United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Friday that its initial H-1B electronic registration period will open at noon EST on March 9 and will close at noon EDT on March 25.

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 may not be submitted after the March 25 deadline. No priority is given to early submissions.
  • Following the registration period, USCIS will conduct a random lottery on 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 for those individuals.

Additional Information: The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it would delay implementation of the Trump administration’s H-1B wage prioritization regulation until Dec. 31, thus leaving the random lottery in place this cap season. This year marks the second year that USCIS has used the H-1B electronic registration process. USCIS will continue to post information about registration on its H-1B Electronic Registration Process website.

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

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