The Random H-1B Lottery System Endures! (At Least for This Year's Selection Process)

The initial registration period for the fiscal year (FY) 2022 H-1B cap will open at noon Eastern on March 9 and run through noon Eastern on March 25.  This means that H-1B Employers may submit their “lottery” registrations online on the USCIS website at any point during this time period.   

The same rules that applied to last year’s lottery will apply to the FY2022 H-1B cap lottery.  President Trump’s administration did issue a new H-1B Selection Process final rule soon before the Biden administration took office, but USCIS has delayed the implementation of the rule until at least Dec. 31, 2021. This Trump-era rule creates a new system wherein initial H-1B visas subject to the cap would be awarded first to people in the highest of four wage levels.  

The lottery registration process does not require any paper filings; the registration is completed through the USCIS website.  To register, the Employer, or the Employer’s attorney, uses their myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee.  The Employer may submit registrations for multiple beneficiaries in a single online session.  A  confirmation number will be assigned to each registration submitted for the FY 2022 H-1B cap lottery. 

If USCIS receives enough registrations by March 25, it  will randomly select registrations and send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts. USCIS intends to notify Employers by March 31.

Only Employers that have registered and have been selected in the lottery may file a H-1B cap-subject petition.  An H-1B cap-subject petition may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for that beneficiary was selected in the H-1B registration process, so it is critical that Employers properly register for the lottery system.  

Four Corners’ attorneys successfully registered multiple company clients in the FY 2021 H-1B lottery and filed H-1B petitions for the selected registrants, all of which were approved by USCIS.  Please reach out if you have any questions regarding the registration process.