Every year, there are more people attempting to get an H-1B visa to work in the U.S. than there are H-1B work visas available. To make the system as equitable as possible for skilled and educated workers looking to enter the U.S. workforce, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) holds a random lottery for workers attempting to get one of the 65,000 regular cap visas that are available annually. They also run a random lottery for the 20,000 visas available through the advanced degree exemption (masters cap).
While the first masters cap lottery was sufficient to fulfill the 20,000-visa cap, the 65,000 regular cap visas for the filing year of 2025 were not exhausted during the first round of selections. If the first lottery doesn’t fulfill the visa cap USCIS holds a second lottery, and rarely even a third lottery, until the regular cap is met. The second lottery for regular cap H-1B visas has been met, and petitioning employers should soon receive a notice letting them know that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the selected potential employee.
To file an H-1B cap-subject petition you must send it to the correct filing location for your geographic area in the U.S., which you can find at https://www.uscis.gov/i-129-addresses, or file it online at my.uscis.gov. Additionally, the petition must be filed within the 90-day filing window, with a copy of the selection notice, and it must be remembered that being selected in the lottery only gives eligibility to file an H-1B cap-subject petition. Petitioning employers must still establish eligibility based on existing laws and regulations. For more information on the subject you may visit the H-1B Electronic Registration Process page.
Updated fees:
- Starting this year on April 1, 2024, USCIS adjusted the fees required for most applications and petitions and updated the form to petition for a non-immigrant worker as well. Should a petition be lacking the updated fees of the April 1, 2024 version, it will not be accepted.
- If you are in need of accelerated immigration processing you may request Premium Processing, which guarantees a 15-business-day processing time, for an additional fee that was adjusted for inflation effective February 26, 2024. Should a petition postmarked on or after February 26, 2024 not have the proper fee, Premium Processing will be denied and the filing fee will be returned.