H-1B Cap Season Begins March 1

​U.S. employers seeking to sponsor and hire foreign professionals this year need to start preparing now for the H-1B cap filing season that kicks off in less than a month.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the fiscal 2024 registration period—the first step in the process of hiring new H-1B workers—will open at noon ET on March 1 and conclude at noon ET on March 17. All cap-subject H-1B registrations must be submitted online through the myUSCIS system during this time.

"The H-1B cap season is fast approaching," said Michael Neifach, an attorney in the Washington, D.C., regional office of Jackson Lewis. "Employers should assess their hiring needs and determine if they will sponsor foreign workers for H-1B classification this year. Now is the time to begin preparing."

Time is of the essence, agreed Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley-based immigration attorney and CEO of Alcorn Immigration Law. "Especially if you're new to the process, you should find a lawyer now, because it takes time to make sure that the candidate has a qualifying case and get everything set up properly," she said.

Neifach noted, "H-1B beneficiaries may include both recent foreign student graduates present in the United States in F-1 student status and any other foreign professional, whether currently in the United States or abroad." The earliest possible date the employee could begin work is Oct. 1.

Most H-1B workers currently in H-1B visa status are not subject to the annual cap, including workers who are extending their status, changing from one employer to another, changing the terms of existing employment or filing for a concurrent H-1B position.

In addition, foreign nationals seeking to work for an institution of higher education, a nonprofit research organization or a government research organization are not subject to the H-1B cap.

Registration Steps

Previous H-1B employers can use their existing myUSCIS account for registration, while prospective employers can set up a new account beginning Feb. 21. Each organization must have a myUSCIS account. An employer account is necessary to submit registrations, whether an organization intends to work with immigration counsel or not.

Alcorn explained that employers can complete registration—a relatively easy process—on their own, but she doesn't recommend it. "Doing that will save money in the short term but can lead to complications later," she said. "Immigration attorneys also may not have the capacity to take on new cases after the lottery for selected individuals."

After registration closes, USCIS will conduct the fiscal 2024 H-1B cap selection in two lotteries to meet the 85,000 annual visa cap. The first lottery will involve all registered beneficiaries and will select enough registrations to meet the regular cap of 65,000. The second lottery involves registered U.S. advanced-degree holders who were not chosen in the first lottery to meet the advanced-degree cap exemption of 20,000.

Sponsoring employers will be notified of selected entries by March 31. The next step in the process, the H-1B petition filing period, is expected to begin on April 3 and last for at least 90 days.

This will be the fourth consecutive year that USCIS has used electronic registration, and by most accounts, the process has gone well. The updated system, which requires employers to submit minimal information for each visa requested and file full H-1B petitions only if they are selected in the registration lottery, was meant to simplify the H-1B visa filing process and cut costs for employers. Only those randomly selected from the registration pool will be eligible to file petitions.

"USCIS implemented the electronic registration system for the H-1B cap to manage the increasing demand for H-1B visas," Neifach said. "The electronic registration system alleviates the burden of preparing and filing a full H-1B petition before knowing if a visa is available in the quota."

He added that while registration requires only basic information, the employer should ensure that the employee and the position meet the specialty occupation and wage requirements for H-1B classification.

A $10 fee is required for each registration (which could be increased to $215 under a USCIS proposal), along with information including the employer's name, mailing address and tax identification number; the worker's name, date of birth, country of citizenship, gender, passport number and education level; and whether the worker has attained a master's degree or higher from a U.S. university.

Employers can include up to 250 beneficiaries in a single registration submission. There is no limit on the number of registrations an employer can submit; however, there can only be one per beneficiary. If more than one registration is submitted for the same person, all registrations submitted for that person will be invalid, according to USCIS. The agency said it has added duplicate record checker functionality to the electronic registration process.

USCIS will provide a selection notice for each winning beneficiary that must be printed out and submitted with the visa petition. The selection notice is valid for the named person only, and employers cannot substitute beneficiaries.

Current economic trends may affect participation this year. "It will be interesting to see how many registrations are made in the current environment of tech layoffs," Alcorn said. Layoffs in the technology sector suggest there may be fewer H-1B petitions than usual this year, but the final number will certainly exceed the visa cap of 85,000. In fiscal 2023, U.S. employers submitted 483,927 H-1B registrations. The number of registrations has grown each year since the registration system was implemented in 2020.

Alcorn advised employers to start preparing the H-1B petition—a much more involved process—even before the registration lottery results are announced. The process requires many documents, and advance preparation can minimize the risk of delay during the busy petition filing period.