USCIS has released information on the FY 2022 H-1B lottery that ran in April 2021. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that permits a company to hire workers in specialty occupations. This visa category requires that the beneficiary (the foreign worker) have a bachelor’s degree, and the petitioner (the U.S. company) can employ the worker for up to six years. To learn more about the H-1B visa, please click here. This year, employers submitted H-1B cap registrations for 308,613 beneficiaries this year, a 12% increase over the FY 2021 filing season.
Despite the increase in registrations, USCIS selected far fewer cases than it did in FY 2021. This year, the agency selected just 87,500 registrations in the cap lotteries to meet the annual quota of 85,000, or 28% of the total number of registrations. This year’s selection rate of 28% represented a significant decline over the previous year, when 124,415 registrations – or 45% — were selected from 274,237 total registrations received. USCIS usually selects more petitions than needed to account for cases that are denied, rejected, withdrawn, or revoked. This year, USCIS revised its method to determine the number of petitions needed to reach the cap, which resulted in the lower selections. USCIS will run a selection process if the initial selection approvals do not reach the 85,000 cap.
Learn more about the H-1B Visa through our H-1B resources below. You can also schedule a consultation for a date and time that is most convenient for you.
