USCIS’s FY 2022 H-1B Cap Statistics Show Significant Drop in Lottery Selection Rate
June 14, 2021
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At a Glance
- Employers submitted H-1B cap registrations for 308,613 beneficiaries this year, a 12% increase over the FY 2021 filing season.
- USCIS selected 87,500 registrations to meet the H-1B quota, or 28% of the total beneficiaries registered. During the FY 2021 season, USCIS selected 124,415 registrations, or 45% of those registered. This year, in addition to receiving more registrations against the cap, the agency adjusted the formula it uses to determine the number of registrations needed to reach the cap.
- USCIS is accepting H-1B cap petitions on behalf of selected beneficiaries through June 30, 2021. It is not yet known whether USCIS will conduct a second selection of cap registrations, as it did last year.
A closer look
During the FY 2022 H-1B cap registration period, employers submitted 308,613 registrations for selection in the cap lottery, 12% more than in the FY 2021 filing season. However, despite the increase in registrations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) selected far fewer cases than it did in FY 2021 – just 87,500 registrations in the cap lotteries to meet the annual quota of 85,000, or 28% of the total number of registrations. This year’s selection rate of 28% represented a significant decline over the previous year, when 124,415 registrations – or 45% – were selected from 274,237 total registrations received.
USCIS typically selects more petitions than are needed to meet the annual H-1B quota, to account for cases that are denied, rejected, withdrawn, or revoked. But for FY 2022, USCIS revised the method it uses to determine the number of petitions needed to reach the annual cap, resulting in a lower rate of selection.
Is a second cap selection possible for FY 2022?
During the FY 2021 H-1B cap season, USCIS ran a second selection of registrations, after the initial selection did not yield enough petition filings to meet the cap. The agency has not yet determined whether it will need to make a second selection this year, but could do so if the number of FY 2022 petitions received by June 30, the close of the filing period, falls short.
This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen.
