The H-1B visa filing period for Fiscal Year 2017 begins on April 1, 2016, and filing H-1B visa petitions on that date is the best plan for U.S. employers interested in hiring degreed skilled foreign workers.
 
The H-1B visa category is a popular choice for U.S. companies seeking to hire foreign professionals in specialty occupations requiring Bachelor's degrees or the US equivalent.  A very limited number of visas are allocated annually for this visa category, and over the past several years, the full quota has been exhausted almost immediately.
 
If visa petitions received during the first five days of April exceed the number of available visas, the government will conduct a computer generated lottery to randomly select 85,000 visa petitions for adjudication from all petitions received. The first 20,000 visa petitions selected will be restricted to petitions on behalf of applicants with Master's degrees or higher from qualifying US educational institutions.  The remaining petitions will then be selected, and all other petitions will be returned to the petitioning companies.
 
If you plan to file an H-1B visa petition this fiscal year, it is important to start preparing your visa petitions now, since the preliminary Department of Labor filing takes at least a week to be certified.