The FY2023 H-1B Cap season officially starts today!  USCIS online registration begins today at 10am MT.  The registration period goes through Friday, March 18, 2022 at 10am MT.  All those interested in trying for an H-1B cap visa this year will need to complete the registration process within this time period.  After the registration period closes, USCIS will run the “lottery” and electronically notify the “winners” by the end of March 2022.  Those who win the lottery (i.e. those who are “selected”) will then be able to file their H-1B petitions between April 1, 2022 and June 30, 2022, for an H-1B start date of October 1, 2022.  It remains to be seen if additional rounds of H-1B selections will occur throughout 2022 like they have for the past couple of years.  Each fiscal year there are roughly 65,000 H-1B Cap visas available with an additional 20,000 for foreign nationals who graduated from a U.S. institution of higher education with an advanced degree. 

USCIS has reported that for FY 2022, 308,613 H-1B registrations were submitted.  USCIS initially selected 87,500 registrations to reach the FY 2022 numerical allocations. On July 29, 2021, USCIS announced that the agency conducted a second selection of an additional 27,717 registrations. This resulted in a total of 115,217 selected registrations.  On Nov. 19, 2021, USCIS announced that it conducted a third round of selections that resulted in an additional 16,753 registrations. Thus, USCIS selected a total of 131,970 registrations for FY 2022.   

For more information about the FY2023 H-1B Registration Process visit the USCIS H-1B Electronic Registration Process webpage.