H-1B visa seekers are waiting for the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap season to open. The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program permits temporary employment of foreign workers in specialty occupations, requiring specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s or higher degree.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap will open on March 7 and run till March 24, 2025. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives have to use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated registration fee for each beneficiary.
1. 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.
2.If you are an H-1B petitioning employer who does not have a USCIS online account, you will need to create an organizational account. If you are an H-1B petitioning employer who had an H-1B registrant account for the FY 2021 – FY 2024 H-1B registration seasons, but you did not use the account for FY 2025, your existing account will be converted to an organizational account after your next log in.
3.First-time registrants can create an account at any time. Representatives may 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. Selections occur after the initial registration period closes, so there is no requirement to register on the day the initial registration period opens.
4.The FY 2026 H-1B cap will use the beneficiary-centric selection process launched in FY 2025. Under the beneficiary-centric process, registrations are selected by unique beneficiaries rather than by registration. If USCIS receives registrations for enough unique beneficiaries by March 24, they will randomly select unique beneficiaries and send selection notifications via users’ USCIS online accounts.
5.Under the electronic registration process, prospective petitioners (also known as registrants) who are seeking to employ H-1B workers subject to the cap, and their authorized representatives, if applicable, complete a registration process that requires basic information about the prospective petitioner and each requested worker. The initial registration period is for a minimum of 14 calendar days each fiscal year. The H-1B selection process is then run on properly submitted electronic registrations. Only those with selected registrations are eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.
6.The U.S. Department of Treasury has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit from $24,999.99 to $99,999.99 per day for the FY 2026 H-1B cap season. This temporary increase is in response to the volume of previous H-1B registrations that exceeded the daily credit card limit. Transactions more than $99,999.99 may be made via Automated Clearing House (ACH). Use of ACH may require the payor to alert their bank in advance to remove any potential ACH block on their account.
7.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.
8.For FY 2026, USCIS has made multiple enhancements for organizational and representative accounts for H-1B filing including the ability for paralegals to work with more than one legal representative. A paralegal will now be able to accept invitations from multiple legal representative accounts, allowing them to prepare H-1B registrations, Form I-129 H-1B petitions, and Form I-907 requests for premium processing for different attorneys, all within one paralegal account.
9.If USCIS does not receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries, all registrations for unique beneficiaries that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. USCIS intends to notify by March 31 prospective petitioners and representatives whose accounts have at least one registration selected.
10.On January 30, 2024, USCIS issued a final rule to increase integrity and limit the possibility of fraud in the H-1B registration process, including guaranteeing that each beneficiary has an equal chance of being picked, regardless of the number of registrations made on their behalf.
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