USCIS Announces H-2B Visa Cap Reached for First Half of 2025
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it reached the additional 20,716 H-2B visa cap. However, these visas are for returning workers under the temporary final rule that supplemented the regular allocation of H-2B visas for Fiscal Year 2025.
Under the Temporary Final Rule, the Secretary of Homeland Security authorized the release of an additional 64,716 H-2B visas for the 2025 fiscal year. The USCIS has just reached the cap for the number of visas made available to returning workers of any nationality in the first half of the fiscal year. These returning workers include any individual who received an H-2B visa or held such a status in 2022, 2023, or 2024.
The USCIS published this Temporary Final Rule on December 2, 2024, allowing it to take effect immediately. As a result, the USCIS immediately began accepting petitions for the 20,716 visas made available for the first half of the 2025 fiscal year. These petitions concerned workers with a start date of March 31, 2025, or before. The Temporary Final Rule also included additional H-2B visas for returning workers regardless of nationality.
For the second half of the 2025 fiscal year, the USCIS will approve 19,000 visas from April 1 to May 14. Another 5,000 will account for the later months of May 15 to September 30. The USCIS encouraged employers with petitions rejected for the first half of the fiscal year to file for these later periods. Furthermore, employers may file under the country-specific allocations so long as they remain available.
The USCIS continues to accept applications for workers starting on or before March 31, 2025. However, these are from the country-specific allocation visas made available for nationals of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras. As of January 7, 2025, the USCIS stated it had received 3,678 petitions for workers from these countries out of the 20,000 set aside for nationals from these countries. The agency will also continue to accept applications for those exempt from the Congressionally mandated annual cap.
Employers with petitions accepted by the USCIS should prepare the required documents for processes, including the employment eligibility verification (Form I-9) process. This process can prove challenging for many employers, mainly due to the wide range of identity and work authorization documentation that workers may provide. However, an electronic I-9 management system can help by providing structured guidance through every step of the verification process.
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