As of September 2025, PERM Labor Certification processing continues to show modest improvement. Employers and foreign workers should still prepare for a multi-stage timeline—but signs point to sub-15-month adjudication times returning soon, based on both Department of Labor (DOL) disclosures and real-world tracking from our clients.
Current PERM Processing
According to DOL’s official processing times:
- Analyst Review: Processing PERM applications filed around April 2024
- Audits: Reviewing audited cases filed around January 2024
From our own tracked cases, we’ve seen certified PERMs filed in:
- May 2024 – certified in ~15.2 months
- June 2024 – certified in ~14.5–14.8 months
Earlier this year, the longest cases we tracked approached 17 months, but recent movement suggests PERM times are trending downward toward 14–15 months.
Prevailing Wage Determinations (PWDs)
The DOL’s offical FLAG site lists average processing at about 5 months.
However, from July through early September 2025, our firm has consistently seen PWDs issued in just under 4 months. This real-world trend is notably faster than the government’s posted average