Prediction methodology
How the release-timing model works
This page explains the forecasting logic behind the May 2026 release estimate and the official source data used to build it.
Current model
Backtested business-day forecast
- Each forecast uses the latest 8 official releases from the same release month only.
- Candidate dates are business days only, so Saturdays and Sundays cannot rank.
- The main signal is a business-day-index kernel with sigma 1.75.
- Blend weights: 70% business-day index, 20% ordinal weekday pattern, 10% recency.
- Conditioning removes already-passed business days in the active release month and renormalizes the remaining probability mass.
Backtest
Rolling holdout results
- 24 eligible same-month holdout targets were used in the rolling evaluation.
- Top-3 hit rate: 42%.
- Top-1 hit rate: 13%.
- Mean absolute business-day error: 2.8.
- Mean log loss: 2.61.
Official sources
Government data only
Release timestamps for May 2026 come from the official Department of State Visa Bulletin archive and each issue's official PDF metadata. Filing-chart companion links come from USCIS.