United States: USCIS Completes FY 2026 H-1B Cap Selection Process

To learn the lottery results, your Fragomen attorney and your company’s authorized signatory will need to access their my.USCIS.gov account and review the status of each beneficiary. For each registered beneficiary, the USCIS online system should reflect one of the following statuses:

• Submitted: The registration has been submitted and is eligible for selection. If the initial selection process has been completed, this registration remains eligible, unless subsequently invalidated, for selection in any subsequent selections for the fiscal year for which it was submitted.
• Selected: Selected to file an H-1B cap petition.
• Denied: The passport or travel document information listed on the registration is invalid, or multiple registrations were submitted by or on behalf of the same registrant for the same beneficiary. If denied as a duplicate registration, all registrations submitted by or on behalf of the same registrant for this beneficiary for the fiscal year are invalid.
• Invalidated - failed payment: A registration was submitted but the payment method was declined, not reconciled, or otherwise invalid.
• Deleted: The submitted registration has been deleted.

Foreign national beneficiaries must have a “Selected” registration notification for FY2026 in order for the prospective employer to properly file an H-1B cap-subject petition on their behalf. The status of registrations that are not selected as part of the initial random selection process, and are not denied or invalidated, will remain as “Submitted” and eligible for selection in a subsequent FY 2026 cap lottery, should one occur.

USCIS will begin to accept H-1B cap petitions on behalf of lottery selectees on April 1, 2025. The petition filing period can end no earlier than 90 days thereafter. Selection notices received thus far reflect an April 1 to June 30, 2025 filing period. All FY 2026 H-1B cap petitions must be submitted during this period for beneficiaries selected in the initial lottery.

Though in most cases a cap petition can be filed at any point during the filing period, some cases may need to be filed at specific times. If the beneficiary is an F-1 student working on optional practical training (OPT) who will need cap-gap protection, the petition must be filed before his or her OPT employment authorization document expires. If the beneficiary is awaiting completion or award of a required degree, the petition must not be filed until the degree has been issued or the beneficiary has obtained documentation from the appropriate school official that degree requirements have been satisfied.

As a reminder, H-1B petitioners must submit the Registration Selection Notice for the beneficiary as well as a copy of the beneficiary’s passport or travel document used for their H-1B registration with the H-1B cap petition.

Your H-1B sponsoring employer(s) and their Fragomen counsel will access the USCIS registration system to determine the outcome of the FY 2026 cap lottery. Employers will review selections and follow their agreed communication protocols for notification of selection. Please rest assured that you will be notified in due course. For those selected in the lottery, your employer’s Fragomen team will proceed with next steps for filing an H-1B petition with USCIS. If your registration was not selected, you can expect a communication and any related immigration strategy to follow from your employer’s Fragomen team or from your employer, consistent with the company’s protocols.

If a beneficiary was not selected in this lottery, they will remain in the registration system for consideration for selection in the event that, by June 30, USCIS does not receive a sufficient number of H-1B cap petitions for unique beneficiaries to meet the 85,000 H-1B annual quota. Whether the agency will conduct more than one lottery selection will depend on how many beneficiaries are selected by USCIS in the initial round, as well as how many H-1B petitions for unique beneficiaries are submitted to USCIS by employers.

USCIS first implemented the “beneficiary-centric” selection process for the 85,000 cap slots during FY 2025. In last year’s H-1B cap season, USCIS conducted two lottery selections and therefore had two separate 90-day H-1B filing periods. In FY 2024, USCIS also conducted two lottery selections whereas FY 2023 only had one lottery selection. 

Your company’s authorized signatory and your Fragomen attorneys will need to log into the registration system to determine which beneficiaries have been selected and obtain the USCIS selection notice for each such beneficiary.

To facilitate the submission of H-1B cap petitions, work closely with your Fragomen team so that essential supporting evidence, including the company documentation, beneficiary educational documents, copy of beneficiary’s passport used for registration, and other required documentation, can be collected promptly if not yet gathered.

Fragomen is closely monitoring H-1B cap developments and will issue updates throughout the cap season.