United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received enough H-1B petitions to reach the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap or quota, as well as the 20,000 H-1B exemption for holders of advanced degrees from United States universities (the master’s cap), for FY 2026, which will start on October 1, 2025.
This announcement means that no more H-1B registrations subject to the H-1B FY 2026 cap will be selected and that there will be no further lotteries or selection rounds to fill the two H-1B quotas, as there have been in past years. USCIS will send non-selection notices to registrants whose registrations were not selected in the random selection processes or lotteries through their MyUSCIS online accounts within the next few days. Once these non-selection notifications have been sent, the online status for FY 2026 registrations that were not selected will be updated to show the following message:
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- Not Selected: Not selected – not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration.
USCIS notes that it will continue to accept and process H-1B petitions that are exempt from the cap. These include H-1B petitions filed for H-1B petition beneficiaries who have previously been counted against the cap. In particular, USCIS states that the following H-1B petitions will continue to be processed without regard to the reaching of the FY 2026 cap:
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- H-1B petitions to extend the time a current H-1B beneficiary may remain in the United States;
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- H-1B petitions to change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers;
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- H-1B petitions to allow current H-1B beneficiaries to change employers; and
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- H-1B petitions to allow current H-1B beneficiaries to work concurrently in additional H-1B positions.
H-1B petitions filed by United States universities and related nonprofit entities, nonprofit research organizations and government research organizations are also exempt from the cap. Such petitions may be filed with USCIS at any time of the year without regard to the H-1B cap or quota.
Prospective H-1B beneficiaries whose H-1B FY 2026 cap registrations were not selected may have new registrations filed in March of next year that will be subject to the FY 2027 cap. FY 2026 registrations that were not selected will not automatically be carried over to the FY 2027 registration process.
