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On March 27, 2023, the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has completed its random selection lottery for H-1B Cap subject cases for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. This includes both the “regular cap” and “advanced degree cap.”
Under the annual limit (“cap”) set by Congress, each fiscal year, there are 65,000 available H-1B visas for foreign nationals with a bachelor’s degree and an additional 20,000 visas for foreign nationals with an advanced degree from a U.S. institution of higher education.
Companies will now have between April 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023, to submit their H-1B Petitions on behalf of foreign nationals selected in the H-1B Lottery for FY 2024. If these petitions are approved, the foreign nationals will have permission to work for their employers in H-1B status starting on October 1, 2023.
If USCIS does not receive sufficient petitions during that 90-day window, it may run a second H-1B lottery later this year.
The annual H-1B cap is widely accepted as too low, with demand for the H-1B visa numbers far exceeding the supply. It is the high demand for the H-1B visa numbers that begets the need for the H-1B Registration lottery each year. For FY 2022, USCIS received more than 308,000 registrations for the total 85,000 available H-1B visas. For FY 2023, USCIS received nearly 484,000 registrations for the 85,000 visa numbers.
USCIS has not yet announced the number of registrations received for FY 2024, but based on the results at Kolko & Casey, P.C. we expect that the number exceeded 500,000 registrations for 85,000 visa numbers.
Simply put – there are not nearly enough H-1B visa numbers available. The annual limit on available H-1B visas is untenable for companies struggling to fill professional positions at their organizations. The cap stifles growth of U.S. businesses and forces talented foreign nationals to look towards other countries, including our neighbor to the north, to forge their talents.
The last time we saw an increase in available H-1B visa numbers was in 1999, when the H-1B cap was temporarily increased from 65,000 to 115,000 for the years 1999 and 2000, and 107,500 in 2001.
It is long past time for Congress to permanently increase the number of available H-1B visas.
For more information on the H-1B Visa Cap, please contact Kolko & Casey, P.C.
