H-1B Visas Expected to Fill Up Fast Again This Year

Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor

March 20, 2018

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting petitions for new H-1B visas on April 2.

The H-1B program allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in occupations that require highly specialized knowledge, such as science, engineering and information technology.

A total of 85,000 H-1B visas - of which 20,000 will be set aside for workers with a master's degree or higher - will be available for fiscal year 2019, which runs from October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2019.

Employers that hope to hire foreign workers under the H-1B program should prepare to file as close to April 2 as possible. In recent years, USCIS has reached its limit on H-1B visas within five days.

USCIS uses a computer-generated process to randomly select the petitions. Last year, USCIS received 199,000 H-1B petitions. If that trend holds up, an employer will have roughly a 42% chance of having its petition granted provided it is filed on time. Filing fees are returned to employers for all unselected cap-subject petitions that are not duplicate filings.

Further guidance about the fiscal 2019 H-1B filing process can be found on the USCIS website.