On Wednesday, March 6, 2024, USCIS will open its H-1B cap registration process for fiscal year 2025, informally known as the H-1B Lottery. Since 2020, USCIS has implemented an electronic registration system that requires the sponsoring employer to complete a few information forms and pay a registration fee. For the past three years, the registration fee was $10. For 2024, the registration fee increases to $215 for each visa beneficiary.

Registration is mandatory and the registration period runs only from March 6, 2024 to March 22, 2024. USCIS will notify lottery winners on March 31, 2024. After that, the employer submits the H-1B petition to USCIS beginning April 1, 2024 for job positions that will start, at the earliest, on October 1, 2024. To clarify, a successful visa application will result in an H-1B visa that takes effect on or after October 1, 2024.

The H-1B visa program remains a crucial and viable option for U.S. businesses struggling to bounce back from the economic aftermath of the pandemic. Specifically, the program can assist employers in filling employment gaps for specialty occupations such as software engineers, financial analysts, business technology specialists, educators, marketing and consulting professionals, medical scientists, and physical therapists – to name a few. Additionally, by bringing in specialized workers from abroad, U.S. employers source talent from a larger pool of applicants, supporting competitiveness in a global market. Moreover, recent research has demonstrated that H-1B workers actually protect U.S. worker jobs as companies that cannot secure domestic talent are often forced to relocate operations overseas. By hiring H-1B workers, these companies can keep their operations in the U.S. and retain U.S.-based jobs.