Employers submitted 483,927 H-1B cap registrations to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for this fiscal period. This number is an increase of 57% over the number of registrations for the filing season in the 2022 fiscal year.

The USCIS selected 127,600 registrations in order to meet its H-1B quota, which amounts to 26% of the registrations it received. A number of issues are considered when making this quota, such as the visa being denied or the sponsoring employer not proceeding with the necessary filing process to obtain the visa.

The USCIS did select considerably more registrations this fiscal year than in the previous fiscal year. Last year, the USCIS only selected 87,500 registrations, but it did end up conducting two more lotteries during the year. The annual quota for H-1B cap visas is 85,000. This number includes the 20,000 visas that are reserved for the Masters’ cap, which are visas that are for beneficiaries that have obtained advanced degrees from United States universities.

There were over 48,000 registrations submitted by prospective petitioners for the filling season for 2023, and approximately 31% of the eligible registrations were for the master’s cap.

Once this happens, the applications will be processed, and any more information that is needed will be requested. The earliest date the beneficiaries that have been selected may begin work with this visa in the United States is October 1.

If there have not been a sufficient number of visas received as of June 30 to reach the annual quota for the 2023 fiscal year, there may be a second lottery. The H-1B registration process first took place in 2020. The process had employers who wanted to hire H-1B cap workers to fill out a registration that only required some basic information about the potential employee. Once the registration process was complete, a lottery took place and only those who were selected needed to file H-1B cap visa applications.

The USCIS received 308,613 H-1B cap registrations in 2022 but initially only selected 87,500 of the registrations as this was the number projected to be needed in order to reach the quota. But, a second lottery was held later due to a low filing volume in which 27,717 registrations were chosen. There was even a third lottery in which 16,752 registrations were selected.

For those employers that do hire a foreign national, you will need to complete Form I-9. This can be a complicated process in which you could easily make mistakes which could lead to penalties and fines. The easiest way to avoid these mistakes is with an electronic I-9 management tool. This can guide employers through the employment verification process and ensure hiring personnel know which documents are suitable to prove work authorization.

Learn more about automating your employment eligibility verification and ensuring compliance with I-9 Compliance.

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