A PERM denial is not just a setback. It restarts the entire process — and potentially resets your priority date.
The average PERM case takes 458 days. A denial adds another 458+ days to that. Some workers have lost 3–4 years of their immigration timeline to a single preventable employer error.
The good news: every PERM case filed since FY2024 is publicly disclosed by the Department of Labor. You can look up your employer before you accept their job offer.
What PERM Disclosure Data Includes
The DOL publishes quarterly disclosure files with every PERM decision. For each case, you can see:
- The employer name and location
- The job title, SOC occupation code, and worksite state
- The offered wage
- The law firm that handled the filing
- The outcome: Certified, Denied, or Withdrawn
- The filing date and decision date
PermTrack aggregates all of this across 279,666 cases into searchable employer profiles. Find any company in seconds at permtrack.app/employers.
What to Look For
1. Approval Rate
The national average PERM approval rate is approximately 91%. When you look up an employer, compare their rate against this baseline:
- 95%+ — Strong record. This employer has a reliable PERM process.
- 88–95% — Average. Worth asking about recent denial reasons.
- Below 85% — Dig deeper. High denial rates can indicate systemic issues with the employer's recruitment process, wage levels, or attorney work quality.
One caveat: small sample sizes are noisy. An employer with 10 PERM filings and 1 denial looks like a 90% approval rate — that's not necessarily meaningful. Focus on employers with 50+ cases in the dataset for more reliable signal.
2. Volume and Consistency Over Time
An employer who has filed 500+ PERM cases over multiple fiscal years has a proven process. They know what the DOL wants to see. First-time filers with no track record carry more uncertainty — not necessarily a red flag, but worth factoring in.
PermTrack shows approval rates and filing volumes broken down by fiscal year. Look for consistency. A sudden drop in FY2025 approval rates after strong FY2024 numbers might indicate a change in attorneys or process.
3. Law Firm Track Record
The law firm your employer uses is disclosed in every PERM case. You can look up that firm at permtrack.app/attorneys and see their overall approval rate across all their clients.
An employer with a mediocre approval rate but excellent law firm may be fine — the denial history could predate their current counsel. An employer with a strong approval rate using a weak firm might just be lucky.
Both data points matter.
4. Denial Patterns
Denials cluster around a small set of issues. The DOL doesn't publish denial reason codes in the disclosure data directly, but patterns emerge at the employer level. The most common PERM denial reasons are:
- Recruitment violations — failure to run ads correctly, insufficient documentation of recruitment steps
- Wage issues — offering below prevailing wage, or submitting an incorrect wage level
- Job description mismatches — the job duties described don't match the occupation code filed
- Audit failure — ~20% of cases are selected for supervised recruitment or audit; failures here often mean denial
If an employer has a pattern of denials, it's worth asking their HR or immigration team directly: "What happened with those cases, and what changed?"
A Real Example
Amazon is one of the largest PERM filers in the US — thousands of cases per year. Their approval rate is consistently above 92%, they use multiple large law firms, and their average processing time tracks closely to the national average.
Compare that to a smaller employer with 40 PERM cases over 3 years, a 78% approval rate, and two different law firms in the same period. That pattern — frequent attorney changes, low approval rate, low volume — warrants questions.
Both data sets are freely searchable on PermTrack.
What Withdrawal Means
You'll also see "Withdrawn" cases in the data. A PERM withdrawal isn't necessarily bad — employers withdraw cases for many legitimate reasons: the worker left, the job changed, the employer decided to pursue a different strategy.
However, a high withdrawal rate (especially above 15–20%) can indicate instability in the employer's sponsorship program. Cases that are withdrawn after an audit request are particularly worth noting.
Before You Accept the Offer
If a job offer includes a commitment to green card sponsorship, take 5 minutes to:
- Search the employer at permtrack.app/employers
- Note their approval rate, volume, and fiscal year trend
- Click through to the law firm they use and check their track record
- Ask your future employer directly how many PERM cases they currently have pending and what their process looks like
This is public information. You're entitled to it. And the stakes — potentially 3–5 years of your life — are high enough to justify the research.
→ Look up any employer's PERM history — free at permtrack.app/employers
PermTrack uses public domain data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC). This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified immigration attorney for guidance on your specific situation.