Proposed H-1B Cap Registration Fee Under Review

The Department of Homeland Security have submitted a proposal to charge an unknown amount of fee for companies registering foreign nationals for the upcoming H-1B cap online registration system. Starting next year, employers have to register each individual foreign national they would like to sponsor for the lottery first. In order to register, employers will file a short online form that provides basic information about the company, the job offer, and the prospective foreign employee. A separate form will have to be filed for each individual foreign employee. The registration period will likely occur before the usual April 1 opening day of cap filing. For more information, please click here.

Under the new proposal, employers would submit a registration and fee for each foreign national they wish to sponsor. This fee is on top of the current existing H-1B filing fees. Filing fees for applications that were not selected are returned to the company. Currently, it’s unclear if the registration fee will also be returned.

The Office of Management and Budget now has 90 days to review the proposed regulation. Once it clears review, the proposal will be published in the Federal Register for public comment. Interested parties have 30 to 60 days to comment on the Federal Register. DHS actually do review the comments that are provided by the interested parties and have changed policies in the past after reviewing the comments. It is unknown at this time what the registration fee amount will be and when the final rule will be published. More information will be provided as they are published.