The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released statistics for the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025) H-1B Cap registration process. In March, entities wishing to sponsor cap-subject individuals for H-1B status for an October 1, 2024, start date submitted registrations and USCIS ran two lotteries to select registrations. This registration and selection process has been used by USCIS since March 2020.
For FY 2025, USCIS received a much lower number of registrations than last year, and there was a notable decrease in the number of registrations submitted on behalf of beneficiaries with multiple registrations. This change suggests that the beneficiary-centric registration process implemented by USCIS this year was successful in removing the incentive to have multiple companies submit registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary.
USCIS makes the following observations about the FY 2025 H-1B lottery submissions:
- The number of unique beneficiaries for FY 2025 was about 442,000 and was thus comparable to the FY 2024 number of about 446,000.
- The number of unique employers or entities filing registrations for FY 2025 was about 52,700 and was thus also comparable to the FY 2024 number of about 52,000.
- The number of eligible registrations was 470,342 for FY 2025 and thus decreased “dramatically” or 38.6% from FY 2024, when 758,994 registrations were filed.
- The USCIS experienced an average of 1.06 registrations per beneficiary for FY 2025 compared to 1.70 for FY 2024.
The following chart illustrates the registration and selection numbers for fiscal years 2021 through 2025.
| Cap Fiscal Year | Total Registrations | Eligible Registrations | Eligible Registrations for Beneficiaries with No Other Eligible Registrations | Eligible Registrations for Beneficiaries with Multiple Eligible Registrations | Selections |
| 2021 | 274,237 | 269,424 | 241,299 | 28,125 | 124,415 |
| 2022 | 308,613 | 301,447 | 211,304 | 90,143 | 131,924 |
| 2023 | 483,927 | 474,421 | 309,241 | 165,180 | 127,600 |
| 2024 | 780,884 | 758,994 | 350,103 | 408,891 | 188,400 |
| 2025 | 479,953 | 470,342 | 423,028 | 47,314 | 120,603 |
What the Numbers Reveal
As referenced above, the total number of eligible registrations received by USCIS this March for the FY 2025 H-1B lottery was 470,342. This represents a decrease of 288,652 eligible registrations compared with FY 2024.
Of the 442,000 unique beneficiaries registered in FY 2025, 114,017 were selected in the two lotteries. This yields an overall selection percentage of approximately 25.8%. The selection rate for holders of advanced degrees from United States universities was probably higher since these individuals are included in both lotteries.
At this time, it is not clear if USCIS will hold another H-1B cap lottery for FY 2025. As in prior years, USCIS selected a greater number of FY 2025 H-1B cap registrations than the annual 85,000 quota since H-1B cap petitions are not filed for all selected registrations, and some H-1B cap petitions are denied, rejected, withdrawn or revoked. If, as has happened in the past, the initial selection is not high enough to fulfill the annual quota, USCIS may choose to reopen the selection process by conducting a new lottery in which registrations not previously selected will be included. This decision will be made sometime after the initial H-1B petition filing period closes on June 30th.
T&S Takeaway
The reason for the dramatic decrease in the number of H-1B Cap registrations filed for FY 2025 is clearly the adoption of the beneficiary-centric system this year. The increase in FY 2024 registrations filed by different entities for the same beneficiary (an increase of 243,711 over FY 2023) caused significant concern on the part of USCIS regarding potential fraud. The changes USCIS introduced for the FY 2025 process appear to have successfully addressed these concerns.
T&S will continue to closely monitor all developments in this regard and provide further updates as they arise.
