The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a final rule implementing, without change, the weighted H-1B lottery process contained in the September 2025 proposed rule. The weighted lottery rule increases the odds of selection for H-1B lottery registrations when the beneficiary is being offered higher wages relative to the applicable prevailing wage and job location for the H-1B occupation under the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey (OEWS).
The final rule will be effective on February 27, 2026, which means that the changes to the H-1B lottery registration and selection processes will be effective for the FY2027 H-1B Cap lottery that will take place in March 2026.
Under the final rule, registering employers will need to know the appropriate OEWS occupational code, the area of employment, and the offered salary for each beneficiary they register in the lottery. They must use this information to determine and designate the highest OEWS wage level (I, II, III, or IV) that the offered wage meets or exceeds. Registrations that offer a Level IV wage will receive four entries in the lottery, a Level III wage will have three entries, a Level II wage will have two entries, and a Level I wage will have one entry. An offered wage that is lower than the OEWS Level I wage (due to a private survey or bargaining agreement) will still receive one entry in in the lottery.
Employers may still use private wage surveys other than OEWS to determine the prevailing wages for use in filing the Labor Conditions Applications/H-1B petitions, but the weighting designations will be based only on comparison to OEWS wage levels, not the wage levels of the private survey. H-1B cap petitions must be consistent with the information in the registration submission. Attempts to later amend H-1B petitions by the registering employer or a related entity will be presumptively disallowed unless the petitioning employer can show that the amendment is not part of a scheme to misrepresent the true wage, worksite, and/or occupation in the H-1B registration to increase lottery selection odds.
A link to the full text of the final rule can be found here: Federal Register :: Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking To File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions. For a more detailed discussion of the provisions and implications of the new rule, see the previous T&S news alert.
