What’s In Store For This Year’s H-1B Visa Season

With a new U.S. President in office, former President Trump’s final attempts to pass regulations that would have severely restricted the H-1B visa program, have been rescinded. Essentially this means the Trump administration will have made very little change to the H-1B visa program in his four years in office.

Therefore, similar to last year, USCIS will once again utilize an online H-1B visa registration process to conduct how H-1B petitions will be chosen in its lottery selection system. Under this process, employers must submit an electronic registration containing information about the company and each H-1B beneficiary between March 9, 2021 and March 25, 2021.  USCIS will then conduct a lottery from the pool of registrations and select registrations to meet the H-1B visa cap no later than March 31st.  Employers will then have 90 days to submit a full H-1B visa petition on behalf of the foreign worker named in the registration.

While the H-1B cap will remain at 85,000, USCIS again intends to reverse the lottery order in which it selects H-1B petitions for adjudication, to increase the amount of H-1B visas awarded to foreign nationals with U.S. master’s degrees and higher. This means USCIS will first conduct a lottery for 65,000 H-1B visas for individuals who only have a bachelor’s degree plus those individuals with U.S. master’s degrees and higher. Those individuals with advanced degrees not selected in that lottery would be placed in a second lottery pool to play for the remaining 20,000 H-1B visas.

Last year, USCIS received a record 275,000 H-1B petitions, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the high unemployment rate that ensued USCIS was able to open the H-1B cap again and select additional applicants to submit H-1B petitions between August and November 2020.

Whether we will see a repeat of last year’s H-1B demand is yet to be determined, however, with the H-1B registration period quickly approaching employers and foreign nationals seeking to work in the U.S. should start preparing their H-1B visa filings NOW. 

Employers should assess their upcoming workforce needs and identify whether any foreign national employees will require H-1B visa sponsorship. These individuals may include:

• New graduating foreign students in the U.S.

• Overseas individuals seeking to start work in the U.S.

• Foreign individuals in the U.S. already working under a different nonimmigrant status for a different employer and are seeking to change jobs

Failure to file your H-1B registration by March 25, 2021 will prevent you from securing an H-1B visa for your employee. After the 2021 H-1B visas are gone, employers will have to wait until March 1, 2022 to file H-1B registrations again, and foreign employees may lose their lawful status and authorization to work. The clock is ticking…don't delay!

If you have any questions about the H-1B visa process, contact me.