United States: USCIS Releases Selection Numbers for the FY 2025 H-1B Cap

This year, USCIS conducted a new beneficiary-centric cap selection process instead of the registration-centric selection conducted in prior cap years. In response to last year’s concerns regarding misuse of the H-1B registration process, the change to a beneficiary-centric system was meant to reduce the incentive for entities to collaborate to submit multiple registrations on behalf of the same foreign national, and therefore unfairly increase the foreign national’s chance of selection the lottery. 

According to USCIS, data from the FY 2025 registration process indicate a reduction in this type of misuse under the new beneficiary-centric system. The agency cites a drastic decrease in overall registrations submitted – 470,342 eligible registrations submitted in FY25, down from a record high of 758,994 submitted in FY24 – as well as a 38.6% decrease in the average number of registrations submitted per beneficiary. In FY24, there was an average of 1.7 registrations submitted per foreign national; in FY25, the average is 1.06 registrations per foreign national. The agency notes that it continues to make law enforcement referrals resulting from the FY 2023 and FY 2024 H-1B cap seasons, and will deny, revoke, investigate and possible refer to law enforcement any FY 2025 registrations or petitions that are found to have violated the process rules to obtain an unfair advantage.

Approximately 442,000 unique beneficiaries were registered for the FY 2025 cap, which is comparable to the approximate 446,000 registered last year. Similarly, the number of unique employers submitting registrations in FY 2025 (approx. 52,700) is comparable to the FY 2024 number (approx. 52,000). 

USCIS normally selects more registrations than needed to meet the annual 85,000 H-1B quota, to account for cases for which no petition is ultimately filed, as well as cases that are denied, rejected, withdrawn, or revoked.  However, should the initial selection not yield sufficient petitions filed for unique beneficiaries to meet the annual quota, the agency may decide to conduct a second lottery among submitted FY 2025 registrations for unique beneficiaries.

It is unlikely that the agency will make a decision on whether to conduct a second lottery until July at the earliest, after the petition filing period for selected beneficiaries closes.  USCIS’s decision is likely to depend heavily on the number of H-1B cap petitions the agency receives for unique beneficiaries during the current H-1B filing period, which ends on June 30.

Fragomen is closely monitoring the FY 2025 H-1B cap and will issue updates as developments occur.