On 01/09/2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a Federal Register notice to formally announce the implementation of the H‐1B registration process for fiscal year 2021 H‐1B cap‐subject petitions.
What is H-1B visa?
The H-1B visa is designed for companies in the United States to hire temporary workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requires at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. H-1B specialty occupations may include fields such as science, engineering, information technology, teaching and accounting.
Congress has set a cap of 65,000 H-1B visas under regular cap and an addition of 20,000 H-1B visas under U.S. advanced degree exemption (also known as the master’s cap) per fiscal year. Because USCIS usually receives more H-1B petitions than the H-1B visa numbers available, USCIS uses a computer-generated random selection process (also known as “lottery”) to select enough H-1B petitions to meet the H-1B cap.
What are the Big Changes to the H-1B Visa Lottery Process?
- On January 9, 2020, U.S. USCIS formally announced the implementation of the H-1B registration process for Fiscal Year 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitions.
- The initial H-1B petition registration period will be open from March 1 through March 20, 2020, for the fiscal year 2021 H-1B. As in the previous years, USCIS more likely will receive more H-1B registrations than the 85,000 H-1B visa cap during the initial H-1B petition registration period.
- USCIS will announce the actual end date of the initial registration period on its website at www.uscis.gov.
- Employers and authorized representatives may start setting up their registration accounts in advance of the registration period opening. USCIS will post the date that employers and authorized representatives may start setting up accounts on its website.
- During this initial registration period, H-1B petitioners or their authorized representatives must electronically submit a separate registration naming each H-1B beneficiary for whom they seek to file an H-1B cap subject petition and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration. Duplicate registrations are prohibited.
- After the initial registration period ends, USCIS will randomly select by lottery enough H-1B registrations to meet the H-1B cap for the 2021 fiscal year. USCIS intends to notify H-1B registrants with selected H-1B registrations from the initial period no later than March 31, 2020
To find out more about the H-1B visa and other immigration services, contact Apostol Law Firm. Contact us at 407-258-3344 or by email at flory@apostolvisa.com.
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