Foreign Country Limits on Chargeability for Family & Employment Based Permanent Residency (Green Card)

The Country of Chargeability refers to the foreign country from which an immigrant enters the U.S. under the Priority-Preference System for permanent residency (green card) purposes of numerical limitations. No more than 7% of the family based and employment based visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in any fiscal year.

Chargeability is usually determined by the country of birth, not later naturalization to another country. For example, you cannot be born in China then later naturalized in Brazil and then try to claim Brazil as your Country of Chargeability. Exceptions are sometimes made to keep family members united where the limitation for the country of birth have not been met. This is Cross Chargeability and it exists where a spouse can claim the other spouse's country of birth and children can claim a parent's country of birth if different than their own.