United States | Additional H-2B visa allotment announced for FY 2025

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it plans to make nearly 65,000 additional H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available for fiscal year (FY) 2025.

Key Points:

• DHS, in consultation with the Department of Labor, expects to make an additional 64,716 H-2B visas available for FY 2025, on top of the congressionally mandated annual allotment of 66,000 H-2B visas.
• These additional H-2B visas are the maximum number permitted under congressional authority. DHS and DOL have previously authorized supplemental cap numbers in FYs 2017-19 and 2021-24.
• DHS intends to make these supplemental visas available in early FY 2025.

Additional Information: The supplemental H-2B allotment will include 20,000 visas for workers from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti or Honduras. The remaining 44,716 supplemental visas will be available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa or were otherwise granted H-2B status during one of the previous three fiscal years.

DHS stated that “the supplemental visa allocation will help address the need for seasonal and temporary workers in areas where too few U.S. workers are available, willing and qualified to do the temporary work and address the labor needs of American businesses.”

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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