USCIS has received sufficient number of petitions for the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap for FY 2020. USCIS will now determine whether it has received sufficient number of petitions to meet the 20,000 master’s cap, which should be announced in a few days.
April 5, 2019 was the last day this year that employers were able to file standard H-1B cap petitions until April 1, 2020. The agency will continue to accept petitions that are not subject to the cap, including extensions, changes of employer, amendments, concurrent employment for existing H-1B workers, and petitions filed by organizations that by law are exempt from the cap.
The total number of submissions received this year has not been disclosed yet. In the past, the number of applications has easily been double and triple the amount of slot available. After USCIS completes the processing of all of the applications, which should take several more weeks, a lottery will be run. This year, the lottery order has changed from previous years. For more information regarding the changes, please click here.
Employers whose petitions have been selected for processing should begin to get filing receipts within weeks after the lotteries are run. Employers who have requested premium processing should receive email receipts within days after the selection process. The actual adjudication of the premium processing cases will not start until May 20. Applications not selected in the lottery will be returned to the employers with the filing fees.
