News

30 Mar 2021

United States

USCIS Completes Initial Lottery Selection for FY2022 H-1B Cap

On March 30, 2021, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had completed the initial lottery selection from among the electronic H-1B cap registrations received earlier in the month for the upcoming fiscal year (FY) 2022. The annual H-1B cap is set at 85,000—which includes 20,000 reserved for individuals with eligible U.S. master’s (or higher) degrees. USCIS randomly selected from among all properly submitted registrations a sufficient number to reach the H-1B cap.  

Petitioners whose registrations were selected are eligible to file H-1B petitions from April 1, 2021 through June 30, 2021. If not enough of the selected registrations result in properly-filed petitions during this 90-day filing window, USCIS may conduct a subsequent random lottery selection in July or August. This occurred last year for FY2021, which was the first year of the electronic registration process.  

In previous years, USCIS restricted Premium Processing (the 15-day expedited service currently available for a fee $2,500) and H-1B cap petitions were not eligible at the time of filing. This year, USCIS has not made any announcement restricted Premium Processing and it is expected to be available for H-1B cap petitions from the first day of the filing window.  

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