This article was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, of which Loan Huynh, Fredrikson Immigration Department Chair, is a member.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year (FY) 2024 H-1B cap will open at noon EST on March 1, 2023, and run through noon EST on March 17, 2023.
Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives must use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration. Prospective petitioners submitting their own registrations (U.S. employers and U.S. agents, collectively known as “registrants”) will use a registrant account. Registrants can create new accounts beginning at noon EST on February 21, 2023. Representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 1, 2023, to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $10 fee, USCIS said. Prospective petitioners or their representatives can submit registrations for multiple beneficiaries in a single online session.
USCIS noted that the U.S. Department of the Treasury has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit from $24,999.99 to $39,999.99 per day for the FY 2024 H-1B cap season. “This temporary increase is in response to the volume of previous H-1B registrations that exceeded the daily credit card limit,” USCIS explained.
USCIS said it plans to notify account holders by March 31, 2023.
For FY 2023, USCIS received 483,927 H-1B registrations and initially selected 127,600 registrations projected as needed to reach the FY 2023 numerical allocations. For FY 2022, USCIS received 308,613 H-1B registrations and initially selected 87,500 registrations. USCIS conducted a second selection in July 2021 of an additional 27,717 registrations due to low filing volume from the initial selection. USCIS also conducted a third selection in November 2021 of an additional 16,753 registrations. This resulted in a total of 131,970 selected registrations for FY 2022. Many people think the number of initial registrants will be higher this year.
