U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the initial registration period for fiscal year 2026 cap-subject H-1B visas will open on March 7, 2025, and will run through March 24, 2025.
What is the H-1B visa?
The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that require highly specialized theoretical or technical knowledge. These occupations may include fields such as science, engineering, information technology, finance, medicine, and more.
Who is eligible for the H-1B visa?
To be eligible for an H-1B visa, an employee must have at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent, and the job position must require that level of specialized knowledge. The employer must also demonstrate that it cannot find a qualified U.S. worker for the position.
Where is the 2026 H-1B visa registration process taking place?
All petitioners and representatives must register through the USCIS online account to electronically register each beneficiary for the selection process and pay the corresponding H-1B registration fee of $215 for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.
If you are an employer seeking to apply for H-1B visas and do not already have an online account with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), you will need to create an Organization Account. This type of account is essential to participate in the H-1B visa registration process.
If you already had an H-1B registrant account between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, but did not use it for fiscal year 2025, don't worry. Your account will automatically be converted to an organizational account the next time you log in.
For those registering for the first time, you can create your account at any time. There is no need to wait until the initial registration period.
How does the registration process work for 2026?
The registration process is completely electronic. Employers wishing to hire a foreign worker on an H-1B visa must register their potential employees in the USCIS online system during the registration period.
For fiscal year 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will implement the beneficiary-based selection process for H-1B cap-subject visas, which was first introduced in fiscal year 2025, no longer by registration but by beneficiary.
In previous iterations of the H-1B visa selection process, applications were registered and selected on a per-registry basis, meaning that an employer could register multiple beneficiaries under one account and, if selected, only one of those beneficiaries would move forward in the process.
The new selection process, however, focuses on registering each beneficiary uniquely, meaning that beneficiaries will now be selected individually, and not by the number of registrations associated with the same employer. This means that each registered person is considered an independent case and is given the opportunity to be selected based on their own application, regardless of how many registrations are submitted from the same employer account.
This approach also has implications for employers, who must ensure that their records are accurate and complete to maximise the chances of their beneficiaries being selected. In addition, this change provides greater transparency and fairness in the selection process, by ensuring that every beneficiary has a chance of being selected, regardless of how many records have been submitted from the same employer.
How is the selection process carried out?
If U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives enough unique beneficiary registrations by the closing date for registrations, i.e. March 24, 2025, a random selection will proceed, i.e. through a random drawing. This selection will determine which beneficiaries move forward in the application process for the H-1B visa. The selection notification will be sent through the USCIS online accounts of registered users.
Employers and representatives will be notified by March 31, 2025, if their registration has been selected. The notification will be sent through USCIS online accounts, where users will be able to see if at least one of the registered beneficiaries has been selected to proceed with the formal H-1B visa application.
What happens if not enough registrations are received?
In the event that USCIS does not receive sufficient unique beneficiary registrations, all records that were successfully submitted during the initial registration period will be selected. This will increase the likelihood that all records will be selected in a year when demand is lower than expected.
What additional improvements does the H1B-2026 visa registration process bring?
For fiscal year 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has made multiple improvements to the customer experience for H-1B petition filing accounts of organizations and representatives, including:
- The ability for paralegals to work with more than one legal representative. A paralegal will now be able to accept invitations from multiple legal representative accounts, allowing the paralegal to prepare H-1B registrations, Forms I-129 for H-1B petitions, and Form I-907 premium processing requests for different attorneys, all within a single paralegal account;
- An easier way for legal representatives to add paralegals to the firm's clients;
- Pre-populate certain fields on Form I-129 from selected H-1B registrations; and
- The ability to prepare a spreadsheet of H-1B beneficiary data and upload the information to pre-populate data in H-1B registries.
Please note that the initial registration period will begin on March 7, 2025, and end on March 20, 2025. During this time, employers will be required to register beneficiaries through the USCIS electronic system.
