U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) announced today that it has received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory caps for fiscal year 2018, which begins on October 1, 2017.

CIS has not confirmed how many petitions have been received, however if the number of petitions exceeds the statutory caps, CIS will conduct the random selection process (aka the "H-1B lottery").

The computer-generated lottery process will select the number of petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 visas for the general category and 20,000 under the advanced degree exemption. The lottery for the advanced degree cap will be conducted first. All advanced degree petitions not selected will then become part of the lottery process for the 65,000 limit.

The H-1B cap and lottery does not impact H-1B petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap, such as current H-1B workers previously counted against the cap who are seeking an extension of H-1B status or a change in the terms of their current employment.

CIS has also suspended the premium processing for all H-1B petitions as of April 3, 2017. This means that any petition for H-1B status, whether subject to the cap or not, is not eligible for this expedited 15-day processing.