The latest update from USCIS reveals that the process of selecting applicants for the H-1B visa has been successfully concluded. In an official statement released recently, USCIS announced the completion of the second round of random lottery selection for H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2024, which concludes on September 30, 2024.
USCIS stated that they have now efficiently chosen a suitable number of registrations from the remaining submissions for FY 2024, aiming to fulfill the visa cap requirement. As part of this selection process, all potential petitioners who have been chosen in this round have been duly informed of their eligibility to submit an H-1B cap-subject petition for the intended beneficiary named in the respective selected registration.
Looking back, in March, they conducted an initial round of random selection from properly submitted electronic registrations for the FY 2024 H-1B cap. This encompassed beneficiaries qualified for the advanced degree exemption as well.
It’s important to note that only those petitioners with selected registrations for FY 2024 are authorized to submit H-1B cap-subject petitions. This initial filing phase took place between April 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023.
For the successful submission of an H-1B cap-subject petition, the petitioner must ensure it is appropriately filed at the designated service center within the stipulated filing period indicated in the registration selection notice. The filing window for the H-1B cap-subject petition spans a minimum of 90 days. While online filing is not an option for H-1B petitions, petitioners are required to submit their petitions in paper format. Additionally, including a printed copy of the relevant registration selection notice from FY 2024 is mandatory when submitting the H-1B cap-subject petition.
This isn’t the first occurrence of USCIS implementing a second lottery for H-1B visas. In a previous instance, multiple lotteries were carried out for the fiscal year 2022 due to lower-than-anticipated volumes of visa applications submitted by American sponsoring entities. This resulted in a second lottery being held in July 2021, followed by yet another round in November 2021.
In terms of figures, USCIS received an impressive 758,994 eligible registrations during the H-1B cap season for the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2024. From this significant pool, they strategically selected 110,791 registrations to fulfill the annual quota of 85,000 visas.
