Client Alert!
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap will open at noon Eastern on March 7 and run through noon Eastern on March 24, 2025. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives must use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated registration fee for each beneficiary.
Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives are required to use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $215 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.
If you are an H-1B petitioning employer who does not have a USCIS online account, you will need to create an organizational account. If you are an H-1B petitioning employer who had an H-1B registrant account for the FY 2021 – FY 2024 H-1B registration seasons, but you did not use the account for FY 2025, your existing account will be converted to an organizational account after your next log in. First-time registrants can create an account at any time.
Representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 7 to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $215 fee. Selections take place after the initial registration period closes, so there is no requirement to register on the day the initial registration period opens.
The FY 2026 H-1B cap will use the beneficiary-centric selection process launched in FY 2025. Under the beneficiary-centric process, registrations are selected by unique beneficiary rather than by registration. If USCIS receives registrations for enough unique beneficiaries by March 24, they will randomly select unique beneficiaries and send selection notifications via users’ USCIS online accounts. If USCIS does not receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries, all registrations for unique beneficiaries that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. USCIS intends to notify by March 31 prospective petitioners and representatives whose accounts have at least one registration selected.
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