Reminder: H-1B electronic registration period closes March 18

This year’s H-1B electronic registration period will close at noon ET this Friday, March 18.

Key Points:

• Petitioners for cap-subject H-1B visas must submit an electronic registration during the registration period for each prospective H-1B candidate.
• Petitioners or their representative must submit registrations via a myUSCIS online account and pay a $10 government filing fee for each registration.
• Registrations cannot be submitted after the March 18 deadline. No priority is given to early submissions.
• Following the registration period, USCIS will conduct a random lottery of properly submitted registrations if there are more registrations than visas available.
• The agency intends to send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS accounts by March 31.
• Petitioners whose registrations are selected in the lottery will be invited to file full H-1B petitions beginning April 1.

Background: This will be the third cap season in which USCIS will use the H-1B electronic registration process. USCIS received 308,613 registrations last year and 274,237 the year before. Demand for H-1B visas is expected be high again this cap season. In each of the last two years, USCIS has conducted more than one lottery. Whether this happens again will depend on several factors, including how many petitions are submitted from the registrations that are selected in the initial draw.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice group. For additional information, please contact berryapplemanleiden@bal.com.

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