The H-1B lottery is the method in which USCIS determines who can apply for an H-1B visa. USCIS limits the number of H-1B’s available each year to 65,000, but because the number of interested applicants usually exceeds the number of available visas, USCIS conducts a lottery to determine who can submit a petition. Employers looking to hire or keep a foreign national as an employee must register their applicants starting March 1st and by noon on March 18th. USCIS notifies selected applicants starting on March 31st. Petitioners then submit H-1B petitions and wait for a determination. If the application is approved, the foreign national can begin working in H-1B status on October 1. If a petition is denied, USCIS can fill that spot with another applicant. USCIS may run the lottery as many times as needed to fill all the available slots for an H-1B visa.
I have a foreign national I want to hire; how do I register them for the lottery?
The registration process is simple. Interested employers, known as registrants, must first create a myUSCIS account. If an attorney will represent your organization, then the attorney will enter the required information and provide a passcode for you to review registrations in your account. If multiple people from your organization will be accessing this account, remember to use an email address and two-factor authentication method that everyone can access. Registrants select the option “I am an H-1B Registrant,” and enter the company information and the authorized signer information. This information must match the information that will be filed on the I-129, so take care to make sure the information is exact.
Once the company information is entered, you can begin entering information for the foreign nationals you wish to employ. You will provide the beneficiary’s name, date of birth, country of birth, country of citizenship, passport number, and if they will be registered for the advanced degree lottery. Again, this information must match the beneficiary’s passport and the I-129 exactly. If this information does not match, the petition will be rejected or denied. The lottery selects individual foreign nationals, so if the petition is rejected, you lose the ability to file any petition for this spot. Employers can complete registrations for up to 250 foreign nationals in a single account. If you have additional beneficiaries, then you can create additional accounts as needed to register as many beneficiaries as you want.
After you enter the information for all the foreign nationals you wish to employ, you will then review all your submissions and pay the registration fee. The registration fee is $10 per applicant. This fee is separate from the H-1B filing fees that you will pay if a registration is selected. The employer will still be required to pay all filing fees required by the petition at the time of filing. This step must be completed by noon on March 18th for the foreign national to be entered into the lottery. USCIS then runs the lottery and notifies selected registrants by March 31st. Applications can be filed starting April 1st.
Important reminders and tips for the H-1B lottery
- You can authorize an attorney to enter your registrants into the lottery. Your attorney will enter the required information above and will provide a passcode for you to log in and review the information. Once you approve the information, your attorney will complete the registration process.
- Do not register a foreign national more than once. If USCIS detects that multiple registrations were submitted for the same beneficiary, then all registrations for that beneficiary will be invalidated for that fiscal year.
- Only foreign nationals that are selected in the lottery may submit a petition. If this foreign national not longer wishes to be employed by your organization, then you may not submit a petition for a different foreign national in place of the selected petition.
- Applicants that have a master’s degree or higher from a qualified U.S. institution are eligible for a second chance at an H-1B visa. USCIS makes an additional 20,000 visas available for advanced degree holders. You will make it known in the beneficiary’s registration that this person is eligible for the advanced degree cap. The beneficiary must have obtained an advanced degree by the time of filing the petition. If they have not completed the advanced degree program by the time of filing, then their petition will be denied.
- If your registration is not selected in the first round of the lottery, then you may still have a chance in later lotteries in the fiscal year. USCIS will run the lottery as many times as necessary to fill all the spots. If USCIS will not run any more selection rounds, then it will notify registrants that the lottery is closed.
- Even though you do not have to submit any documents at the time of registration, it is still helpful to review the foreign national’s case ahead of time to prepare for potential problems or to explore other employment options if your registrants are not selected. An attorney can help you do this.
- Some employers, such as non-profit universities, research centers, and hospitals may be exempt from the annual cap and do not have to register for the H-1B lottery. Consult an attorney to determine if your institution qualifies as cap exempt.