USCIS Announces FY2026 H-1B Cap (“H-1B Lottery”) Registration Period

Registration for this year’s H-1B lottery (fiscal year 2026) will open at 9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET on March 7, 2025, and will close at 9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET on March 24, 2025.

Each fiscal year, the U.S. government releases 65,000 H-1B visa numbers to allow employers to petition for highly skilled foreign professionals to work in “specialty occupations” that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent. This is referred to as the Regular Cap. An additional 20,000 H-1Bs are available for foreign professionals who have graduated with a master’s degree or doctorate from a U.S. institution of higher education. This is referred to as the Advanced Degree Cap.

During the registration period (March 7–24, 2025), prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives (e.g., attorneys) may register each beneficiary electronically using a properly created myUSCIS online account. There is a $215 fee per registration.

Each employer can submit only one registration per beneficiary in any fiscal year; however, multiple registrations may be submitted for the same beneficiary by different employers based on distinct, legitimate job offers. Note that, in its recent January 2025 final rule to modernize the H-1B program, DHS has decided not to finalize a proposal banning related entities from submitting multiple registrations on behalf of a single beneficiary. This is likely because, pursuant to a January 2024 final rule, DHS implemented a beneficiary-centric selection process, each unique beneficiary who has a registration submitted on their behalf will be entered into the selection process once, regardless of how many registrations are submitted on their behalf. USCIS will select registrations by unique beneficiary, rather than by unique registration. If a beneficiary is selected, each employer that submitted a registration on that beneficiary’s behalf will be notified of the beneficiary’s selection and will be eligible to file a petition on that beneficiary’s behalf during the applicable petition filing period.

If USCIS receives enough registrations by March 24, it will randomly select registrations and send notifications via users’ myUSCIS online account. If USCIS does not receive enough registrations, then all properly submitted registrations will be selected. USCIS expects to conduct the random selection and notify employers of selected registrations by March 31, 2025.

If a beneficiary is selected, the employer (petitioner) will have a 90-day window to file the H-1B cap petition for that beneficiary. An employer may not substitute a different beneficiary in the H-1B cap petition for the one named in the registration selection notice.

If USCIS does not receive enough properly filed or approvable H-1B petitions by the end of the 90-day filing window, USCIS may conduct another lottery from the registrations submitted between March 7–24, 2025.

Cap-Exempt Employers

Certain employers are cap-exempt and are not subject to a quota. These employers may file petitions for prospective H-1B employees at any time of the year. Cap-exempt employers include:

1. Institutions of higher education;
2. Non-profit entities that are “related to” or “affiliated with” institutions of higher education;
3. Non-profit research organizations; and/or
4. Government research organizations.

Existing clients, please contact your attorney at McCown & Evans for more information.

New clients, please contact us at 415-432-5300 or by email at info@mccownevans.com.