Immigration
United States | H-1B cap lottery registration ends March 22; H-1B cap petition filing starts April 1
Summary
The registration window for the FY25 H-1B cap lottery closes at 12pm Eastern on Friday, March 22. All prospective petitioners and legal representatives must complete the Electronic Registration Process and submit payment for the registration fees prior to that time to ensure that their prospective beneficiaries are registered. The United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) will conduct its selection thereafter, and the H-1B cap petition filing period for online and paper filed petitions opens on Monday, April 1.
USCIS has scheduled additional National Engagements and Tech Talks for stakeholders that will address the online filing of Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker for H-1B petitions and Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing using USCIS Online Accounts.
The detail
H-1B Cap Registration
The registration window for the FY25 H-1B cap lottery closes at 12pm Eastern on Friday, March 22. Prior to noon that date, all prospective petitioners and legal representatives must have completed the Electronic Registration Process and have submitted payment for the registration fee to ensure their prospective beneficiaries are included in this year’s lottery. USCIS will begin making selections thereafter. While USCIS has until March 31 to announce its final selections, in previous years USCIS has announced its selections within a few days after registration has closed.
H-1B Cap Petitions
The H-1B cap petition filing window opens on Monday, April 1, 2024 and runs through Sunday, June 30, 2024. With the newly launched Organization Accounts and the online petition filing system, petitions may be filed online starting on April 1, or they may be mailed to USCIS via postal service or private carrier. USCIS has not yet provided the new lockbox filing addresses for paper filed forms but should provide this year’s filing addresses on its website by the end of March. USCIS has advised there will be no difference in the adjudication timeline for online versus paper filed petitions.
USCIS will be hosting a National Engagement on March 28 to address the online petition filing process as well as additional Tech Talks on March 26, April 2, and April 4. The March 28 national engagement requires preregistration to attend, but the links for the Tech Talks may be accessed directly from the USCIS website.
What this means
Employers and legal representatives will need to ensure that prior to 12 pm Eastern on March 22 that
(1) all prospective H-1B cap lottery registrants are entered into the USCIS online system;
(2) the petitioner and legal representative have completed the “digital handshake” (i.e., that the petitioner has accepted the registrations); and
(3) payment has been submitted via the gov.pay portal to ensure the prospective beneficiaries have been entered into the FY25 H-1B cap lottery.
USCIS has until the end of March to announce its selections. Only those with selected registrations are eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions, for which petitioners will also have to adhere to the new fee schedule released by USCIS and effective April 1, 2024, and use the 04/01/24 edition of Form I-129. The 90-day petition filing window runs from April 1 to June 30, 2024.
For more information concerning the new Form I-129 and the increased filing fees, please refer to our New USCIS fee alert.
Contact us
For a deeper discussion on the above, please reach out to your Vialto Partners point of contact, or alternatively:
Manish Daftari
Partner
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Contact us at the following address: me-immigration@vialto.com
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Further information on Vialto Partners can be found here: www.vialtopartners.com
Vialto Partners (“Vialto”) refers to wholly owned subsidiaries of CD&R Galaxy UK OpCo Limited as well as the other members of the Vialto Partners global network. The information contained in this document is for general guidance on matters of interest only. Vialto is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information. All information is provided “as is”, with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will Vialto, its related entities, or the agents or employees thereof be liable to you or anyone else for any decision made or action taken in reliance on the information in this document or for any consequential, special or similar damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
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