H-1B Cap Registration Period FY2024

January 31, 2023

Many immigration institutions nationwide are getting ready for H-1B “Cap Season”, a period of the year where firms and employers prepare pre-registrations for employees whom they wish to have a chance to be randomly selected for an H-1B visa. This process is commonly referred to as the “H-1B Lottery”.  

Each fiscal year, up to 65,000 H-1B Visas are available (58,200 after H1-B1 free-trade visas for Chile and Singapore) H-1B Visas are available for foreign national professionals in specialty occupations. In order to enter the H-1B Lottery process, employers must pre-register potential employees months before the fiscal year begins. The registration begins with a 14-business day period and requires electronic registration from the employer of the potential employee.  

This year, the registration period will open at noon Eastern on March 1, 2023, and runs through noon Easter March 17, 2023. Each registration is $10 per potential employee, and employees cannot be registered more than once by the same petitioning employer. Employers will be allowed to register multiple potential employees. 

Employers wishing to sponsor a potential H-1B employee will need to make a “registrant” account with USCIS. New “registrant” accounts will be available for employers to make at noon Eastern on February 21, 2023.   

Once U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives enough registrations during the registration period, they will randomly select registrations and receive notification that their registration has “won” the “H-1B lottery” by March 31st. 

If selected, the employer will have at least 90 days to submit a completed H-1B petition to USCIS for the future employee.  

Not all H-1B positions will be required to go through the cap system. Employees with employment offers at institutions of higher education or related or affiliated nonprofit entities, nonprofit research organizations, or governmental research organizations are not subject to the cap. Certain J-1 physicians who have obtained a waiver to the State 30 program or federal program are also cap-exempt.  

Demand for these visas are extremely high, as it is a common pathway for international students on education based visas to continue to live and work in the United States after their course of study, while also working within the field that they studied and obtained their degree in.  

Last year, 483,927 registrations were completed for the FY2023 quota. About 26 percent of these registrants were selected (127,600). If your company is interested in participating in this cap registration period for H-1B visas, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@lhscimmigraion.com.  

 

by: Marisabel Alonso

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