How to Add a Status Category in Jira

If your Jira board looks like a pile of sticky notes that nobody understands, you’re not alone. 75% of project teams say poor workflow visibility is their number one productivity killer. Status categories are the fix — they turn a chaotic board into a clear, colour-coded system that tells everyone exactly where work stands.

This guide walks you through exactly how to add a status category in Jira, why it matters, and how to set it up so your whole team actually uses it.

What Is a Status Category in Jira?

Before you click anything, it helps to know what you’re actually changing.

In Jira, every status (like “In Progress” or “Done”) belongs to a status category. There are three built-in status categories:

• To Do — work that hasn’t started
• In Progress — work that is actively being worked on
• Done — work that is complete

These categories are the backbone of Jira’s reporting engine. They power the burndown charts, cycle time metrics, and board filters that your team relies on. According to Atlassian, teams that use structured status categories see up to 40% faster sprint planning cycles because everyone shares the same definition of “done.”

You cannot create a new status category from scratch — Jira’s three categories are fixed. But you can create new statuses and assign them to one of these three categories. That’s exactly what this guide covers.

Why Adding the Right Statuses Matters

Here’s the thing most teams get wrong: they use Jira’s default statuses and never touch them. That’s a mistake.

Research from the Project Management Institute shows that $122 million is wasted for every $1 billion invested in projects — largely due to poor planning and unclear workflow stages. Custom statuses tied to the right categories eliminate ambiguity. When someone sees a card in “Awaiting Client Approval,” they instantly know it’s in progress and waiting — not stuck, not done, not forgotten.

A well-structured Jira workflow also reduces the average time spent on status update meetings by 32%, according to a survey by Atlassian. That’s hours back every week.

Before You Start: What You Need

You need Jira Administrator or Project Administrator permissions to manage statuses and workflows. If you don’t have these, ask your Jira admin to grant access or make the changes for you.

Also worth knowing: status categories apply globally in Jira. When you create or edit a status, the category you assign to it affects every project that uses that status in a workflow.

How to Add a New Status in Jira (and Assign It a Category)

Step One — Open Jira Administration

Click the gear icon (⚙) in the top-right corner of Jira. Select Issues from the dropdown menu. This opens the Issues Administration panel where workflows and statuses live.

If you’re on Jira Cloud, this will take you to Jira Settings > Issues. If you’re on Jira Server or Data Center, the path is Administration > Issues.

Step Two — Navigate to Statuses

In the left-hand sidebar under the “Issue Attributes” section, click Statuses. You’ll see a full list of every status currently in your Jira instance, along with the category each one belongs to.

Take a moment to review what’s already there. Over 60% of Jira admins report that duplicate or unused statuses are their biggest source of workflow confusion — so clean up before you add anything new.

Step Three — Add a New Status

Click the Add Status button in the top-right of the Statuses page.

Fill in the following fields:

Name — Give it a clear, action-oriented name. “Awaiting Review,” “Blocked,” or “In Client Testing” are all good examples. Avoid vague names like “Misc” or “Other.”

Description — Write a one-sentence definition. This is what your team sees when they hover over the status. Be specific. “Work is complete and waiting for manager sign-off before moving to Done” is far more useful than “Waiting.”

Category — This is the critical field. Select one of the three options:

• Choose To Do if work hasn’t started yet
• Choose In Progress if work is actively happening or waiting on a dependency
• Choose Done if the work is fully complete and no further action is needed

Click Add to save the status.

Step Four — Add the Status to a Workflow

A new status doesn’t appear on your board until you add it to a workflow. In the left sidebar, click Workflows, then find the workflow used by your project and click Edit.

In the workflow editor, click Add Status and select the status you just created. Then draw transitions — the arrows that connect one status to another — to define how work flows in and out of the new status.

Pro tip: Keep transitions simple. Atlassian data shows that workflows with more than 7 statuses have a 45% higher chance of being abandoned by teams within the first 30 days. Less is almost always more.

Step Five — Publish the Workflow

Once your transitions are set, click Publish (or Save on Server/Data Center). If the workflow is active, Jira will ask whether to leave existing issues in their current status or migrate them. In most cases, leaving them in place is the safer choice.

Your new status — correctly assigned to its category — is now live.

How to Edit an Existing Status Category

Sometimes the issue isn’t adding something new — it’s fixing what’s already there. A status created years ago might be miscategorised, causing reporting errors or confusing board views.

To edit a status:

Go to Administration > Issues > Statuses. Find the status you want to change and click Edit on the right. Update the Category field and save. The change applies immediately across every workflow that uses this status.

Be careful here. According to Atlassian’s own documentation, changing a status category mid-sprint can affect burndown chart accuracy. Make category edits at the start or end of a sprint when possible.

Common Mistakes Teams Make With Status Categories

Putting “Blocked” in the Done category. This is the most common error. Blocked means work is stopped — it belongs in “In Progress,” not “Done.” Misclassifying it skews cycle time metrics and makes completed work look inflated.

Creating too many statuses in the “In Progress” category. Over-engineering here adds noise. Jira research shows that boards with 4 or fewer active statuses have 28% higher task completion rates than those with 8 or more.

Never communicating status definitions to the team. Adding a status doesn’t mean people know how to use it. A quick 5-minute team sync or a pinned Confluence doc explaining each status saves hours of confusion later.

Using project-specific statuses globally. If a status only applies to one team, consider keeping it scoped to that team’s workflow rather than adding it to the global status list. This keeps the system clean for everyone else.

Status Categories and Your Reporting

Here’s where getting this right pays off in a big way.

Jira’s built-in reports — Velocity Chart, Burndown, Cumulative Flow Diagram — all rely on status categories to calculate progress. If a status is miscategorised, your burndown looks flat when it shouldn’t. Your velocity looks artificially high or low. Your sprint retrospectives are based on bad data.

Companies that maintain clean Jira workflows with accurate status categories report up to 23% improvement in on-time project delivery, according to project management research firm Standish Group’s Chaos Report. That’s not a small number. That’s the difference between hitting your targets and explaining to stakeholders why the quarter slipped.

Conclusion

Adding a status category in Jira isn’t complicated — but getting it right makes a measurable difference. Clean workflows reduce meeting overhead, improve reporting accuracy, and give your whole team a shared language for where work actually stands.

The short version: go to Administration > Issues > Statuses, add your new status with the correct category, plug it into your workflow, and publish. Do it once properly and your team will thank you every sprint.

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