How NIWStats collects and counts

Real cases, shared by real people

Every figure on this site traces back to an individual EB2-NIW case. Every case carries its provenance: some are submitted by their owners, others are compiled from public community posts where applicants shared their outcomes. We're candid that this is a crowdsourced dataset, not an official government release.

A growing share of cases are also tracked against USCIS — where someone shares a receipt number, we read the case status from the USCIS portal and re-check it until the outcome lands, rather than taking it on report. Even then, only the status comes from USCIS; the field and profile are as the owner described them. USCIS-tracked figures are always shown separately from reported ones, never blended. That tracked layer is small today and grows over time — and as it grows it makes the whole picture sturdier.

The cuts that actually predict outcomes

We collect the handful of things that genuinely shape how an NIW case goes: the broad endeavor field, the applicant profile (research, industry, or a mix), whether the case used premium processing, whether it drew an RFE, the rough timeline, and whether it was filed with an attorney or on one's own.

We ask for these as broad categories, never as free-form detail. We record your field, for instance — never your actual proposed-endeavor statement.

Composition and counts, not invented rates

While the dataset is young, we deliberately show composition and counts — how cases distribute across fields, profiles, RFE history, and timelines — rather than headline approval or denial rates. A single percentage drawn from a crowdsourced sample would imply a precision we don't have, so we don't publish one.

When a slice is too small to say anything meaningful, we suppress it rather than dress up a number from a handful of cases. You'll see a count, or nothing — never a confident-looking figure resting on almost no data.

De-identified, nothing re-identifying

You can browse individual cases, but every one is stripped of anything that could identify the petition behind it — never an identity. We don't store or show receipt numbers on any shared surface, proposed-endeavor statements, or attorney and firm names (we record only whether a case used an attorney, never which one).

The whole design leans toward minimal disclosure: we ask for the least that still produces a useful, honest picture, and keep the most identifying details out entirely.

A data instrument, not legal advice

NIWStats exists to inform your own judgment with real, comparable cases. It is not, and cannot be, legal advice, and it is not affiliated with USCIS. For decisions about your own petition, talk to a qualified immigration attorney.