USCIS Starts H-1B Registration Process For FY 2024

On March, 1, 2023, at noon Eastern Time (ET), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) opened the initial registration period for H-1B petitions for FY 2024. The period will last through noon ET on March 17, 2023.

“If we receive enough registrations by March 17, we will randomly select registrations and send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts,” according to USCIS. “If we do not receive enough registrations, all registrations that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. We intend to notify account holders by March 31.”

The selection process is vital to employers and applicants. “An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary who is eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process,” notes USCIS.

While often called the H-1B lottery, the annual selection process involves two lotteries. “After registration closes, USCIS will conduct the fiscal 2024 H-1B cap selection in two lotteries to meet the 85,000 annual visa cap,” notes the Society for Human Resource Management. “The first lottery will involve all registered beneficiaries and will select enough registrations to meet the regular cap of 65,000. The second lottery involves registered U.S. advanced-degree holders who were not chosen in the first lottery to meet the advanced-degree cap exemption of 20,000.”

A Low Annual Limit

One challenge for employers is anyone chosen in the random selection process cannot begin working in H-1B status until October 1, 2023 (i.e., when FY 2024 begins.) Another challenge is the H-1B registration process is often the only practical way to hire high-skilled foreign nationals long-term in the United States, including international students graduating from a U.S. university campus.

The H-1B annual limit for companies is 85,000 (65,000 plus a 20,000-exemption for individuals with advanced degrees from a U.S. university). That is so small a number for an economy the size of the United States—85,000 is only 0.05% of the U.S. labor force of 164 million—that it appears improbable USCIS will not receive more than 85,000 H-1B registrations this year.

In April 2022, USCIS reported it received 483,927 H-1B registrations for FY 2023. In other words, approximately 12 months ago, USCIS received nearly 400,000 more registrations than available H-1B petitions under the annual limit. If H-1B registrations plummeted by 50%, USCIS would still receive nearly three times as many registrations as petitions that could be issued due to the yearly cap.

How Will The Labor Market Affect H-1B Registrations?

Employers and potential visa holders wonder how the layoffs in Silicon Valley will affect H-1B registrations this year. However, looking only at well-known technology companies when evaluating the tech labor market might miss the bigger picture.

“The hottest job markets for software developers and programmers now are thousands of miles from San Francisco and Silicon Valley,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “Washington, D.C., and New York have more job openings for software developers than those California markets do, as nontechnology companies load up on engineering talent while startups and tech behemoths cut back.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in January 2023 the national unemployment rate in computer and math occupations was 1.5%, and only 1.7% in architecture and engineering occupations. Both unemployment rates were lower than 12 months earlier.

Another sign of the high demand for people with technical skills: Those who lose their jobs are finding new ones. “About 79% of workers recently hired after a tech-company layoff or termination landed their new job within three months of starting their search, according to a ZipRecruiter survey of new hires,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

A History Of Futility

For two decades, employers have found the annual supply of H-1B petitions exhausted. FY 2003 was the last time the H-1B cap was not reached, a year in which Congress had temporarily raised the annual limit to 195,000. USCIS issued only 78,000 H-1B petitions that year due to the recession, evidence that H-1B hiring is driven by market needs.

Given legal and government fees and the requirement to pay comparable salaries to equivalent U.S. workers, the allegation that H-1B visa holders are “cheap labor” appears to be a soundbite, as opposed to a legitimate finding. Economic studies show H-1B professionals are paid the same or more than comparable U.S. workers.

The median annual salary for H-1B visa holders was $108,000 in FY 2021, according to USCIS. In computer-related occupations in FY 2021, the median salary for H-1B visa holders was $111,000, and the average salary was $118,000.

If history is a guide, employers will gain valuable employees after the H-1B selection process, and thousands of high-skilled foreign nationals will achieve their dreams of working in America. Still, the low annual limit means many individuals and employers will likely be disappointed.