Harris is partially right about the EB3 case. The time you apply for the PERM would be your Priority Date or PD, not the date when your labor gets approved. H1B visa is for 3 years, after that you can extend for another 3 years. Prove that you have your labor or I-140 pending within USDOL or USCIS, you will be eligible for 7th year extension beyond your 6 years limit. Once your filed Labor and I-140 gets approved, you can extend your H1B for another 3 years. (given that your visa number being retrogressed meaing you cannot file for Green Card, commonly known as Adjustment of Status (AOS). DOS publishes monthly visa bulletin with the cutoff date, you should check it in regular basis to see if you are eligible to file for GC. Filing AOS or I-485 will also let you and your wife (if you have any) to file for Employment Authorization (i-765) Document and also Advance Parole (I-131) or Travel Documents to travel back and forth without any problem. naake, to answer your question, if you file your PERM under EB3 now and when it gets approved you may apply for I-140 as well. Once both are approved you may be able to transfer your PD to EB2 later on. But you have to start the process again from scratch for EB2. The only benifit to this is, you may keep your PD which is very important in todays retrogression hit world.