Many skilled immigrants petition for the H-1B visa each year, thus making it one of the most sought-after visas. As you must be aware, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has an initial electronic registration process for filing the H-1B cap-subject petitions. Since there’s a cap on the number of H-1B visas issued, USCIS conducts an annual lottery to select the petitions after the initial registration period closes.
The agency recently announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2024 H-1B cap would open at noon Eastern on March 1, 2023, and run through noon Eastern on March 17, 2023.
• During the initial registration period, prospective petitioners and representatives can complete and submit their registrations using USCIS online H-1B registration system.
• The agency assigns a confirmation number to each submitted registration, which is used solely to track registrations. It can’t be used to track the status of a case.
• Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives must use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.
• Prospective petitioners submitting their own registrations (U.S. employers and U.S. agents, collectively known as “registrants”) will use a “registrant” account.
• Registrants can create new accounts beginning at noon Eastern on February 21, 2023.
• Representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 1, 2023, to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $10 fee.
• Prospective petitioners or their representatives can submit registrations for multiple beneficiaries in a single online session. Through the account, they will be able to prepare, edit, and store draft registrations before each registration’s final payment and submission.
• If USCIS receives enough registrations by March 17, 2023, registrations will be randomly selected and sent selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts.
• If it does not receive enough registrations, USCIS will select all properly submitted registrations in the initial registration period. The agency will notify account holders by March 31.
Note: An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary 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.
The recent proposal by USCIS to hike the fees of certain immigration and naturalization process highlighted that the H-1B cap registration fees would increase dramatically from $10 to $215 per registration. The rule will come into effect only after the 60-day comment period ends on March 3, 2023. Registrants can sigh relief since this surge will not be implemented for the FY 2024 initial registration.
In addition to timely filing, compliance with the relevant H-1B requirements is crucial to ensure that a petition selected in the lottery is not rejected or denied. Hiring an attorney could be a costly choice. This is where compliance software comes into the picture. An Immigration Compliance Software like OnBlick, which has a built-in Immigration Case Management system, helps employers with document collection, online filing of Form I-129, and creating an H-1B petition. OnBlick becomes an all-in-one immigration case management platform to initiate, track, and manage all your H-1B petitions. This H-1B cap FY 2024, integrate with OnBlick and stand a better chance of getting your H-1B petition approved.
We will continue to monitor the H-1B registration news and offer more details as they become available. If you wish to know more about OnBlick, book a quick demo here.
