history, on pages such as the Infosys employer page or the top sponsors ranking. The public data hub itself is described in the guide to reading the USCIS employer data hub.

This guide is general information, not legal advice; consult a licensed immigration attorney about your case. Every employer's specific PERM and I-140 practice can vary, and only an attorney reviewing the facts of a case can advise on next steps or timing.