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FY 2022 H-1B Cap Registration Period Closes March 25

The FY 2022 H-1B cap registration period will close on Thursday, March 25, at 12:00pm EDT.  Employers and their immigration counsel will have until this time to draft, review, e-sign and submit their registrations to the agency.

What happens after the registration period closes

After the registration period closes on March 25, 2021, USCIS will run two cap lotteries to select the beneficiaries on whose behalf an H-1B cap petition can be filed. The first lottery will contain all registered H-1B beneficiaries. USCIS will use this lottery to select enough registrations to meet the regular H-1B cap of 65,000. The second lottery will contain all registered “master’s cap” beneficiaries who were not selected in the first lottery. USCIS will use this lottery to select enough registrations to meet the H-1B cap exemption of 20,000 for holders of U.S. advanced degrees.

USCIS plans to notify employers and immigration counsel of the lottery results by March 31. For each cap registration, USCIS should send an email to the employer’s authorized signatory and immigration counsel. The email will notify the recipient that there has been a change in the status of a cap registration. To learn the lottery results, your attorney can access their my.USCIS.gov account and review the status of each beneficiary.

USCIS will begin to accept H-1B cap petitions on behalf of lottery selectees on April 1, 2021.  The petition filing period will end no earlier than June 30, 2021. All FY 2022 H-1B cap petitions must be submitted during this period. USCIS has not yet announced whether premium processing will be available for FY 2022 cap petitions.

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