H-1B Cap Reached for Fiscal Year 2026 and Potential Process Changes Ahead

At a Glance

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has received enough petitions to meet the annual numerical allocation of 85,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2026 (FY 2026). Unlike in FY 2025, a second round of the lottery was not necessary to meet the congressionally mandated H-1B numbers for FY 2026. This is a continued indication that USCIS has further refined its initial selection process as compared to FY 2025. As some may recall, in FY 2024 USCIS required a third round of the lottery. 
• As of July 17, 2025, a new proposed rule titled “Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking To File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions” is currently pending with the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. While the exact content of the proposed rule is unclear, it is expected to have a significant impact on how H-1B cap-subject numbers are allocated — for instance, by giving more weight to a beneficiary’s offered salary and occupation.
• Remember that the following H-1B petitions are not subject to the cap: (1) change of employer, extension and amendment petitions for individuals already working in H-1B status with a cap-subject employer; (2) petitions filed by institutions of higher education and their related nonprofits; and (3) petitions for J-1 physicians who receive a waiver of the two-year home-residence requirements. Any changes to the H-1B lottery process will not affect petitions that fall within the above categories.

H-1B Cap Reached for Fiscal Year 2026

On July 18, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has received enough petitions to meet the annual numerical allocation of 85,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2026 (FY 2026), which includes 65,000 regular and 20,000 U.S. advanced-degree cap petitions. The FY 2026 registration process was the second year when USCIS used its new beneficiary-centric process, in which registrations were selected by unique beneficiary rather than by registration.

Overall, USCIS saw a decrease in registrations, having received 343,981 eligible registrations, compared to 470,342 in FY 2025, and an all-time high of 758,994 in FY 2024, the fiscal year immediately preceding the establishment of the beneficiary-centric process. Out of all the registrations received for FY 2026, only 7,828 were for beneficiaries with multiple registrations, which is a sharp decline from the 47,314 received in FY 2025, and 408,891 in FY 2024. 

USCIS has already started uploading electronic nonselection notices for each unsuccessful entry to the myUSCIS account of employers or their representatives. When USCIS finishes sending these nonselection notifications, the status for properly submitted registrations that were not selected for the FY 2026 H-1B numerical allocations will show as Not Selected: Not selected — not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration. Registrants who are not selected in the lottery do not need to disclose the attempt in future immigration filings, including on Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker. However, it is important for employers or their representatives to download and save nonselection notices for recordkeeping purposes, as the notices will become inaccessible if access to the myUSCIS account used for the registration is lost in the future.

Potential Process Changes Ahead 

As indicated earlier, as of July 17, 2025, a new proposed rule titled “Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking To File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions” is currently pending regulatory review with the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. While the exact content of the proposed rule remains unclear currently, it is expected to have a significant impact on how H-1B cap-subject numbers are allocated. From all indications, the new proposed rule will likely allocate H-1B numbers by giving more weight to a beneficiary’s offered salary and occupation. 

The first Trump administration attempted to modify the H-1B cap selection process by publishing a final rule titled “Modification of Registration Requirement for Petitioners Seeking to File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions” on January 8, 2021. If that rule had taken effect, H-1B numbers would have been allocated by selecting registrations who effectively earned at or above the highest wage for their occupations as determined by using Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data, replacing the current random selection process for H-1B cap-subject registrations. This would have effectively closed the door to selection for many recent college graduates and early career professionals who typically earn entry-level wages. The Trump administration did not have enough time to implement the final rule, and the Biden administration shelved the rule permanently.

We are closely monitoring developments and will post an update once there are additional details related to the proposed rule. 

Not All H-1B Cases Are Subject to the Cap Lottery

As an important reminder, not all H-1B cases are subject to the cap lottery. Only for-profit (cap-subject) employers seeking to file new employment H-1B petitions or change-of-employer petitions from a cap-exempt entity (such as an institution of higher education) are required to submit registrations in the lottery process. The following H-1B petitions are not currently subject to the cap: (1) change of employer, extension and amendment petitions for individuals already working in H-1B status with a cap-subject employer; (2) petitions filed by institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations that are related to such institutions; and (3) petitions for J-1 physicians who receive a waiver of the two-year home residence requirements.