USCIS has published figures for this year’s H-1B cap registrations. In its statement, the agency stated it had received approximately 442,000 unique H-1B cap registrations for the fiscal year 2025. Of these, 114,017 beneficiaries were selected, accounting for about 25.8% of those registered, to meet the annual H-1B quota. In previous years, the selection rate had been 24.8% of eligible registrations for the fiscal year 2024 and 26.9% for 2023.
USCIS has not yet disclosed the number of beneficiaries selected under the H-1B cap exemption for individuals with US advanced degrees, which comprises 20,000 of the 85,000 total cap numbers.
H-1B Process FY 2025
A new system was implemented for this year’s season, focusing on beneficiaries rather than registrations, with the aim of tackling suspected misuse of the H-1B registration process. The revised procedure was designed to reduce multiple registrations by entities on behalf of the same foreign national, which had the potential to unfairly increase the chances of that beneficiary being selected in the lottery.
USCIS data from the fiscal year 2025 registration process indicates a reduction in this type of misuse. The agency reported a significant decrease in the overall number of registrations submitted, with 479,342 eligible registrations in fiscal year 2025, down from a record high of 758,994 in fiscal year 2024. There was also a 38.6% decrease in the average number of registrations submitted per beneficiary, from 1.7 registrations per foreign national in fiscal year 2024 to 1.06 registrations per foreign national in fiscal year 2025.
Approximately 442,000 unique beneficiaries were registered for the fiscal year 2025 cap, which is comparable to the approximately 446,000 registered last year. Similarly, the number of unique employers submitting registrations in fiscal year 2025, approximately 52,700, is comparable to the 52,000 in fiscal year 2024.
USCIS usually selects more registrations than needed to meet the annual 85,000 H-1B quota to account for cases where no petition is ultimately filed, as well as cases that are denied, rejected, withdrawn, or revoked. However, if the initial selection does not yield enough petitions filed for unique beneficiaries to meet the annual quota, the agency may conduct a second lottery among the submitted fiscal year 2025 registrations for unique beneficiaries.
It is unlikely that USCIS will decide whether to conduct a second lottery until at least July, after the petition filing period for selected beneficiaries closes. This decision will depend largely on the number of H-1B cap petitions the agency receives for unique beneficiaries during the current H-1B filing period, which ends on June 30.
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Author
Founder & Principal Attorney Nita Nicole Upadhye is a recognized leader in the field of US business immigration law, (The Legal 500, Chambers & Partners, Who's Who Legal and AILA) and an experienced and trusted advisor to large multinational corporates through to SMEs. She provides strategic immigration advice and specialist application support to corporations and professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, actors and athletes from across the globe to meet their US-bound talent mobility needs.
Nita is an active public speaker, thought leader, immigration commentator, and immigration policy contributor and regularly hosts training sessions for employers and HR professionals.
