On October 1, 2025 the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) will release the H-1B visa numbers for the 2026 fiscal year. While October may seem like a long way away, H-1B cap-subject petitions must be registered in March in order to be included in the lottery. The USCIS has not yet announced the dates for the March lottery registration.

Following the conclusion of the March registration period, the USCIS will conduct the lottery and notify us of the individuals who were selected. We will then have 90 days to prepare and file the H-1B petitions for those selected. As with prior years, the lottery will be a random selection process.

The lottery is conducted in two parts. USCIS will first conduct the lottery for the 65,000 quota. Thereafter, any individuals not selected and who have earned a masters degree or higher from a U.S. university will then be included in the advanced degree lottery for an additional 20,000 visas.

The U.S. advanced degree must be completed before the H-1B petition is submitted to the USCIS. It does not have to be completed at the time of registration in March, but would have to be completed before the end of June.

If you would like us to register some of your employees and have not yet informed us about them, kindly email admin@freijylaw.com with the information/documents listed below for each person you would like us to register in the H-1B lottery this year. This includes F-1 students whom you currently employ under Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or Optional Practical Training (OPT), as well as employees who may be working under a different nonimmigrant visa category such as J-1, L-1, E, TN, etc. Any individual who has not previously held H-1B status is subject to the H-1B quota. 

Please email us the following information for each person to be registered for the lottery:

• Full name
• Email address
• Proposed job description with title
• Address(es) of all work location(s) (including work from home if applicable)
• Wage (preferably in terms of hourly wage).

Kindly provide this information by January 31, 2025. Once we receive this, we will begin initiating the cases with the employees to collect the information and documents we need from them prior to the H-1B registration process.

Due to historic high demand for the limited number of H-1B visa numbers available each year, employers should not wait until an employee has only one chance left for an H-1B visa number. 

myUSCIS account

If you already have a myUSCIS account from a prior year, please login to it to make sure that you are still able to access it and write down the email address. We will be asking you to confirm the email address before we register your employees.

If you don't have a myUSCIS account or can't access your account - DO NOT CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT NOW. Once the USCIS has enabled the "H-1B Registrant" feature we will advise you and then you can create a new myUSCIS account.

Individuals not selected in the lottery last year

We are maintaining a list of people who were not selected in the lottery last year. We will be reaching out to you for confirmation on which individuals to register again this year.  

The lottery should be completed by March 31, 2025. Once the USCIS advises us of the lottery results, we will then notify you and the employees selected and will collect any additional information and documents necessary to prepare and file the H-1B petitions during the filing window.

Any individuals not registered during the March registration window, will not eligible for the H-1B lottery this year.