U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has set the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap visas coveted by Indian techies, from noon ET on March 7 to noon ET on March 24.
The immigration agency announced Feb. 5 that it will continue to use the beneficiary-centric selection process launched in FY 2025 for FY 2026 H-1B cap. Under the beneficiary-centric process, registrations are selected by unique beneficiary rather than by registration.
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USCIS said If it receives registrations for enough unique beneficiaries by March 24, it will conduct a lottery and send selection notifications via users’ USCIS online accounts. In case it does not receive enough registrations, all properly submitted registrations will be selected.
The agency said it intends to notify by March 31 prospective petitioners and representatives whose accounts have at least one registration selected.
In recent years, Indian professionals have cornered about three-fourths of the annual quota of 85,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, including 20,000 for those with advanced degrees from US institutions.
During the registration period, prospective petitioners and representatives must use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated registration fee for each beneficiary, USCIS stated.
Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives are required to use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $215 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.
H-1B petitioning employers who don’t have a USCIS online account, will need to create an organizational account. Existing H-1B registrant accounts of employers with an account for the FY 2021 – FY 2024 H-1B registration seasons, who did not use the account for FY 2025, will be converted to an organizational account after their next log in.
First-time registrants can create an account at any time. Representatives may also add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 7 to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $215 fee.
As selections take place after the initial registration period closes, there is no requirement to register on the day the initial registration period opens, USCIS stated.
An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary who is eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process.
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For FY 2026, USCIS has made multiple enhancements for organizational and representative accounts for H-1B filing, USCIS stated. These enhancements, which will be live before the start of the initial registration period, include:
Arun Kumar is an Editor-at-Large at The American Bazaar. He can be reached at editor@americanbazaaronline.com
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