The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on March 29 that it reached the 85,000-petitioner cap for H-1B initial online registration for the fiscal year 2023 (FY 2023), which begins in October 2022.
The agency randomly selects candidates from the pool of properly submitted registrations until it reaches the cap. For FY 2023, the agency received 483,927 H-1B registrations and selected 127,600, a number it believes it needs to fill the cap. In 2022, the USCIS received 308,613 valid registrations, and the organization did three rounds of selections for a total of 131,970 registrations to reach the cap.
Check the online accounts for updates
The candidates’ online accounts will now show a status update. Employers and potential employees will now note that results include the following status on their registration accounts:
- Submitted: The registration is submitted and is eligible, regardless of whether the agency picked it. Unless it is later invalidated, the submitted registration may be picked later without reapplying if there is another round of selections for the upcoming FY.
- Selected: This is one of the 85,000 who can file an H-1B cap petition.
- Denied: The agency deemed that the registration submitted was invalid because there were multiple applications by or on behalf of the registrant in the same year.
- Invalidated-Failed Payment: The registration was valid, but the payment was declined, disputed, rejected, or canceled after submission.
Applicants can go to USCIS’s H-1B Electronic Registration Process page for more information on the registration process. Selected petitioners can now file — the start date was April 1, 2022, and the cap registration window will last at least until June 30, 2022.
What happens next
Sponsoring companies need to go online to determine which beneficiaries were chosen and check their status. They can also watch for email selection notices for each beneficiary. Companies then work with their immigration attorney to assemble all necessary documentation, including the selection notice, beneficiary education transcripts and company paperwork.
It’s important to note that the cap-selection petition must be filed appropriately with the correct service center and within the filing period indicated on the relevant registration selection notice. Only petitioners with selected registrations may file H-1B cap-subject petitions for FY 2023, and only the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration notice may file the cap-selection petition.