USCIS Reaches Fiscal Year 2025 H-1B Cap
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced it received a sufficient number of petitions needed to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000 H-1B visa U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year (FY) 2025. This applies to all registrations submitted in March 2024 for the federal fiscal year 2025, which began on October 1, 2024.
USCIS will send non-selection notices to registrants through the employer’s online accounts over the next few days. When USCIS finishes sending these non-selection notifications, the status for properly submitted registrations that it did not select for the FY 2025 H-1B numerical allocations will show:
- Not Selected: Not selected – not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration.
USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap. Petitions filed for current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap, and who still retain their cap number, are exempt from the FY 2025 H-1B cap. USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions filed to:
- Extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States;
- Change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers;
- Allow current H-1B workers to change employers; and
- Allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in additional H-1B positions.
FY 2025 H-1B Registration Overview
During the registration period for the FY 2025 H-1B cap, USCIS saw a significant decrease in the total number of registrations submitted compared to prior years, including a decrease in the number of registrations submitted on behalf of beneficiaries with multiple registrations. USCIS reports a 38.6% reduction in the number of eligible H-1B cap registrations from the last fiscal year.
This chart provides the registration and selection numbers for fiscal years 2021-2025 (as of April 12, 2024).
*The count of eligible registrations excludes duplicate registrations, those deleted by the prospective employer prior to the close of the registration period, and those with failed payments.
**The number of initial selections for FY 2024 – 110, 791 – was smaller than in prior years primarily due to (a) establishing a higher anticipated petition filing rate by selected registrants based on prior years; and (b) higher projected Department of State approvals of H-1B1 visas, which count against the H-1B cap.
***The number of initial selections for FY 2025 – 120,603 – was smaller than in prior years primarily due to establishing a higher anticipated petition filing rate based on the beneficiary-centric selection process (i.e. selection by unique beneficiary). USCIS selected the number of unique beneficiaries projected as needed to reach the congressionally mandated caps and exemptions. All properly submitted registrations for those beneficiaries that were selected were set to a selected status. Accordingly, the number of selected registrations was higher than the number of selected beneficiaries and this number is not completely comparable to prior years that used a direct registration selection method.
We anticipate the H-1B lottery registration window for FY2026 to open for 2 weeks in March 2025. Registrations selected in that lottery and related approved petitions will support an H-1B employment start date of October 1, 2025. LAC recommends initiating H-1B registration cases for next year in early January 2025 for submission in March 2025.
This update was prepared by Ashley Orjiako, Associate Attorney Larrabee Albi Coker LLP.
Legal Disclaimer: This is provided for informational purposes only and does not substitute for legal advice based on the circumstances of a specific matter. Immigration laws and policies change frequently, often without notice. It is therefore important to seek direct legal counsel based upon individual circumstances.